Customizing the "modern" experiences in SharePoint Online - your opinion?

Vesa wrote:

► thx @Oliver Zeiser for starting this thread. We are absolutely interested on input around this. Would like to also point out that whatever is currently supported from customization perspective, is just a start and more capabilities will be supported gradually when those are finalized and ready to get published.

We would though absolutely be interested on hearing what are the key missing capabilities currently and other input around the questions what Oliver pointed out.

Your input truly matters, so thx for everyone's feedback and comments advance. 

C'mon Vesa, you are turning into a shepherd who's sole Microsoft job it is to keep the flock at ease.

Your response is straight from the Community Manager 101 Textbook, chapter "How to silence threads"

You very well know what everyone wants to customize, you have been in this game for years.

You also know about Oliviers UserVoice post, so this reply here is kinda stupid to all those who are watching these threads.

https://sharepoint.uservoice.com/forums/329214-sites-and-collaboration/suggestions/13385364-allow-javascript-customization-and-css-branding-th

In no particular order

• Ability to customise or replace the "SharePoint" landing page
• More/improved web parts - currently it's too basic and cannot even add tables, lists of links or even change the font colour.
• View/edit source, to at least keep us going until later improvements
• More flexible navigation options
• Custom page banners
• Alternative layouts
• SharePoint Add-ins in modern pages, or a spfx alternative (thinking about accessing on premise sql servers here)
• Ability to add Office 365 navigation elements to Azure AD (provider hosted) apps

One concern I do have is that we have created new sites as Team sites, as they support Modern pages. I will not be happy if it turns out we can only customise on sites originally created as publishing sites.

I think there is nothing wrong with adding new capabilities over time or replacing existing techniques with new ones or changing technology. But taking away existing options by adding deny policies without replacement is just wrong. Also making the modern sites the new default is wrong.

I have been involved in so many SharePoint projects over the last 13 years and I have not seen a single one that was successfull without some sort of customizations.

Defining the key missing capabilities is almost impossible as each project has different requirements. But i'll try my best:

1. Corporate design and full flexibility in how the sites look like. This is even more important, when using SharePoint not only as intranet, but as an extranet solution.

2. Adding certain elements (e.g. global cross site navigation) or hiding certain elements (e.g. site settings or sharing button). Especially hiding things that do not respect security trimming and show error messages to the users when clicking on them.

3. Custom page layouts or custom webpart pages. (e.g. multiple columns of webpart zones)

4. Preprovision certain elements befor the user hits the page for the first time. E.g. additional libraries, fields, contenttypes, policies, webparts....

5. Custom Ribbon/Toolbar buttons to enhance functionality via apps.

6. Enrich the site with metadata. (e.g. indexed property bag)

To sum it up. There is no real order of what is more important over the other. It always depends on the project and the requirements as well as the skills of the people involved. This is also not a discussion about the technology. It is about taking away key functionality of the product that people have used over the years without replacing it in some way or another.

Yes there still is classic. But how long will it be there? Customers are asking themselves, how big is the risk to still invest in classic? What is the future direction? What will be possible in the future? What if we would like to use groups and teams that depend on modern sites? Right now we and our customers are stuck in a situation where we have to decide whether we stick with classic and make not use of the new functionalities or make use of the modern sites knowing that this is not going to cut it in most projects.

So what would really help is a clear roadmap together with an explenation why Microsoft is taking away all those options people have loved and used over time.

In my opinion, the key missing capabilities are to have an ability to:

• publish custom CSS and JS throught modern pages (at least scriptlink)
• use some sort of CSR alternative in modern views
• use some sort of CSR alternative or CEWP on modern forms