Single-Page Applications (SPAs) in SharePoint Using SPServices Marc D Anderson

Who Is Marc?

Contact Information Bloghttp://sympmarc.com SPServiceshttp://spservices.codeplex.com SPXSLThttp://spxslt.codeplex.com Bookshttp://sympmarc.com/books The Middle Tier Manifestohttp://bit.ly/middletier

Session Overview Single-page applications (SPAs) are nothing new on the Web. However, like Responsive Web Design (RWD), SPAs have gained favor as a way to enable real work with an improved user experience (UX). SPAs first started popping up regularly in creative contexts on public Web sites. These sites have been out there for a while and are becoming more prevalent. Since the idea with SPAs is that one need not leave the single page to accomplish some high percentage of the tasks at hand, it’s a great concept to apply in a SharePoint context. The days where a clunky postback-ridden application was acceptable is fading into the rear view mirror. It’s all about Getting Work Done as effectively and painlessly as possible. We’ll look at an SPA example taken from Marc’s popular blog series on building SPAs in SharePoint and discuss successful approaches and pitfalls in doing so.

What is a Single Page Application (SPA)? A single-page application (SPA), also known as single-page interface (SPI), is a web application or web site that fits on a single web page with the goal of providing a more fluid user experience akin to a desktop application.web applicationweb site web page Definition from Wikipedia

Why Single Page Applications? Get everything done in one place Fluid user experience Fewer page loads

What SPA Do You Know Best?

What is an SPA in SharePoint? Take over the entire screen

What is an SPA in SharePoint? Take over the main content area

What is an SPA in SharePoint? Take over a single Web Part (or act as one)

Examples of SPAs in SharePoint Full screen Provider Hosted Apps Main Content Area List views Forms Web Parts App Parts Quick survey Workflow actions brought into a list view

Tools We Can Use to Create an SPA JavaScript Lets us create behaviors, actions, and effects Data Access with AJAX Fetch data from external sources (XML, JSON, HTML, etc.) Additional Libraries jQuery SPServices CSOM Graphing tools

Popular SPA Frameworks

Pros and Cons of SPServices for SPAs Pros Lightweight compared to other frameworks Cross version compatibility for SharePoint Good community support Can be used in tandem with heavier frameworks (data access layer) Cons SOAP Web Services are deprecated as of SharePoint 2013 Doesn’t offer as much as heavier frameworks

Demo