How to add a tab in Autocad next to Featured Apps (using .net and autocad api)
If you have installed AutoCAD plugin bundles from other developers (say, downloaded from AutoCAD's app store), or some well known ones, such as ArcGis For AutoCAD, you would see they come with a partial CUIX (partial menu) that would automatically loaded with the plugin app.
When you created your own commands, be it in your .NET plugin, or LISP commands, you can create a partial CUIX, in which you add your custom menu items, typically your own ribbon tab, containing ribbon panels/items, or even old style pull-down menus/toolbars, if you choose so.
While one can create the custom ribbon menu programmatically, since you claim you do not even know "if tab and ribbon means the same thing...", you really need to learn how how to custom CUI to create/custom the ribbon menu BEFORE you attempt to do it with code/API. There are quite some tutorials in YouTube showing how to do it. Simply search YouTube for "AutoCAD Ribbon" would give you tons of them, such as this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC-lZFsE-hU
Once you have basic understanding of how to custom ribbon, you would want to simply create a partial CUIX file and to have it loaded with your plugin on AutoCAD startup. If you really want to bypass the partial CUI and do it through code, search this group for "ribbon", there were also quite a few discussions here about code-created custom ribbon menu, such as this:
