Overview: The use of Apps (specifically SPHA) in SharePoint seems to be misunderstood, developers and architects often want to use the App model for functionality that folks have built using previous versions of SharePoint. Apps are reusable pieces of custom logic akin to a specialised document library.
The app needs to be deployed to the catalogue store and permissions granted to leverage SP functionality.
SharePoint Hosted Apps (SPHA) are the internal sub web created with SharePoint, that can use JavaScript to perform customisation.
For example I want to read values from a term set, you can simply embed JavaScript and using the current users context get the term set data you want.
Permissions in SPHA run in the context of the current user as opposed to Provider Hosted Apps that can run in either: current user context, app context or app and current user context.
Deployed JavaScript will perform exactly the same when called from a page or from a SharePoint page or from within the SPHA (app web). JavaScript runs in the context of the current user for both approaches.
The following embedded JavaScript works both in a web part page or in a page inside a SPHA (app web):
<script type="text/javascript">
var termSetName = //document.getElementById('termsetID').value;
var locale = 1033; // your locale. Here is English
var context = SP.ClientContext.get_current(); //User the current users context.
var taxonomySession = SP.Taxonomy.TaxonomySession.getTaxonomySession(context);
var termStore = taxonomySession.getDefaultSiteCollectionTermStore();
var termSets = termStore.getTermSetsByName(termSetName, locale);
var termSet = termSets.getByName(termSetName);
var terms = termSet.getAllTerms();
context.load(taxonomySession);
context.load(termStore);
context.load(termSet);
context.load(terms);
context.executeQueryAsync(function onSucess(){
var termEnumerator = terms.getEnumerator();
var termList = "Terms: <br/>";
while(termEnumerator.moveNext()){
var currentTerm = termEnumerator.get_current();
termList += currentTerm.get_name() + "<br/>";
}
Windows.alert(termList);// Output to the screen
},function onFailure(args){
// Notify user of error
});
}
The user only needs to be a visitor to have read access to the term store. JS works in the same way whether inside an SPHA or within a page on a SharePoint site.
“Apps that do not make OAuth authenticated calls (for example,
apps that are only JavaScript running in the app web)
cannot use the app-only policy. They can request the permission, but they will not be able to take advantage of it because doing so requires passing an app-only OAuth token.
Only apps with web applications running outside of SharePoint can create and pass app-only tokens.”
MSDN article
JavaScript inside a SPHA can only run within the context of the current user.
Provider-Hosted Apps (PHA) can use either:
- context token (user context)
- user+app access token
- app-only access
This was spoon fed to me from some good folks I'm working with Nick, Sachin & Peter- thank-you.
