A very typical approach for client side development in SharePoint is to throw the code onto the page where you need it. You can alternatively put into the master page, but generally speaking, most code doesn’t need to run on each and every page. The following describes my preferred, tried and true, method of handling this.

Upload the Assets

Say you have some great JavaScript code provided by a developer or blogger, and you want to now use it on your page. First things first, get the JavaScript into your SharePoint site!

Upload the JS file into a library. I generally use SiteAssets, with a small folder structure for organization, like SiteAssets\js, or if there is more, sometimes like SiteAssets\webparts\mywebpartname.

Once the JS is uploaded, we now need a HTML file to reference it. This can be pretty simple HTML file. You can create it on your desktop (create a new text file, and rename the extension to .html) or using SharePoint Designer, you can create it directly in SharePoint. Throw it in the same place as your JS file, or however you have your assets structured.

As an example, we’ll take a block of code from one of my blog posts, we’re going to throw the necessary HTML and JS into the HTML file you created, something like:

<script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.10.2/jquery.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="/SiteAssets/Lozzi.Fields.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function(){
ExecuteOrDelayUntilScriptLoaded(function(){
Lozzi.Fields.disableWithAllowance("Start Date", ["Project Managers"]);
Lozzi.Fields.disable("Task Status");
Lozzi.Fields.hide("% Complete");
},"sp.js");
});
</script>

This is all the HTML and code needed to run the JS I’m working with. Notice Line 2, the second <script tag. This is the path to the JS file you uploaded into SharePoint. Make sure the path is correct. This block of code above will differ for each and every JS example you work with.

Once the HTML file is saved, navigate to it through your browser and copy the link to the HTML file. You can do this simply by clicking on the file’s ellipses, the …, and copy the URL from there

Embed in SharePoint

Ok, now that we have the JS file uploaded, and a HTML file created, let’s embed it in SharePoint! This is the easy part.

Navigate to the page you want to use this code on. Just use your browser and click to go to the page, pretty simple so far right?

Now edit the page: click the cog in the top right and select Edit Page

Once the page is in edit mode, click Add a Web Part button at the top of a zone, it doesn’t matter too much where. If you don’t have an Add a Web Part button, you’re probably using a wiki page, so click anywhere in the content area where you want add a web part, then click Insert Web Part.

In the Add web part ribbon, select Media and Content on the left, and then select Content Editor. Click Add to add to your page. You should have something like:

Notice the Content Editor web part added. Now click the web part, in the top right, and edit the web part.

In the tool pane on the right, paste in the URL to the HTML file. Click OK.

Afterwards, your content editor web part may look empty, or you may see some of your HTML, it depends on what you’re working with. My example, I’m just using JavaScript to hide fields on my page.

Save the page and you should be good to go! Your code should fire off and you should see things happening. If not, if you question what’s going on, try using the developer tool bar in your browser, more on how here.

A couple of notes:

• You may want to modify the Content Editor Web Part’s Chrome Type setting to hide the title from view
• If you receive the error “Cannot retrieve the URL specified in the Content Link property. For more assistance, contact your site administrator.”, check the URL you’re pasting in. SharePoint can’t find it, make sure it’s valid. Paste it into a new browser window and see if downloads the file.
• Make sure to structure your JS and HTML files well, you never know who’s going to look at it next.
• Consider using the URL to the HTML file as a relative URL instead of a absolute URL. How? Consider the following URL is an absolute URL: https://sharepoint/sites/sitename/siteassets/myfile.js. Make it relative by dropping the first part: /sites/sitename/siteassets/myfile.js. This will keep it a wee bit more flexible and migrations in the future should be a little easier.

‘Til next time, Happy SharePointing!