SPFx: Develop using SharePoint Framework without Installing all the dependecies.

SharePoint Framework (SPFx) has been around for more than 5 years now with being Generally available since Feb 2017. 

In the recent times, its been possible to develop webparts for SharePoint on-prem as well using SPFx and with that it is getting harder to maintain multiple versions of required toolchains. e.g. Node.

For M365 you can use the latest version of SPFx but probably you know, if you aim to develop webparts for the SharePoint Server 2016 platform, for instance, you need to use the SharePoint Framework v1.1.0 due to the server-side version dependencies. So yet another challenge is using the correct version of the SPFx and Nodejs for the particular project.

Although I personally used to like Node Version Manager which lets you manage multiple installations of node.js on a Windows computer but still one needs to isolate SharePoint Framework dependencies if you are targeting multiple platform from on PC.

2nd Problematic scenario begins when you start developing SPFx extension in a team. It becomes error prone as team members seldom upgrade to a new version.

For such as setting and gettging rid of platform dependence, Docker Container with SPFx Toolcahin based solution from Waldek Mastykarz is awesomely optimal one. 

He did not stop there at creating an image just for the latest version of  SPFx rather he offers Docker image’s for all the available versions and they have been shared to public, which is a time and life saver for alot of developers out there. With that a developer is able to install the entire setup SPFx on their PC which may not be actaully required for Productive environment. 

Here is the Pnp Webcast on using Docker image:



In nutshell, it means you can simply try SharePoint Framework without installing the entire Toolchain. 

Docker Image can be found here. 


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