Latest Development topics
All the latest Development pages on this site.
This category is for general client-side & server-side development topics.
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Blog: How to: CI/CD/IaC for Azure Function Apps and GitHub Actions
In this article, I show you how to use Github Actions to test an Azure Function App, as well as create all resources & deploy the code in a complete CI/CD process.- Published on
Blog: SPFx Basics: Configure NPM for a coporate web proxy
Learn how to configurate your development environment for NPM to work with corporate web proxies to install NPM packages.- Published on
Blog: State of SharePoint Client-Side Dev - Winter 2022
In this post, I’ll give you an update on where we are with popular frameworks and tools developers use in the client-side SharePoint development world.- Published on
Blog: How to set up SPFx development environments for multiple SharePoint Server deployments
In this post, learn how to set up a development development environment to create SPFx projects for all SharePoint deployments.- Published on
Blog: Definitive guide for developers: SharePoint Framework for SharePoint Server 2016
These days, all of Microsoft’s updates about the SPFx, or community content have one thing in common: they ignore SharePoint Server 2016. Not this post!- Published on
Blog: Definitive guide for developers: SharePoint Framework for SharePoint Server SE
These days, all of Microsoft’s updates about the SPFx, or community content have one thing in common: they ignore SharePoint Server SE. Not this post!- Published on
Blog: Definitive guide for developers: SharePoint Framework for SharePoint Server 2019
These days, all of Microsoft’s updates about the SPFx, or community content have one thing in common: they ignore SharePoint Server 2019. Not this post!- Published on
Blog: Join me at 365EduCon (SPFest) Seattle in May 2022 - SharePoint Framework and Azure Functions
Join me, May 9-13 in Seattle for the 365 EduCon (SPFest) conference! I’m presenting a full day workshop & sessions for Microsoft 365 & Azure pro developers!- Published on
Blog: Fix SharePoint Framework projects to enable the React DevTools profiler
A few years ago, React introduced the React Profiler to React v16.5 in the React DevTools plugin available for Chromium browsers (Chrome & CrEdge) and Firefox. Developers can use the Profiler API to collect timing information about each component that’s rendered in order to identify performance bottlenecks in React applications. For those of us creating React apps in SharePoint Framework (SPFx) solutions, this is a great resource for building well performing apps for your customers!- Published on
Blog: Get answers to your SharePoint Framework questions
You’ve hit a roadblock on your SPFx project & have a question. What options do you have? In this post, I’ll share a few options available to you.- Published on
Blog: Back to school! Time to modernize those SPFx projects!
In this post, I want to tell you about some of this modernization work I’ve been doing and how you can apply it to your SPFx projects!- Published on
Blog: hTWOo: A Microsoft Fluent Design pure HTML & CSS Implementation
hTWOo is a pure HTML & CSS implementation of Microsoft’s Fluent Design, without the baggage & headaches of Office UI Fabric or Fluent UI.- Published on
Blog: State of SharePoint Client Side Dev 2020 December
As we near the end of 2020, I wanted to take a look at where we are with respect to the State of SharePoint Client-Side Development. In this post, I’ll give you an update on where we are with popular frameworks and tools developers use in the client-side SharePoint development world.- Published on
Blog: Voitanos' Black Friday Cyber Monday 2020 Deals are back for 2020!
It’s been quite a different year for all of us. Here in the United States, we celebrate Thanksgiving late in November & are usually together with our extended families. Unfortunately, it won’t be the same this year in my family because like so many other households, we’re avoiding the big gathering. But, I’m thankful my family has remained safe & healthy thus far… and I hope yours has as well.- Published on
Blog: Join me at the Microsoft 365 Collaboration Conference - learn the SharePoint Framework in my half-day workshop
Join me for a half-day virtual workshop at the Microsoft 365 Collaboration Conference to get up to speed on the SharePoint Framework.- Published on
Blog: Join me, April 22, 2020, and learn about the Microsoft 365 Developer Associate certification and MS-600 exam
Join me in a webinar on April 22, 2020 and learn about the MS-600 exam you need to pass to achieve the Microsoft 365 Developer Associate certification. I’ll discuss what topics you need to have experience in and how you can best get yourself prepared to take and pass the MS-600 exam.- Published on
Blog: Learn the SharePoint Framework with me at the SharePoint Conference 2020 in Las Vegas!
I’m looking forward to the Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2020 in Las Vegas, May 17-21, 2020, at the MGM Grand. Like the previous SharePoint Conferences, I’m excited to head back and present a pair of full-day workshops for SharePoint developers on the SharePoint Framework (SPFx)!
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Blog: Join me at SPFest DC to learn SharePoint Framework Development!
I just a few months I’ll be at the SharePoint Fest (SPFest) conference in Washington DC presenting a few sessions for developers. This is expected to be a great conference just like other SPFest conferences such as those in Seattle and Chicago. You’ll find me presenting a full day workshop as well as 2 sessions at this show.
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Blog: Join Me at the Quebec SharePoint User Group on February, 4 2020
Danger: Presentation cancelled Unfortunately something has come up and I’m unable to be in Montreal the week of this user group. Therefore my presentation had to be cancelled… sorry about this folks! Hey SharePoint developers in Montreal, Canada! I’ll be in town next week and the kind folks at the Quebec SharePoint User’s Group invited me to present while I’m in town. Join me next Tuesday, February 4, 2020 and see a Floridian freeze in the Montreal winter!- Published on
Blog: Learn the SharePoint Framework with me at the SharePoint Conference 2019
I’m looking forward to the premiere Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2019 in Las Vegas, May 19-24, 2019, at the MGM Grand. Like the previous one in May 2018, I’m excited to head back and present a pair of sessions as well as bring my full day workshop for developers back! With over 200 sessions covering all sorts of SharePoint topics giving you all things you need to adopt, build and manage SharePoint Online… what more could you want?- Published on
Blog: Copying files based on file content between two locations with Azure Data Factory
Recently I ran across a scenario and found myself coming up empty in looking for resources on how to solve it. I didn’t think the scenario was all that unique, but I could find not a single article or post on how to solve this problem. It’s situations like these that interest me because not only do i want to figure it out, but I want to write about it as well to help others who may run into this.
In this post, I’ll explain how I used Azure Data Factory to move millions of files between to file-based stores ( Azure Blob Storage containers) but using a value within the contents of each file as a criteria where the file would go be saved to.
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Blog: SharePoint Framework State of the Union (Fall 2019) from Microsoft Ignite 2019
Like previous years, Microsoft delivered a session at the Microsoft Ignite 2019 conference that was essentially the “State of SharePoint Framework”. This session, BRK3071 - SharePoint Framework: What’s new and what’s next , started with a review of what the SharePoint Framework (SPFx) is and where it can be used. The second half of the session covered what’s coming next with SPFx, both in the short & long term. In this post, I’ll recap what was shared and share my thoughts.
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Blog: SharePoint 2016, 2019 & SharePoint Online: Which Version of the SharePoint Framework Should You Install?
Customers can leverage the SharePoint Framework (SPFx) in any of the modern or recent SharePoint versions. This includes SharePoint Online & SharePoint on-premises versions SharePoint Server 2016 & SharePoint Server 2019. To build a SPFx project, you use the Yeoman generator for the SharePoint Framework to create your project and get started. But there seems to be some confusion on which version you should install depending on your target SharePoint environment. Let’s clear this up, once and for all.
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Blog: Stop Using Internet Explorer 11
You know what this past weekend marked? Sunday, October 13 marked the 6 year anniversary of the release of Internet Explorer 11 (IE11). SIX YEARS… let that sink in. Blurred LInes by Robert Thicke & Wrecking Ball by Miley Cyrus were released that year. Frozen, Gravity & Iron Man 3 were released in the theater. The iPhone 5s, HTC One & Samsung Galaxy S4 were the popular phones. We’d all consider those things to be old… yet there are still organizations that are still using IE11 as their primary browser.- Published on
Blog: Jest Preset Update October 2019
Late last year I published a few Jest presets to simplify adding automated testing to your SharePoint Framework (SPFx) projects. These are complete with example tests including testing the rendering of components, testing async functions using promises or callbacks and even simulating user events. You can learn more about the presets in the original post, Enable Jest testing of SharePoint Framework Projects in One Simple Step . In this post, I want to share some updates to the presets that have been published.
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Blog: Dealing with Undefined 'this' in React Event Handlers in a Performant Way
When I’m teaching React to devs, one thing that comes up often is dealing with the common ’this’ error. In this post, I’ll explain how to deal with it correctly.- Published on
Blog: Join me at Ignite 2019 & SPFest Chicago for SharePoint Framework Development
A few weeks ago I posted that I am going to be in Prague in early December for ESPC 2019 speaking on SharePoint Framework development. Check that post of a change to one of my sessions. One of them was replaced in favor of a new session on setting up automated testing on your SharePoint Framework projects. But that’s not why I am writing this post… Recently I got word that I’ll be at two more conferences in 2019.- Published on
Blog: Automate Building, Testing and Deploying SharePoint Framework Projects with Azure Pipelines in Four Steps
In this post, you’ll see how to automate the build, test & deployment to SharePoint Online of any SharePoint Framework project using Azure Pipelines.- Published on
Publication: Mastering the SharePoint Framework: On-Demand Video Course for Developers
This is my first course self-published under my company Voitanos! Choose between three course bundles, including the entirely free STARTER bundle!- Published on
Blog: The Good, Bad & the Ugly: Using Angular Elements with the SharePoint Framework
In this series, I showed you how to build custom elements, a native web technology supported natively by most browsers (except you Edge & IE…) and presented two options for how you can go about it. One option involves using one big project with the SharePoint Framework & Angular in it while the other utilizes two projects to mitigate the downsides of the one-project approach. So, you can now use Angular in SharePoint Framework projects and this is made possible by Angular Elements which was introduced in Angular v6 back in May 2017. Sweet! We’ve got the “can you do it” question answered! But, should you do it? There are always tradeoffs when picking a web framework for your next project and using one with the SharePoint Framework is no different. Let’s take a step back and look at the whole picture. Only then can you decide if it makes sense for you.- Published on
Blog: Using Angular Elements in SharePoint Framework Projects
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.- Published on
Blog: JavaScript + SharePoint Framework Summer Camp Calls - July 3 & July 18, 2019!
Microsoft regularly hosts three different community calls under the SharePoint PnP program on various topics. You can learn all about these from the community page in the SharePoint docs at SharePoint Development > Community > Community Calls . These calls are always recorded and published to the SharePoint PnP YouTube channel. However, during the month of July 2019 schedules are getting a bit out of control with various vacations where no one from the Microsoft side can host the calls and start the recordings.- Published on
Blog: SharePoint Framework v1.8.2 (and v1.8.1) - What's in the latest Update(s) of SPFx?
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) 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.- Published on
Blog: Mastering the SharePoint Framework - Sprint 16 adds SPFx with Teams, SPA's and Tons of Updates
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).- Published on
Blog: SharePoint Framework v1.8.0 - What's in this SPFx drop?
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.- Published on
Blog: Leverage Custom Permissions in Azure AD Applications
In my last post, Securing an Azure Function App with Azure AD - Works with SharePoint Framework!, I showed how you can secure a REST API deployed as an Azure Function App using Azure Active Directory (AzureAD). 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.- Published on
Blog: Securing an Azure Function App with Azure AD - Works with SharePoint Framework!
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 Azure AD 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 Azure AD 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!- Published on
Blog: Consider Avoiding Declarative Permissions with Azure AD Services in SharePoint Framework Projects
I recommend people avoid this option for granting their SPO tenant permissions to endpoints and services secured with Azure AD.- Published on
Blog: Mastering the SharePoint Framework Sprint 13 Published with over 3hrs of Microsoft Graph & Azure AD Lessons!
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.- Published on
Blog: Enable Jest testing of SharePoint Framework Projects in One Simple Step
Setting up projects to use Jest, esp to test the rendering of your @reactjs #SPFx projects & use the popular tool Enzyme by @Airbnb for testing rendering, isn’t a trivial task, until now!- Published on
Blog: Testing SPFx Projects Efficiently with Minimal Distractions: Wallaby.js
You know what I don’t like about automated tests? Most of the time, we don’t automate them, we just instrument them. We write our tests and then open a console window to run them periodically. Maybe we set up a watcher to automatically rerun them when either a test or the code file changes, and maybe we use an integrated console window in our editor to monitor when things change.- Published on
Blog: Workarounds for package manager issues with React and tslint
In this post, I explain a pair of workarounds to address issues uncovered with tslint since the SharePoint Framework (SPFx) v1.7 release.- Published on
Blog: SharePoint Framework v1.7.0 - What's in the latest update of SPFx?
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: 1.7.0 #SPFx @Office365 !- Published on
Blog: Don't be alarmed by vulnerabilities after running NPM Install
I’ve seen more and more questions since the folks at NPM added an automatic scan for vulnerabilities after every NPM install. What’s going on? The NPM registry runs a security audit on NPM packages. With the release of NPM v6, this command is run automatically when you execute an npm install on your project. You can manually run one of these audits by executing the command npm audit (ref: npm-audit docs ).- Published on
Blog: Mastering the SharePoint Framework - Course Update September 2018 (Sprint-11 complete)
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- Published on
Blog: HowTo: Angular Elements in SharePoint Framework Projects - Two 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.- Published on
Blog: HowTo: Angular Elements in SharePoint Framework Projects - One Big Project
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.- Published on
Blog: Mastering the SharePoint Framework - Course Update July 2018 (Sprint-10 complete)
This month’s update on my Mastering the SharePoint Framework course features the transition from one sprint to the next. Sprint 10 Complete Earlier today, I published the final pieces of Sprint 10. This update included categories of updates. Many lessons were updated to address a few minor issues such as typos in the slides or things that have changed since the lesson was originally published. Changes include APIs making it from preview to the GA milestone (ALM APIs).- Published on
Blog: Join me at SPFest Seattle for the Keynote and SharePoint Framework Development
Around this time last year, I attended my first SharePoint Fest conference in Seattle, an event I had wanted to be involved in for quite some time. And you know what? It was worth the wait! This is one of the most professional and well-run events in the community puts on in the SharePoint space. It’s about that time for the 2018 show… and I’m thrilled to be involved with the event again!- Published on
Blog: NPM, Yarn and PNPM: Which Package Manager Should You Use for SharePoint Framework Projects?
I thought this would be a good time to do a deeper comparison between the three most popular options that the SPFx generator supports: NPM, Yarn & PNPM.