- [Phil] Let's start looking at

some of the things that JavaScript

is used for in SharePoint.

Now, before we begin,

I have another disclaimer for you.

You cannot embed JavaScript on SharePoint

modern experience pages,

at least not at this time.

Microsoft has realized that a lot

of the service issues they need to solve

for people are the result of them modifying CSS,

changing master pages,

creating custom themes, et cetera.

Their response has been to increasingly

lock down what people can do in SharePoint,

basically removing the problematic features.

Unfortunately, these are pretty valuable things.

So you can imagine the squawking.

I personally think that at some point,

they'll be forced to restore features,

but for now,

if you want finer control of your sites,

you'll want to stick to the classic experience

wherever possible.

That's sad, but it's the way it is.

Anyways.

Thing number one you can do with JavaScript.

It lets you add or modify UI elements

on the screen.

I can actually give you a great example

of where SharePoint is already using JavaScript.

This is stuff that's happening behind the scenes

when you change views for libraries

or lists.

Let's take this library as an example.

Here's the normal view.

Now what happens if I go in,

and modify the view.

More specifically, what happens

if I change the view style.

I'm always surprised at how few people

seem to know about view styles.

This is a fairly useful little tool

that changes the way view information

is displayed above and beyond specifying,

which fields are shown filtering and the like.

I'm going to pick this newsletter

no lines style,

and will apply that.

So the look of the list has changed noticeably.

We have alternating lines,

the lines themselves are spaced out differently.

What happened?

Let's take a quick look

at the page source in developer mode.

Check out this script down here.

This section is looking for what form

we are using for our data display,

and just a little further along,

there's basically all the changes described,

and put into play.

Other ways you could use JavaScript for UI.

Let's say you wanted to change

the actual input form.

By redefining the form,

and form displays with JavaScript,

you can make one column into two

or change font colors.

Yes.

There are other tools you can use to do this,

but this is definitely a way to coax

a little bit more out of your sites

with JavaScript.

(upbeat instrumental music)