Latest Development topics

This has been a long time coming and many of you Angular developers who also work with the SharePoint Framework may have given up by now and switched to React, but for those of you who have been holding out, Angular is finally a viable option for SPFx development even with a few drawbacks.

Earlier this week, on Tuesday, May 7, 2019, Microsoft released v1.8.2 of the SharePoint Framework (SPFx). A little over a month ago, I wrote about the v1.8.0 release . Since then we had another minor release (v1.8.1.md) released on April 16, 2019. In this post, I’ll summarize what you can find, and share some additional details I found after spending some time picking apart the last two minor releases. A new SharePoint Framework Yeoman generator has been published by OfficeDev: 1.

I’m excited to share this latest update to my course, Mastering the SharePoint Framework for developers. This update, packaged as sprint 16, includes one new chapter and a LOT of updates. When I originally planned out sprint 16, I intended to record a lot of new content. However when the SPFx v1.8.0 release came out there were enough changes to SPFx that I decided to go back and update the course, including adding some new lessons, completely re-recording existing lessons and updating quite a few lessons (both video & notes).

On Thursday, March 14, 2019, Microsoft released v1.8.0 of the SharePoint Framework (SPFx). This release is packed with many features that were previously in developer preview to the Generally Available (GA) milestone. However, there are some subtle updates that developers have been asking for. In this post, I’ll summarize some of what you can find, but also share some details I found after spending some time with the v1.8.0 release, kicking the tires and finding a few resolutions to issues.

In my last post, Securing an Azure Function App with Entra ID - Works with SharePoint Framework!, I showed how you can secure a REST API deployed as an Azure Function App using Microsoft Entra ID. This comes in quite handy when you want to secure some custom server-side business logic that’’s called from a SharePoint Framework (SPFx) client-side solution. The SPFx docs show how to use APIs with permissions to the Microsoft Graph. This post will explain how to add custom permissions to the AzureAD application that is used to secure your Azure Function.

I recently published a new chapter in my Mastering the SharePoint Framework on-demand course for developers that included a section that showed how to call a REST API deployed using an Azure Function App and secured with Entra ID from the SharePoint Framework. When I was working on this chapter, it felt like the process of configuring an Azure Function App to be secured with Entra ID was harder and more complex than it should have been. Specifically, some of the things you do aren’t explained as well… so I decided to blog about it here!

Developers can declare permissions in SharePoint Framework projects, but it isn’t a good idea. In this article I explain why and suggest a better approach.

I’m excited to share this latest update to my course, Mastering the SharePoint Framework for developers. Today’s update, packaged as sprint 13, includes two new chapters and a few updates… and it’s a huge release… the biggest yet adding over 3 hours of new content! Sprint 13 also marks a milestone: the Fundamentals Bundle of the course is now content complete! This means all planned chapters are now published. I will continue to make edits to existing chapters updating content when circumstances warrant, but at this time no new chapters or lessons are planned.

Setting up projects to use Jest, especially to test the rendering of your ReactJS SharePoint Framework projects & use the popular tool Enzyme for testing rendering, isn’t a trivial task, until now!

Learn what I use and how I configure my SharePoint Framework projects to continuously run my unit tests efficiently and minimize distractions so I can focus.

The latest version of the SharePoint Framework (SPFx) released a few weeks ago, v1.7.0, uncovered a few issues between how the various Node.js package managers work. These issues appear to be rooted in the package tslint and came about with a change in how Microsoft was using tslint under the covers from SPFx v1.6 to v1.7. A fix has been submitted to tslint, but they appear to be lagging on their release schedule so there’s no ETA on when it will get rolled out.

On November 8, 2018 (last Thursday), Microsoft released v1.7.0 of the SharePoint Framework (SPFx) . This release is filled with a lot of new things Microsoft has been talking about for a few months. In this post, I’ll summarize some of what you can find, but also share some disappointments I had after spending some time picking apart v1.7.0. A new @SharePoint Framework Yeoman generator has been published by @OfficeDev: 1.

I have seen questions since the folks at npm added an automatic scan for vulnerabilities after every npm install. In my opinion you shouldn’t be alarmed.

This month’s update on my Mastering the SharePoint Framework course features the transition from one sprint to the next. Sprint 11 Complete Earlier this week, I published the final pieces of Sprint 11. Two new chapters, the first chapters in the Ultimate Bundle! I also hosted the first Facebook Live sprint release party this week… if you missed it, you can get access to the recording here: Voitanos @ Facebook Live Automated Testing of SharePoint Framework Solutions This chapter starts with an overview of automated testing for client-side projects.

In my last post, I talked about using Angular Elements in SharePoint Framework projects. That post showed how to do this using a single SharePoint Framework Project. In this post, I show you a much better option that uses two projects.

In my last post, I talked about using Angular Elements in SharePoint Framework projects. When doing this, you have two options on how you will implement this and in this post, I will talk about doing it in one big project that includes everything. In tomorrow’s post, I’ll show you a much better option that uses two projects.

In this post, learn what’s new with our flagship course, Mastering the SharePoint Framework, in Sprint 10, and what’s coming in Sprint 11!

In the past, I’ve written how I prefer Yarn over npm not just for SharePoint Framework (SPFx) projects, but also for all my Node.js based projects that leverage the npm package registry: https://www.npmjs.org . I wrote that post in December 2016 and things have changed quite a bit since then. Last week Microsoft released SPFx v1.5.0 & the associated Yeoman generator that added support for changing the package manager the generator ran after creating the project scaffolding.

Yesterday Microsoft released a new version of the SharePoint Framework (SPFx) generator to version 1.5. I took some time picking apart the update and in this post, I will show you what these changes have in store for you.

Over the last month of May, we’ve seen quite a few announcements from Microsoft with respect to what’s new and coming related to the SharePoint Framework (SPFx) . This news has come out in part at the Microsoft Build 2018 conference in Seattle, WA and the SharePoint Conference North America 2018 in Las Vegas. Some of these things are available today while others are coming soon or in the next few months.

A few months ago, we partnered up with Rencore on their third annual State of SharePoint and Office 365 customizations survey. The point of this survey was to learn and share how customers were customizing SharePoint & Office 365. Today, continuing our partnership, I’m launching the first annual comprehensive State of SharePoint Development survey. This survey is for developers with the goal of obtaining and sharing the technical state of SharePoint developers around the world.

Ever wonder how your organization compares with other organizations in the same space? Have you sat at your desk and thought “I wonder if the challenges we are facing are the same as what others in the industry are facing?” Now is your chance to find out! I’m teaming up with Rencore this year to co-host two surveys. State of SharePoint & Office 365 Customizations 2018 Survey In this first survey by Rencore, you can share some information about your organization (anonymously of course) and learn how your organization compares to others in the industry on topics such as:

Learn what’s new in the January 2018 update of our flagship course, Mastering the SharePoint Framework, including two new chapters!

This post is long, LONG overdue. I’ve explained this multiple times over email & in person to SharePoint Framework developers. It’s about time I have something to point to… so here’s my take on the SharePoint Framework + Angular [v2.0 / v4.0 / v+] state of things. Have you tried to build a client-side web part using the SharePoint Framework using something other than ReactJS? Maybe you prefer using Angular over React… I know I do!

In the most recent SharePoint Patterns & Practices - JavaScript Special Interest Group meeting, Microsoft shared some news on the SharePoint Framework. The news fell into three buckets: Recent Updates Update on SPFx Modern UI Extensions SharePoint Framework Engineering Backlog Recent Updates The big news that in the last few weeks Microsoft introduced a new, and often requested, feature for SPFx: **tenant-scoped deployment for SPFx client-side web parts and extensions. This means addins or extensions can be deployed to all sites within your tenant just a single time!

In the recent SharePoint Framework (SPFx) generator updates in v1.1.1, are we starting to see hints of on-prem SPFx support coming soon?

In this post, I’ll explain how to create a self-signed certificate configure Chrome on your macOS to trust it for local development.

Today Microsoft announced new updates coming to the SharePoint Framework ahead of their sessions at the Build Conference. In a blog post, Build integrated user experiences with new capabilities of SharePoint and OneDrive , they talked about four big additions that engineering is working on and will make it into a new developer preview of the SharePoint Framework by the end of May 2017. This week in the Microsoft Cloud Show podcast episode’s special coverage for the Build conference, CJ & AC sat down with Microsoft’s Vesa Juvonen about these new features and more.

In last week’s SharePoint Framework & JavaScript Special Interest Group meeting, Microsoft’s Vesa Juvonen shared what’s the engineering team at Microsoft is working on and more! Updated SharePoint Framework Yeoman Generator In early April, Microsoft quietly shipped two updates to the Yeoman generator for the SharePoint Framework, @microsoft/generator-sharepoint . The latest version is v1.0.2. The updates were fairly minor… I recently blogged about what you will find in the updates and how I figured out what the updates were as they aren’t well documented: SharePoint Framework Generator Updated to v1.

In my post, I point out that SharePoint Framework development involves new build tools and Node.js, which traditional developers find interesting.

Did you know the SharePoint team at Microsoft updated the Yeoman generator, @microsoft/generator-sharepoint , twice in the last month? Yeah… I didn’t either until yesterday. The final version was released on February 23, 2017, as version 1.0.0. They then slipped two more updates in early April in quick succession as versions 1.0.1 & 1.0.2. Unfortunately, Microsoft still hasn’t published the repo for the generator or made the homepage for it in the NPMJS registry of any use… just some boilerplate copy… so it’s not easy to figure out what’s changed.

In this post, Andrew Connell shares why he things NVM is a fantastic tool for developers who rely on Node.js… including SharePoint Framework developers!

Earlier this week I presented a session at the Atlanta SharePoint User Group on Building Client Side Web Parts with the SharePoint Framework . I had my session planned well in advance, out but wanted to build the demos while they were fresh in my head. Last week I was out of work mode with my family relaxing on a beach in Mexico for Spring Break, so I planned to do build my demos yesterday morning, on Sunday.

Yesterday Microsoft announced that the SharePoint Framework has reached the Generally Available milestone. That means we’re at v1! The development tools have been updated to v1 and the v1 bits are rolling out to Office 365 SharePoint Online tenants now. Microsoft said it will take about a week or so for it to reach all Office 365 tenancies. You can get the details of this update from their wiki page in the main sp-dev-docs repo.

Last week I was in New Orleans presenting at the Nintex InspireX conference on building apps using the microservice approach with containers and Docker. During that week I sat down with Jeremy Thake of Hyperfish to talk about the SharePoint Framework and what it means for end users of SharePoint. During this discussion we discussed: what is the new SharePoint Framework how the SharePoint Framework will effect the SharePoint user experience some tips on how to keep up with the SharePoint Framework You can listen to the whole discussion on the Hypefish podcast .

If you are a SharePoint developer doing any work in SharePoint Online and you have held out on taking a look at the SharePoint Framework , now is a good time to start taking a look. We are currently at the release candidate 0 (RC0) and in the coming weeks, we can expect to see the generally available (GA) release. This release will support client-side web parts as Microsoft wanted to make sure they got that capability perfected… but they won’t stop there!

Speed up your JavaScript testing in VSCode with Wallaby.js. Wallaby.js automatically runs your tests and see the results without leaving your code files!

In this article, learn how you can debug Node.js projects, written in TypeScript, using VS Code’s native capabilities.

In this post, I explain how I set up my Node.js projects, written in TypeScript. I’ll share how I build to different folders.

Gulp is a task runner that uses JavaScript to glue plugins and create tasks. Unlike MSBuild, it favors code over configuration.

My post about SharePoint not being a Platform, instead it’s a service SharePoint is a Service sparked discussion. In this post is a rebuttal to feedback.

As a SharePoint developer for 12 years, I share my thoughts on the current state of SharePoint development, anticipating diverse reactions.

In this article, I’ll share my updated process for creating self-signed certificates on MacOS and Chrome, along with some helpful tips.

Blog post discussing three OAuth2 authentication flows supported by Microsoft Entra ID: Authorization Code, Client Credentials, and Implicit Grant.

Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD), supports two types of application authentication configurations - single and multi-tenant. Learn what’s different.

I discuss the importance of having a OAuth2 access token for Microsoft 365 and explain how to obtain it using Microsoft Entra ID.

Learn to manually create a Microsoft Entra ID app for Office 365 integration with Andrew Connell’s step-by-step guide.

The second post in a three-part series on creating an Azure app for Office 365 APIs using a wizard in Visual Studio 2013

Let’s tackle the SharePoint 2013 workflow development issue, recommends updating tools after creating workflow pre-Service Pack 1.