How to use double-click deployment

Summary The following document will describe the process of deploying an .esriaddin file that has been made available to you.

In this topic

About using double-click deployment

The following will guide you through the process of deploying an .esriaddin file that has already been provided. Copy the .esriaddin to a location (for example: C:\temp). This scenario assumes that you have an .esriaddin file, in this case an ArcMap add-in that has a single button. Double-click deployment is applicable to all types of add-ins that have been deployed and is not tied to Eclipse or other workflow. Double-click deployment is a technique that simplifies the sharing process of add-ins.

Deploying your add-in by double-clicking

Assuming you have an .esriaddin file in C:\temp, do the following to deploy your add-in.
  1. Open Windows Explorer and navigate to the C:\temp location.
  1. Simply double-click on your add-in.
  1. Click install add-in.
If the deployment is successful another dialog box will appear indicating that the add-in was successfully deployed to the well known location. Typically an add-in will succeed on installation unless the file is being used by another application.
  1. Click OK to dismiss the dialog.
At this stage your add-in file has been deployed to the well known location. If you navigate to one of the two locations next, you will see your .esriaddin file present.
  1. %USERPROFILE%\My Documents\ArcGIS\AddIns\Desktop10.0 OR
  2. %USERPROFILE%\Documents\ArcGIS\AddIns\Desktop10.0
The location will depend on the Windows operating system version you have, see the following document for all supported Windows operating systems.
There is also a slight variation to the double-click deployment called the add-in file registration utility and can also be used to deploy your add-ins. This approach achieves the same thing as double click deployment and therefore either method can be used. To use the file registration utility you simply need to right-click the .esriaddin file and select open with and choose ESRI ArcGIS add-in file registration utility from the list of options. The following screen shot illustrates this:

Using the customization

Once you have successfully deployed your add-in to the well known location, you are now ready to use the customization in the ArcGIS Desktop application it was designed for. Since the previous add-in was designed for ArcMap, the following will show you how to work with the add-in through ArcMap.
  1. Open ArcMap.
  1. Select the customize menu and click on Add-In Manager
One way to verify that the add-in you have deployed works is to come into the Add-In Manager. The manager will list all of the add-ins that it has registered on the left. In the right, more metadata about the add-in is made available. You can see by the example that an "ArcMap Button" has been deployed.  Each desktop application will identify only add-ins that are designed for it. In the case, you should never see an ArcCatalog or any other type of add-in in ArcMap's Add-In Manager list.
  1. From the Add-In Manager, click customize.
If you go to the customize menu in ArcMap and choose customize you will receive the same screen that is achieved in step 3.
  1. In the customize dialog, select the commands tab:
  1. Under categories, navigate to ArcMap add-ins and click the category.
The category you supplied in your add-in will determine the name that is displayed here. For this example, ArcMap add-ins was the category provided for the button defined and is being displayed under the categories section of the commands tab.
  1. On the right, select the "ArcMap Button" and drag it to the graphical user interface (GUI) of ArcMap.  More specifically onto an existing toolbar.
  1. Click the custom Button.
A message dialog will appear with the "Hello, World!" message. Similarly, tools can also be found in the same location as buttons. Toolbars will be found in the toolbars tab in the customize dialog. All other add-ins are exposed using different techniques and are discussed in each document that describes each add-in.





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