First add-in works until I actually touch the code

[KDean-Dolphin]

I have followed the quick start to create an add-in as follows:

Project type: Excel Custom Functions using a Shared Runtime
Script type: TypeScript

I then run:

npm run build
npm run start:desktop

The demo functions work as expected.

Next, I edit functions.ts, to add a sub() function (copy and paste of add with '+' replaced with '-'). The moment I go back to Excel, I get:

ERROR in ./src/taskpane/taskpane.ts (/Users/kevindean/Projects/Excel Test/src/taskpane/taskpane.ts) 37:33-36
[tsl] ERROR in /Users/kevindean/Projects/Excel Test/src/taskpane/taskpane.ts(37,34)
TS2304: Cannot find name 'add'.

Repeat above message for all demo functions and for both taskpane.ts and command.ts.

The final message is this:

Conflict: Multiple assets emit different content to the same filename functions.json

Any help on getting past this would be greatly appreciated.

[akrantz]

I believe you need to close Excel and then re-launch it so it will register the new set of custom functions. You can verify that https://localhost:3000/functions.json has been generated correctly for the functions, e.g. you should see a sub() function there.

[KDean-Dolphin]

Verifying via https://localhost:3000/functions.json shows that the new function has not been generated. Even if it did, having to close and relaunch Excel every time there was a code change would slow development to a crawl (I have a very large functions library planned).

[akrantz]

You might also use NPM to install the latest version of custom-functions-metadata-plugin, as I think the code which is causing that error was fixed recently. You can do this through npm install --save-dev custom-functions-metadata-plugin to get the latest. Alternatively, you can edit package.json so it has the latest version number and run npm install.

[KDean-Dolphin]

It almost worked. Instead of a long list of errors (two TypeScript files multiplied by the number of functions plus one at the end), just the one at the end remains:

Conflict: Multiple assets emit different content to the same filename functions.json

Is it possible that the initial npm run build is causing a problem, creating a separate space that Webpack is looking at, over and above my source directory?

[KDean-Dolphin]

This may be related to Office-Addin-Scripts #831.

[KDean-Dolphin]

I've added this discussion to the Office-Addin-Scripts issue #831. This needs to be fixed.