We released the Office Developer Tools for Visual Studio 2013 – March 2014 Update on Monday which contains a ton of new features for Office 365 Cloud Business Apps and LightSwitch projects as well as apps for Office & SharePoint in Visual Studio 2013. If you haven’t done so already, please install this free update!
Download the Office Developer Tools for Visual Studio 2013 – March 2014 Update
Read about what’s new in the latest update here:
- Announcing Office Developer Tools for Visual Studio 2013 – March 2014 Update
- What's New in Office Developer Tools for Visual Studio 2013 – March 2014 Update
Getting the New Features
- In order to get the latest tools, you’ll first need Visual Studio 2013 Professional or higher.
- Then click the download to launch the Web Platform Installer.
- Make sure you have the correct language selected that corresponds to your Visual Studio language (located at the bottom of the options dialog of the installer).
- Once the tools install, you’ll be able to create new projects with these features. If you have an existing Cloud Business App or LightSwitch solution, you’ll need to upgrade first. Right-click on the project and select “Upgrade Project…”. Keep in mind that once you do this your project files will be updated, so all members of your team will need the update installed to open the project again.
We have a ton of resources to help you learn the new stuff, check them out.
“How Do I…?” Videos on Channel 9
I launched a new video series on Channel 9 that is all about building Cloud Business Apps for Office 365. The first one I do an end-to-end demonstration of connecting to SharePoint list data, creating a mobile-first HTML5 app, and making it available to users by deploying it to the corporate catalog. It’s a good overview to watch if you’ve never seen a Cloud Business App. Then I start drilling into more features in the rest.
Watch the Series: Building Cloud Business Apps for Office 365 with Visual Studio 2013
We’ve got three so far. I plan on releasing more in the coming weeks to check back often!
How Do I: Build and Deploy My First Cloud Business App on Office 365?
How Do I: Incorporate Document Libraries in a Cloud Business App?
How Do I: Use Newsfeeds to Socialize Data in a Cloud Business App?
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New Walkthrough & Sample
Steve also put together a new sample and step-by-step walkthrough you should check out. In this tutorial, you'll create an app for a fictional Fire Department to handle on-scene incident management. The walkthrough covers the core concepts of building a Cloud Business App as well as more advanced concepts such as integrating SharePoint lists and document libraries.
Incident Manager: A Cloud Business App Tutorial
New Documentation
We’ve also got a lot of new documentation in the MSDN Library. Check out these topic areas in particular.
- Get started developing Cloud Business Apps - links to learning resources including end-to-end tutorials and samples.
- Develop Cloud Business Apps - help with tasks related to developing a cloud business app.
- Publish Cloud Business Apps - publishing cloud business apps to SharePoint for Office 365 and SharePoint 2013.
More to come!
The team is also writing like crazy and we’ll have a bunch of blog posts roll out in the coming weeks that dive into all the details so stay tuned! For more information on getting started building apps for SharePoint, like setting up an Office 365 Developer site, see http://aka.ms/BuildSharePointApps
And if you have questions or need help troubleshooting please visit the Visual Studio LightSwitch forum.
Enjoy!