What’s new on SharePoint Framework 1.7

By João Ferreira Nov 11, 2018 Development, Office 365 0 Comments

What is probably the most important release of SharePoint Framework since its original version, brings a list of long-awaited features, already showcased during Microsoft Ignite. In this article, I will highlight three:

• Application Pages
• SharePoint Web Parts on Microsoft Teams
• List Subscriptions

This version is no longer exclusive to SharePoint and is available also to extend Microsoft Teams. Version 1.7 might be the start of the Office 365 framework, as it starts being used on other products. It will definitely allow for a smoother, more coherent experience across the workplace and its different applications.

The final version of the framework is not yet available but if you want to start playing around with it, you can use the dev preview.

Application Pages

For me this is a long-awaited feature – we will finally be able to take control of the entire page to build rich applications, like what is currently done with classic publishing sites and page layouts.

The Application pages will have a full width page layout to host web parts that cover the entire page.

Page elements like navigation and extensions are still available on these pages and the only thing you must focus as a developer is the main content area.

More information on how to use Application Pages can be found here.

SharePoint Web Parts on Microsoft Teams

SharePoint Framework web parts can be used as Microsoft Teams tabs, getting all the benefits of the framework, such as automatic hosting and reusable controls, among several others.

Technically, you will be building a web part like you do for SharePoint, but it will be targeted to Microsoft Teams. On the Yeoman generator you will not find specific options for Microsoft Teams – if you want to build a web part for it, you will have to use the same options available for SharePoint Online Web Parts.

It will be also possible to bring tabs from Microsoft Teams to SharePoint, creating the same business logic on both platforms and giving your users the possibility to choose the one they like the most to do their daily tasks.

List Subscriptions

You can subscribe list events from your web parts or extensions. Every time there is a change on a list, your custom component is notified through the execution of an event and you can build custom experiences based on it and keep the content on pages always updated.

Conclusion

These are for me the 3 major features included on version 1.7. A full description of all new functionalities is available on this Microsoft article and on GitHub.

If you want to see how SharePoint web parts work on Microsoft Teams check out Vesa Juvonen demo on this week community call.