What this book covers

Chapter 1, Introducing SharePoint Online for Developers, will give you a short history lesson to understand the limitations of the previous development models for SharePoint. You will begin to see how and where SharePoint Framework differs the most and why it matters.

Chapter 2, Developing Solutions for SharePoint, will introduce you to SharePoint Framework in more detail. It covers the types of project you can implement and reveals how to code and start using the necessary tools quickly.

Chapter 3, Getting Started with SharePoint Framework, walks you through installing the toolchain and verifying everything is installed correctly. You’ll learn how project files are laid out and where to find what.

Chapter 4, Building Your First Web Part, you will code your own SharePoint Framework-based web part and deploy it locally for testing and in SharePoint for real use.

Chapter 5, Using Visual Studio Code and Other Editors, shows you how to get started with Visual Studio Code, the free editor from Microsoft that fully supports SharePoint Framework projects. You will also learn how to use Visual Studio 2015/2017 if you are more familiar with them.

Chapter 6, Packaging and Deploying Solutions, once development is done, developers need to package and deploy their code in an orderly and managed fashion. You’ll learn about the tools to aid you in this task and how to manually deploy your code to SharePoint.

Chapter 7, Working with SharePoint Content, is the next logical step when implementing solutions with SharePoint Framework. You’ll frequently need to access SharePoint-hosted data such as lists and documents. You will also learn using mock data to quickly get your code working before further testing against live data.

Chapter 8, Working with the Web Part Property Pane, shows you how to create solutions that allow parameters and values from user input, such as settings data for a web part. This way your code can run dynamically regardless of where it is deployed.

Chapter 9, Using React and Office UI Fabric React Components, explains that Microsoft realized early on that developers prefer other frameworks, such as React, and might need to provide a unified UI that implements Microsoft’s design language for SharePoint and Office. With React and Office UI Fabric React you’ll learn how to combine these two frameworks with SharePoint Framework projects.

Chapter 10, Working with Other JavaScript Frameworks, will teach you how to use other popular frameworks, such as jQuery and Angular, to implement your solutions while still using SharePoint Framework

Chapter 11, Troubleshooting and Debugging SharePoint Framework Solutions, discusses efficient troubleshooting techniques to help you find common problems you might encounter. Debugging a SharePoint Framework solution is slightly different from traditional server-side debugging, and this chapter will teach you how to debug your code.

Chapter 12, SharePoint APIs and Microsoft Graph, will give you a run-down of the SharePoint APIs and how they differ from each other. You’ll learn how to access the APIs, and also how to employ Microsoft Graph, the fabric that provides knowledge for most things in Office 365 and Azure Active Directory.

Chapter 13, The Future of SharePoint Customizations, provides a glimpse into the future and what SharePoint Framework means for developers from now on. As development models come and go, we give you several ideas how developers should approach this major change.