SharePoint 365 Development - Visual Studio 2012 - Actions4 file - visual-studio-2012

I'm looking for some advice. I need to develop some custom workflow activities for a SharePoint 365 online solution. To that extent I do not have a local install of SharePoint 2013. I am using Visual Studio 2012, and have the office developer tools for VS 2012 installed.
When I try to create an empty project for SharePoint 2013, I get the error stating:
SharePoint not installed. The required version of SharePoint
foundation 2013 or SharePoint server 2013 is not installed on this
system. To develop SharePoint solutions or browse SharePoint
connections in server explorer, SharePoint must be installed on the
local system. Make sure that the local server referenced by the
SharePoint project exists
Now, I understand that for SharePoint projects in the past that a local install was required, but with this being online, I do not have that luxury.
Ideally I'd like to identify a way in which I can create an empty project without the need for said local install.
Further to this, I have been able to create an "Apps for SharePoint 2013" project, into which I can create a custom workflow activity. I'm working through some excellent blog posts on how to develop custom activities and it seems to be working file to a point.
What I am now struggling with is that VS2012 is supposed to create an .actions4 file which I can edit to reflect what the workflow activity requires etc. I do not have this file, nor do I understand how I get it.
I would also appreciate information on how I can deploy this custom workflow activity to SharePoint Online so that I can use it in SharePoint designer workflows.
Appreciate there is a lot of asks here, but appreciate any help that people can provide.
Many Thanks,
Grant

Hope this link will help you to create workflows in office 365 . you cannot degug but you can allow visual studio to think that SP is installed on your machine.
https://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/questions/59065/how-visual-studio-checkes-that-sharepoint-has-been-installed-on-my-local-pc

Related

Develop sharepoint project without having local sharepoint installation

I have a SharePoint 2013 server on a remote machine.
I installed this: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35585
on my development system then follow this steps.
Right click on VS 13.
Run as administrator.
File >> NEW >> Project
Templates >> SharePoint Solution
Select SharePoint 2013 - Empty Project
I got this error.
The required version of SharePoint Foundation 2013 or SharePoint Server 2013 is not installed on this system. SharePoint must be installed on the local system to develop SharePoint solutions.
Is it possible to develop SharePoint project on development system?
It depends on what type of solution you want to develop. The error you get says:
SharePoint must be installed on the local system to develop
SharePoint solutions.
so you can't develop SharePoint solutions
but you can develop apps for SharePoint.

Adding a custom ribbon tab and buttons in Sharepoint 2013

I'm trying to figure out how to create a custom ribbon tab with custom buttons on a documents library in SharePoint 2013.
I'm using Visual Studio 2013 Community with office developer tools and I'm running SharePoint through an office 365 business trial account.
I've found the following tutorials which helped but ultimately I am still stuck.
This one is great but as a new Sharepoint developer I'm not sure exactly whats going on. I know I need to edit the elements.xml file but I have no idea where or what file to edit.
I then found this one which helped out a lot but still dosen't work. I followed the instructions to the letter except for the step where you create an Empty SharePoint Project. I am unable to do that because VS 2013 will not allow that unless you are deving in the same environment as the SharePoint server and because I'm running Windows 8.1 and not Windows Server I can't even install Sharepoint foundations to try this.
Instead I just created a simple Sharepoint App in visual studio and followed the steps to create the feature and custom action but I still can't get it to work. The menu and buttons are nowhere to be seen in any documents library.
So can anyone help point me in the right direction for creating a custom ribbon tab and buttons (or just SP2013 dev in general)? I've spent all day looking online for resources but every resource is either for a different version of SharePoint or outdated so that the tutorial is no longer applicable to VS2013 or SP2013.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
The process of adding buttons and other controls to the Ribbon is explained in this Office Dev Center article for Sharepoint 2013: Create custom actions to deploy with apps for SharePoint. This also mentions the Bookstore Sample Application which uses custom actions. Other good entries for the architecture of the Server Ribbon are these two branches of Sharepoint 2010 Dev Center
Server Ribbon XML.
Modify the User Interface Using Custom Actions
There is also a sample solution by Sonja Madsen that you can open in Visual Studio 2013 Community Edition from the online section of New Project. It can be found also on this MSDN page. It is listed under Online->Samples->Visual C#->Web->Sharepoint Server 2013->Custom ribbon button - list - search.
If you look in the Package Explorer of this solution you will see that it packages two features. Under the second feature (it's file is in the Features/Feature2 directory) you will see AddBodyText. It's elements.xml contains the tags. You can find that elements.xml in the AddBodyText directory.
Some more technical info on the structure of solution packages: SharePoint 2007 Deployment: Creating Solutions from André Vala.

sharepoint 2013 workflow version

I have downloaded and installed the trial version of Sharepoint 2013. I have also setup Sharepoint Designer because I want to see what workflows can do. Unfortunately, when I create a workflow, I can only select "Sharepoint 2010 Workflow" in the "Platform Type" dropdown. I also get this message, telling me that I cannot create a Sharepoint 2013 Workflow:
"The option for the SharePoint 2013 Workflow platform is not available because the workflow service is not configured oon the server."
Everything runs on a single server - both the Sharepoint installation, the SQL server, the IIS server and the Designer thing.
Can anybody shed some light on this problem?
Regards Leif
There is a separate installation and setup that needs to be done in order to make SharePoint 2013 workflow type show up in the dropdown. You need to install workflow manager and link it to your farm and you should be good to go.
When working with SharePoint 2013, you must make sure you also have installed the 2013 SharePoint Designer (workflows) and 2013 InfoPath (designing forms) tools. You can not use the 2010 tools with SharePoint 2013.

Visual Studio 2012 won't deploy my SharePoint 2013 Workflow in an App

I want to add a SharePoint 2013 Workflow to my App (Web). It is a List Workflow. Workflow Manager and Service Bus are installed.
When I create a Workflow and want to debug/deploy the App, the Workflow is not listed as Workflow in the List.
("There are no SharePoint 2013 Workflows associated with this list")
I don't know why, I don't know if its a development or a server configuration issue.
Has someone had the same problem, but solved it?
(Everything is programmed in Visual Studio 2012. Lists, and Workflows, too)
Thank you,
Loki
I was able to resolve this issue - to fix it you need to install SharePoint 2013 SP1. After doing it run following ps script on your server (see this post for details):
$WmsSap = Get-SPWorkflowServiceApplicationProxy
$WmsSap.RegisterWorkflowLifecycleManagementEnvironment()

Sharepoint 2010 development - internet sites or team sites?

I am completely new to SharePoint 2010 and have managed to install SP2010 on windows 7 as a development machine.
I am trying to develop a site from scratch on the SharePoint platform but don't understand how to get my hand the code behind the pages. I understand they are generated dynamically using the database interaction however I want to create a multistage much like WordPress version but using SharePoint. Can anyone point me in the right direction on how to develop a multistage using SharePoint 2010?
You can edit master pages with tools like visual studio but your shouldn't. Download and install SharePoint Designer, it is a free development environment from Microsoft that is specially built to edit the context items of SharePoint.
http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/en-us/product/related-technologies/pages/sharepoint-designer.aspx
If you want to build web parts and so on have a loop at the SharePoint developer tools for visual studio, but to handle this you will need to buy a book about the subject. SharePoint development becomes pretty advanced as soon as you leave the web-gui.

Resources