SharePoint Journey

Tools for SharePoint

Online Development
Table of Contents
In this e Book you will be learning some of the tools we use in
SharePoint Online Development.

1. Introduction

2. SharePoint Online Development Tools

you will learn about tools for SharePoint Online

3. SharePoint Client Browser tool
Development

4. PostMan Tool to build the REST Queries

5. Fiddler

6. SP FastDeploy

7. Node JS and NPM

8. GULP

9. GRUNT

10. Yeoman

11. SharePoint Journey School

Introduction
In this E-Book you will learn about tools for SharePoint Online
Development. If we find new tools that will be useful, then I will be
adding new tools as we go along with this series.

Devendra Veleganlas

Tools for SharePoint Online Development

In this E-Book we will discuss some of the common development tools we use.

#1 SharePoint Client Browser tool

#2 PostMan Tool to build the REST Queries

#3 Fiddler

#4 SPFastDeploy

#5 Node JS and NPM

#6 GULP

#7 GRUNT

#8 Yeoman

Thank you.

Devendra Velegandla
SharePoint Online
Development Tools
SharePoint Client Browser
tool
This is one of my favorite tools for the development of solutions for
SharePoint.

While provisioning the solutions, examples: creating site columns in SharePoint

Hosted Add-ins or using PNP PowerShell to create the site columns you can use
this tool to help or speed up the development.

You can create the columns manually In the site then use those columns schema to
create a new set of columns with the support of Client Browser Tool. This is just
one example, but there are many more advantages while using this tool.

To download the tool, go to https://spcb.codeplex.com/

Then click on downloads, and look for SharePoint Online Client Browser

Then click on the link to download it.

After you download the tool, you can connect to particular SharePoint site you will
be working with.

Once it is connected you can explore different objects within SharePoint site
collection.
PostMan Tool to build the
REST Queries
This is one of the primary tools I use whenever I work on REST API in
SharePoint solutions.

This is one of the primary tools I use whenever I work on REST API in SharePoint
solutions.

You do not have to remember the REST URI that you would like to use within this
solution. Using this tool can help you how to drill down further about each object
within REST URI for your SharePoint objects.

I have created a video for this on you could use this tool. Please check the video
below to learn more about this video.
Fiddler

Fiddler helps to analyze the queries or Chrome Network Tab to analyze how the
API are performing, and a lot of other things can be analyzed.

This is the first tool you will be using to analyze the issues you have in the
solutions you have developed and deployed in SharePoint.

You can download using this link below.

https://www.telerik.com/download/fiddler
SP FastDeploy

SPFastDeploy to deploy any changes you make with In the Pages/Lists. It saved
me a lot of hours while developing Add-ins, because some of the changes we make
will not reflect in SharePoint until unless you deploy the Add-in in Developer site
collection but this tool can push the specific change to the site without re-
deploying the Add-in.

http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/9e03d0f5-f931-4125-a5d1-
7c1529554fbd
Node JS and NPM

Node.js is a JavaScript runtime built on Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine. Node.js

uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model that makes it lightweight and
efficient. Node.js' package ecosystem, npm, is the largest ecosystem of open
source libraries in the world.

Node.js allows you to write server-side JavaScript code and is used these days to
build client applications, web applications, and more.

You can go to https://nodejs.org/en to download the Node JS . Once you Install

Node Js you will also get NPM install on your Machine.

Start learning about these tools as early as possible if you haven't used before
because Microsoft using all these tools in SharePoint Framework development.

Install the recommended LTS version. Once you have installed, then you can test
by running the command in the screen below.
node --version

To update NPM use below command

npm install -g npm

GULP

From Gulp.js site it states Gulp is "gulp keeps things simple and makes complex
tasks manageable".

It certainly one of the cool tool that you could create Tasks and manage them
efficiently with a lot of plugins available.

You can go to plug-ins here http://gulpjs.com/plugins/ to learn more about these.

At this time of writing this article you have 2778 plug-ins available.
Installation
To Install Gulp: Run the command below

npm install gulp g

This command installs gulp globally

While working with solutions you need create a package.json file for that you need
to go to respective solution directory and run npm init command

Once you complete all the questions asked from above command, it will create
Package.json file in your solution.
Common Gulp plug-ins I sue in SharePoint Development
Below are the common plug-ins I use in SharePoint development are

gulp-concat : concatenate the files

gulp-concat-css : For concatenate the CSS files

gulp-uglify : To minify the JS

GRUNT
"The JavaScript Task Runner "

"The JavaScript Task Runner "

Between Grunt and Gulp it's your preference, but for SharePoint solutions, I find
Gulp simple and make me things to get started immediately.

It is up to you whatever tool you would like to use.

Go to this website to learn more about Grunt http://gruntjs.com/

Yeoman
THE WEB'S SCAFFOLDING TOOL FOR MODERN WEBAPPS

This is one of the important tools in SharePoint Development, especially in

SharePoint Framework.

What's Yeoman?
From Yeoman website "Yeoman helps you to kickstart new projects, prescribing
best practices and tools to help you stay productive.

To do so, we provide a generator ecosystem. A generator is basically a plugin that

can be run with the `yo` command to scaffold complete projects or useful parts. "

You can install Yeoman using the command below.

npm install -g yo
You could build your own generator, check more details using the link below.

https://github.com/yeoman/generator-generator

Help
To get help about Yeoman, use the command below

yo --help
SharePoint Journey
School
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