Follow on question from this thread.
This tool will be deployed to customer machines, so I think those options would be challenging. As you said, "this is possible, but not easy"!
Would this be easier using a package instead of an addin? As pointed out by Carlos Quintero, it seems addins will be obsolete soon.
Rather than hacking this to get it to work with an addin, would my time be better spent converting the addin to a package - if this is easier to do with packages?