 In this episode, I want to answer the question of when Microsoft released the SharePoint framework, but I don't just want to tackle the question of when it was initially released, let's look at some of the major milestones in the history of the SharePoint framework. Hey, I'm New Piazza. This episode is also available as a blog post on botanos.io and as a podcast on botanos.show. Check out the description below the video for links to these other resources. If this is your first time here, be sure to hit that big red subscribe button. Microsoft first introduced their plans for the SharePoint framework at their virtual event, the Future of SharePoint in May of 2016. All we really learned was the motivation and some high-level marketing with a pre-recorded demo creating a solution. It wasn't until a few weeks later when the first developer preview was released to developers that we could start playing with something. And after Microsoft shipped multiple developer preview release candidates throughout the remainder of 2016, in February of 2017, Microsoft released the first production version of the SharePoint framework to developers. This first version was only available in SharePoint Online and it included the most basic parts of the SharePoint framework. The V1 release included the core SharePoint framework runtime, the developer and build tool chain, and the ability to create client-side web parts. The first release also required developers to deploy their projects in two different parts. One part registered the SharePoint framework component with SharePoint by deploying an app package to the app catalog and make SharePoint Online aware of the fact that component was there. And then the other part that developers had to deploy were the files that were related to their component like the JavaScript bundle or CSS files. And at a minimum, this included three different files. We had the manifest file, that pointed to the other files that made up the component. So this was the file that was referenced by the files that we deployed to SharePoint and it's what SharePoint framework used to figure out what else do I need to load. The JavaScript bundle represented the SharePoint framework component or the client-side web part. And then the JavaScript file that localized all the strings in the default SharePoint framework language, which was US English. Now later in the summer of 2017, Microsoft quickly expanded the feature set to include something called extensions. And that was in version 1.3.1. SharePoint framework extensions were introduced to enable common SharePoint user experience customizations that previously were only available in classic sites, but now would be available in modern sites. And you can learn more about the different extensions from one of the other episodes in this series of what is the SharePoint framework and what can you build. There were two major milestones late in 2017 related to the SharePoint framework. The first of which didn't really involve an update to the SharePoint framework, rather it was an update to SharePoint Server 2016, because Microsoft added support for the SharePoint framework to SharePoint Server 2016. And this happened with the install in the deployment of feature pack two for SharePoint Server 2016. Now there's different versions of the SharePoint framework for a SharePoint online and SharePoint Server 2016. It's worth noting that the version that we have in SharePoint online and what's in SharePoint Server 2016, they're not the same nor will they ever be. And it's because of a couple different reasons. First of all, the on premise installations of SharePoint Server, they always trail behind SharePoint online due to the time it takes to test package and validate and even distribute the on premises versions of SharePoint compared to SharePoint online. The second reason is that some of the components in the SharePoint framework will only work in a modern experience. And this is the case with SharePoint framework extensions. SharePoint framework extensions only work in a modern experience. So the modern experience, that didn't get added to SharePoint Server on premises until SharePoint Server 2019. If you want to learn more about like the different options for SharePoint Server and on premises related to the SharePoint framework, check out a couple different videos that I've done on the definitive guides for working with SharePoint framework on SharePoint on premises. Now the other significant milestone late in 2017, that involved a simplified deployment for SharePoint framework solutions in SharePoint online. Prior to 1.4, the SharePoint framework version 1.4, as I said a minute ago, developers had to deploy two different sets of resources for new and updated solutions. One set went to SharePoint to register the new component. The other set went somewhere else, an external hosting location to serve up the components and the manifest in the bundles. But with the 1.4 release, Microsoft introduced a new property called include client-side assets. That was that was added to the SPFX solution manifest. And when this property was set to true, SharePoint framework build tool chain would be able to include component manifest and the bundles resulting in the SharePoint package file. Then upon deployment, these files are extracted from the package and deployed to the tenants Office 365 CDN configuration. This improvement reduced the deployment steps from two down to one and that developers no longer had to deploy stuff to some other location, really simplified things. Now in 2018, the SPFX 1.4.1 release introduced the ability to call Azure AD secured APIs from SharePoint framework solutions. Now this was this was introduced as kind of like a preview mode. This also included support for calling Microsoft Graph solutions. Again, this was released in preview, not in production or not in like a supported way just yet that came a little bit later. Now in Microsoft also released SharePoint Server 2019 in September of 2018. They also included support for the SharePoint framework 1.4.1. So now right out of the box, SharePoint Server on premises 2019 had support for SharePoint 2019. Then the next major milestone was in June of 2020. And that's when Microsoft added support for adding SharePoint framework solutions to Microsoft's app source and app sources. This allowed developers and ISVs to reach other organizations by easily installing your SPFX solutions in their Microsoft 365 tenants. Now those are all like the major milestones that we've seen related to the SharePoint framework. There's been lots of little milestones, but I wanted to cover like the main the really big main things here in this series. You got a question or comment? Let me know what you think by dropping a comment in the video below or tweeting me at Andrew Connell or at Voitanos. And if you liked this episode, man, I'd really appreciate if you'd share it with the rest of your friends. This episode is also available as a blog post on Voitanos.io.