I have successfully developed and tested an Internet Explorer BHO Add-on for my local machine. I want to publish this to the Internet Explorer Gallery @ http://www.iegallery.com/AddOns/Edit. There is no option under Type for BHO so I am assuming that my BHO would fall under the Toolbars tab. However it is asking me for the Extension File. I am not sure what this would be considered. I have searched and searched for relevant information, and even tried to use their contact link to ask them directly, but as usual Microsoft makes everything extra difficult and I was unsuccessful.
So my question is this:
Do I need to create an installer package and upload this as the Extension file, or are they asking for the Visual Studio Project Solution file? ( highly unlikely I think )
You have to create an installer and upload it under "Toolbars [and extensions]".
If you want to see how other add-ons are listing themselves, follow the following steps:
The WiX toolset can be used to build a MSI. Do not forget to test your installer/BHO on different versions of Windows, processor architectures and Internet Explorer versions to make sure that you're not accidentally uploading broken software.
My experience on submitting an item to IEGallery.com
I've recently submitted Lyrics Here to the Internet Explorer Gallery. Without any code changes, it was approved after two rejections.
After submitting the extension for the first time, it was rejected after three days. I received the following generic mail message from
[email protected]:I was quite surprised! Then I edited my add-on description to emphasize that the add-on has over 30k users in the 5 major browsers, combined. It was rejected again (after 4 days).
(when I looked in the access log files in my server, I saw no visits to the mentioned homepage, so I guess that the reviewers at IEGallery.com are approving/rejecting an add-on solely by the name, description and screenshot (and maybe also the extension you've added to the submission)).
Road to success
I created a new addon submission (since there's no way to contact them by mail or at a forum). In the "Name" field, I entered "Reply to add-on rejection", and in the "Description" field, I elaborated why the add-on should not have been rejected:
"There is currently a lack of community demand for this add-on scenario."
I showed that the extensions for the other browsers have thousands of users (numbers + link).
"There is not currently a demand for this item in the gallery at this time."
I showed that a third-party site (Softpedia) has listed my extension, with over 1k downloads (+link to site)
Finally, I kindly requested them to reconsider their review status.
After 3 hours, this addon submission was rejected, and the original submission approved!
Note that after submitting your add-on, the page can already be viewed at IEGallery. However, until it's approved, you cannot find it through search.
Examples: