Guess, why SharePoint 2013 Online is humming Nancy Sinatra’s 1967’s tune – “Strawberries cherries and an angel’s kiss in spring, My summer wine is really made from all these things..” ??
Well, meet SharePoint 2013’s Summer Wine – The “NAPA” Office 365 Development tool!!
SharePoint App Development with NAPA – “The New Wine in An Old Bottle”
“Great wine is made in the vineyard” that’s the philosophy of family wine-making in NAPA valley, California. And the SharePoint 2013’s “NAPA” Office 365 Development tool does just that. Just like they harvest home grown grapes in their own vineyard to achieve best in class wines with a variety of flavors and aromas, the latest SharePoint Online has its own app-yard which provides a platform, to develop robust apps with best in class features using its latest NAPA tool. In short, developing apps using inbuilt app. In view of this feature, NAPA definitely is the new wine in an old bottle.
“NAPA” Office 365 Development tool
Napa provides lightweight Cloud platforms, where User Interface and other client-side logic is applied with web standards (e.g. HTML, JavaScript, CSS) and the back-end app logic runs on a server, without installing visual studio. It facilitates developers the freedom to use their choice of development tools, languages, and hosting environments. Put it simply, you don’t need robust software installed for simple SharePoint customization. Without having to create a SharePoint development environment for developing an app in SharePoint which is quite an expensive pursuit, the NAPA office 365 tool is a great way to build apps for office or SharePoint directly out of a browser window. The “Napa” Office 365 Developer Tools make it easy to start building apps for Office and SharePoint without having to invest in installing costly tools for customization or development. It can be used through the browser and enhanced using visual studio. All you need to have is a separate account created in SharePoint 365 and the “Napa” Office 365 Developer Tools app added to your SharePoint Online Developer Site. In a nutshell, it is a great way to leverage cloud based functionality to build robust apps with best in class functionality.
What else can you do with “NAPA” Office 365 Development tool ?
With Napa tool you can manage your projects with a page that can help you create various apps to manage content, tasks, mails and other office functions. It can be used along with visual studio to leverage extended capabilities such as using a modified project in your existing apps. Napa allows you to develop apps with absolute efficiency with the help of syntax highlighting and code completion during programming. If you want to share your code or projects with others you can use NAPA tool which creates a copy of your project in the form of public link. Finally when you are done with your app development and would like to publish it you can use SharePoint publishing apps either in the public office store or in an internal organization app catalog depending upon whether you want your apps to be free or for purchase or for a specific purpose.
