SharePoint

SharePoint is a platform to support collaboration and content management system. It is a central web-based portal. Using SharePoint, you can manage your colleague’s and your own documents, social activities, data, and information.

There are three main ways to install and use SharePoint − SharePoint Foundation SharePoint Server Office 365

we will be covering the default set of capabilities (or features) built into SharePoint that enables you to take advantage of the platform without doing any development.

we will setup the development environment for SharePoint. As you already know that there are three different options of SharePoint. They are −

The site is the core thing to SharePoint and represents the starting point for developers, and without site collection, you cannot start SharePoint development. A Microsoft SharePoint online site collection is a top-level site that contains subsites.

we will be covering the several sets of APIs to access the SharePoint platform. The selection of APIs depend upon the following different factors −

we will be covering the high-level introduction of SharePoint Central Administration. Central Administration is the place where you can perform administration tasks from a central location. As we have already signed up for an Office 365, so we also have an administration site.

we will be covering the SharePoint deployment App models. Since, SharePoint is moving towards the cloud, the following deployment models are available to use Apps for SharePoint −

we will be covering the integration options. The new application model in SharePoint 2013 offers a number of options for your application to integrate deeply with SharePoint, other systems, and data. These options are as follows −

we will be covering the different levels of “development” concerning SharePoint. Each level serves the end user of the SharePoint site in some way. You can divide this spectrum into the following

we will discuss from an end-user perspective mostly, covering Lists and some of the value-added features on top of lists like views, validation etc. When the end users create content within SharePoint, it is stored in the form of lists.

SharePoint provides a lot of functionality for lists. It provides storage for the list data, the ability to customize the list schema, and the ability to view, add, edit, and delete list items etc. There are a lot more functionality available like creating views on list data, simple validation at both the field and list level, content approval, item versioning etc.

Let us have a look at how to create a custom list, where we define the list schema, instead of using a predefined schema like the one we did when we created the Contacts list.

Libraries are just a special case of a list. They inherit all the characteristics of a list. Therefore, all the characteristics we have seen so far, apply to libraries just as they do to lists.

Web Parts are small blocks of user interface, which you can compose together to build a page or a site. For example, A News Web Part, an Email Web Part, a Stock Web Part, sports scores, YouTube videos. These are all examples of little pieces of user interface, which you can compose together to get an aggregate view in, a portal style application.

we will be covering the Site Columns. So far, we have been defining the list and library schemas on the lists and libraries themselves, but these are not reusable. Therefore, if you want to have two lists with the same schema, we would have to define the same schema twice. SharePoint has a solution for this, which is Site Columns and Content Types.

we will be covering one of the most common tasks of SharePoint i.e. interacting with the various data sources such as lists or document libraries. A great thing about SharePoint is that you have a number of options available for interacting with data. Some examples are Server Object Model, Client-Side Object Model, REST services etc.

we will take a look at the SharePoint Server Object Model. You use the SharePoint Server Object Model when you are writing code that will run inside the context of SharePoint. Some common examples would be the code-behind in a page or a web part, event handlers behind a feature or a list, timer jobs etc.

we will take a look at the Client Object Model or CSOM. This was one of the two APIs, for building remote applications that were added to SharePoint 2010. One of the design goals of the Client Object Model was to mimic the Server Object Model as much as possible, so there would be a shorter learning curve for developers already familiar with doing development on the Server side.

The REST API is implemented as Data-centric web service based on the Open Data Protocol or OData. The way these web services work, use each resource in the system is addressable by a specific URL that you pass off to the server.