If you haven’t heard, we released the HTML Client Preview 2 yesterday morning! This release is part of the Office Tools Preview 2 release that was announced at the SharePoint Conference keynote in Las Vegas (as well as on Soma’s blog). With this release, LightSwitch enables developers to easily build touch-oriented business applications with HTML5 that run well across a breadth of devices. These apps can be standalone, but with this preview developers can now also quickly build and deploy data-driven apps for SharePoint using the new web standards-based apps model.
I am personally very excited about these new capabilities. This allows LightSwitch developers an easy entry into web development and web developers an easy entry into business app development. For me, I’m learning just the little bit of JavaScript that I need to build a full-blown HTML5 mobile application. Plus, now I can take advantage of SharePoint to not only deploy and access these apps, but also work with SharePoint assets. Of course SharePoint is not required to build and deploy a LightSwitch application -- they can be hosted on any IIS web server or even in Azure (as I’ve shown before) -- but many enterprises today use SharePoint as a portal of information and applications while using SharePoint’s security model to control access permissions. So with the new SharePoint 2013 apps model, this makes deploying LightSwitch HTML5 applications to SharePoint (or Office 365) very compelling for businesses.
LightSwitch really is the easiest way to create modern line of business apps for the enterprise. Exciting times! So how do you get started?
We created a the LightSwitch HTML Client page on the Developer Center that has the resources you need, like the download and tutorials. Make sure to point people to http://bit.ly/LightSwitchHTMLClient
Here are some more resources to get you started.
1- Get the preview
The LightSwitch HTML Client Preview 2 is a Web Platform Installer (WPI) package which is included in the Microsoft Office Developer Tools for Visual Studio Preview 2. This includes other components for building SharePoint 2013 Apps. Make sure you have Visual Studio 2012 Professional or higher installed first.
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Download: Microsoft Office Developer Tools for Visual Studio - Preview 2
2- Work through the tutorials
We’ve got a couple tutorials that we released to help you learn the new capabilities.
LightSwitch HTML Client Tutorial– this tutorial walks you through building an application that connects to existing data services and provides a touch-first, modern experience for mobile devices.
LightSwitch SharePoint Tutorial– this tutorial shows you how to use LightSwitch to build a SharePoint application with an HTML client that runs on a variety of mobile devices. The tutorial shows you how to sign up and deploy to an Office 365 online account.
3- Ask questions and report issues in the forum
We’ve got a dedicated forum specifically for getting feedback and answering questions about the HTML Client Preview release. The team is ready and listening so fire away!
4- Read our blog
We’ve got a great line-up of posts rolling out in the next several weeks to help you understand the architecture of the apps you build as well as tips & trick on how to build them. Check out the first post from one of our architects:
New LightSwitch HTML Client APIs
And keep tabs on the LightSwitch Team Blog for a lot more!
5- Spread the word & join the community!
Become a fan of Visual Studio LightSwitch on Facebook. Have fun and interact with us on our wall. Check out the cool stories and resources. Here are some other places you can find the LightSwitch team:
LightSwitch MSDN Forums
LightSwitch Developer Center
LightSwitch Team Blog
LightSwitch on Twitter
Enjoy!