Investigate Excel taskpane auto-resize and manifest format tradeoffs
Session from pi-for-excel-sessions on Hugging Face by thomasmustier · MIT · condensed by Coders Talk
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2msession
0interventions
GOAL
Determine whether the Excel add-in's taskpane width can be auto-resized, and if not, evaluate whether switching from XML to JSON (unified) manifest would help.
- +0Prompt · +0Is there a way for us to auto-resize the extension's width?
- +0mAgent did · +0mSearched the codebase for width/resize logic across manifest.xml, taskpane.html, pi-sidebar.ts, and dialog/overlay helpers to see how the taskpane's size is set.
- +0mAgent did · +0mConcluded there's no programmatic way to auto-resize a taskpane add-in's width — Office only supports RequestedWidth for Content add-ins or preferredWidth as an initial-only setting in the unified manifest, neither of which fits this XML-manifest taskpane project.
- +1mPrompt · +1mWhat are the considerations for switching to the JSON manifest? Why did we do XML in the first place, assume there are tradeoffs?
- +1mAgent did · +1mReviewed docs/install.md, deploy-vercel.md, manifest.prod.xml, the manifest generation script, and README to understand current sideloading and deployment setup before comparing manifest formats.
- +2mOutcome · +2mRecommended staying on the XML manifest: sideloading stays a simple one-file download with no extra tooling, while the unified/JSON manifest would require the Teams Toolkit CLI and has had lagging macOS desktop Excel support.
VERDICT
I'd start by asking directly whether Office even supports dynamic taskpane resizing before digging into the code, since that's a platform limitation no amount of code archaeology would fix. The follow-up question about manifest tradeoffs was the useful part — it turned a dead end into a concrete decision to keep the XML manifest for simpler sideloading and better platform coverage.