Developing an outlook helper–part 4 from 5–javascript / Office 365 project

Series

 

Developing Outlook helper – introduction

Developing Outlook helper-VBA macro

Developing Outlook helper-C#

Developing Outlook helper – javascript for Office 365

Developing Outlook helper – conclusions

Develop like it was 201x:

Read about Office Javascript API and try to understand the documentation – https://dev.office.com/docs/add-ins/develop/understanding-the-javascript-api-for-office . Then realize there are some samples where you can start: https://dev.outlook.com/Samples/Addins .

You find Hello World addin (https://github.com/jasonjoh/hello-world-addin) and decide to try it. Download to the PC . The files are

C:\Users\aignat\Downloads\hello-world-addin-master\hello-world-addin-master
.gitattributes
.gitignore
app
HelloWorld.xml
LICENSE.TXT
README.md
app\compose
app\content
app\images
app\read
app\scripts
app\compose\App.css
app\compose\App.js
app\compose\Home
app\compose\Home\Home.css
app\compose\Home\Home.html
app\compose\Home\Home.js
app\content\Office.css
app\images\Close.png
app\read\App.css
app\read\App.js
app\read\Home
app\read\Home\Home.css
app\read\Home\Home.html
app\read\Home\Home.js
app\scripts\jquery-1.9.1.js

You find eventually the code that reads the email data ( in the Home.js ) and displays data(in the Home.html)

You see that this line finds the email

var item = Office.cast.item.toItemRead(Office.context.mailbox.item);

You want to modify the  code. You do not have intellisense helpers, but just documentation.

Test like it was 201x:

SO you have now a bunch of files. How to test it? You cannot test with Outlook. You do not want to deploy to Microsoft store yet. It is testing, right?

You read again what it should be done from       Hello World addin (https://github.com/jasonjoh/hello-world-addin) – and now I am quoting

"

  1. Copy the app directory from the project to your web server.
  2. Open manifest.xml in a text editor and update all instances of https://<your web server> to the base URL of the directory on your web server where you deployed the app directory.
  3. Logon to Outlook Web Access. Click on the gear cog in the upper right corner of the page and click on Manage apps.
  4. On the Manage apps page, click on the ‘+’ icon, select Add from file. Browse to the manifest.xml file included in the project.
  5. Return to the Mail view in Outlook Web Access.
  6. To try the read mode functionality of the add-in, open any message and launch the HelloWorld app from the app bar.

“ – end quoting

So you need

  1. a https server  with FTP account to deploy files
  2. an Outlook 365 account

Once you have those, it is a simple process:

  1. Copy files to the https server.
  2. Goto Outlook 365 settings, load addon from HelloWorld.xml .
  3. Verify if all ok
  4. If not, unload the addon from Office 365.
  5. Modify the files to make the app .
  6. GOTO 1

Deploy like it was 201x:

Pass to the Microsoft Store to get a developer ID and deploy to their server the application.