This book exists to help existing Microsoft .NET developers understand the architecture and core topics of SharePoint 2013 while building Internet, intranet, and extranet sites, as well as developing custom solutions and SharePoint apps.

Although most readers likely will have no prior experience with SharePoint 2013, the book is also useful for those familiar with earlier versions of SharePoint and are interested in getting up to date on the newest features.

This book does not target IT professionals who are seeking information on how to deploy, configure, and maintain a SharePoint farm. However, some discussion about deployment is given throughout the book for the sake of completeness. Similarly, this book does not cover topics concerning site branding or public-facing Internet sites.

This book is divided into six parts, each of which focuses on a different aspect or technology within SharePoint 2013.

Part I, “Getting started,” provides a quick overview of SharePoint 2013 and its data foundations, with a focus on using the technology as shipped, but not yet extending it with custom code.

Part II, “Developing SharePoint solutions,” focuses on the core libraries for developing solutions on the server side using the SharePoint Server Object Model and the new LINQ to SharePoint provider. It also focuses on developing for the client side, using the various flavors of the SharePoint Client Object Model and SOAP services. This part of the book is full of examples and code excerpts, and you can use it as a concrete reference for everyday solutions.

Part III, “Developing SharePoint apps,” covers how to develop SharePoint apps, which are some of the most interesting new features of SharePoint 2013 from a developer perspective. You will find a step-by-step guide about how to create various kinds of apps, as well as information about the new Representational State Transfer (REST) APIs introduced with SharePoint 2013 for consuming SharePoint from external apps. Moreover, you will learn how to develop remote event receivers to create apps capable of reacting to events happening in SharePoint.

Part IV, “Extending SharePoint,” provides deep coverage of the various techniques and extensibility points available for customizing and extending the native SharePoint environment. Four chapters full of realistic examples will help you learn how to create Web Parts, custom pages, and web templates. You will also learn how to take advantage of Business Connectivity Services (BCS) to consume external data sources.

Part V, “Developing workflows,” delves into workflow development. It starts with a brief introduction of Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) 4.0 and the new workflow architecture in SharePoint 2013, moving to workflows designed with SharePoint Designer 2013 or developed with Microsoft Visual Studio 2012. This part ends with more advanced topics, such as workflow forms, custom activities, and workflow management services.

Part VI, “Security infrastructure,” examines the security infrastructure of SharePoint from an architectural viewpoint, covering topics like authentication, authorization, and the claims-based approach, and delves into identity federation and custom claims-based scenarios. You will learn how to federate SharePoint 2013 with Windows Azure Access Control Services (ACS) and with a custom self-developed identity provider.

This book presents information using conventions designed to make the information readable and easy to follow.

You will need the following hardware and software to complete the practice examples in this book:

To run an on-premises SharePoint farm, you will need the following:

Depending on your Windows configuration, you might require local administrator rights to install or configure Visual Studio 2012, SQL Server 2008/2012, and SharePoint 2013 products.

You can download the code samples for this book from the following page:

http://aka.ms/SP2013DevRef/files

The code sample ZIP file includes a child ZIP file for each chapter, which provides sample projects. In particular, you can find the following:

You can use these sample projects as a reference for everyday needs, and you may find it useful copy code excerpts from these samples into your real solutions.

This book has been a long and time-consuming process for me. I have worked toward the completion of this project for about one year. However, a book is the result of the work of many people. Unfortunately, only the author has his or her name on the cover. This section is only partial compensation for the other individuals who helped out.

First, I would like to thank Microsoft Press, O’Reilly, and all the publishing people who contributed to this book project. Mainly, I’d like to thank Ben Ryan and Kenyon Brown, who—once again—trusted in me and gave me the opportunity to realize an idea I have believed in for a long time. Ken supported me through this book project for more than a year; he helped me focus on the content outline, and provided suggestions and guidelines to accomplish this task. Another person deserving a really big acknowledgment is Linda Laflamme, who assisted me along the whole project timeline, keeping me on track, reviewing my chapters, and providing thorough suggestions, feedback, and tips. From the copyediting team, I would like to thank Christopher Hearse and Damon Larson for their accurate work.

I would also like to thank Jussi Roine, one of the most brilliant SharePoint Microsoft Certified Masters (MCMs) that I know, for his accurate, smart, proactive, and great technical review. Jussi, you did a really great job—thank you very much, buddy! You deserve gallons of beer!

I will never stop thanking my mentor, Giovanni Librando. As usual, Giovanni provided me a wealth of ideas, feedback, and tips to achieve this goal.

I’d like to thank my parents and my original family for their support and presence during the last year and for having trusted me during my entire professional career.

Lastly, but most importantly, I want to thank my family—my wife, Paola; my son, Andrea; and my daughter, Marta—for their support, patience, and understanding during the last year. It has been a difficult and very busy year. You have supported me greatly, and you renounced spending many hours with me because of this book. I know I’ve asked a huge sacrifice of you, and I want to thank you for your support, trust, and understanding!

We’ve made every effort to ensure the accuracy of this book and its companion content. Any errors that have been reported since this book was published are listed on our Microsoft Press site at http://www.oreilly.com:

http://aka.ms/SP2013DevRef/errata

If you find an error that is not already listed, you can report it to us through the same page.

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