Best way to add custom webpart

Question

What is the best way to add a custom webpart to a sharepoint default page(i.e list page like NewPost.aspx) and/or into the webpart gallery programmatically without directly deploying from Visual studio.

[Edit]

What I did:
1) Created a custom Visual webpart solution in Visual Studio.
2) Directly deployed my custom webpart into my dev site.
3) Then I published the custom webpart(*.wsp).
4) I exported my custom webpart from dev site which had the assembly reference of webpart and some of its properties as below.

<webParts>
  <webPart xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WebPart/v3">
    <metaData>
      <type name="CstmWebpart.BlogPosts.CreateandEditBlogPosts.CreateandEditBlogPosts, CstmWebpart.BlogPosts, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=51ad286432a40bbb" />
      <importErrorMessage>Cannot import this Web Part.</importErrorMessage>
    </metaData>
    <data>
      <properties>
        <property name="ExportMode" type="exportmode">All</property>
        ..
        ..
        ..
      </properties>
    </data>
  </webPart>
</webParts>

5) After that I deployed the webpart solution(*.wsp) into my target site which is another machine using Install-SPSolution cmdlet.
6) Then I uploaded and added the exported webpart (*.webpart) into target site, which throws error as shown in below image.
7) If I upload the exported the webpart into the same dev site, its working.

Am I doing it in the right way? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

If you are just taking an exported web part from your dev site and trying to put it into production, then there is no need to worry about an install-spsolution. Continue to do what you are doing.

If the web part is created as part of a feature, then in Visual Studio, you need to package the solution. This will build a WSP that you can push out to the farm with install-spsolution.