Forum Discussion
Modern webparts in SharePoint Server subscription Edition?
Some of the improvements you have mentioned are indeed good but I have to say you are really missing the mark with this release. 99% of modern UX we are getting with it is exactly the same as SP19 which is already sorely lacking compared to online. How can you say the goal is not to close the feature gap when we are talking even about simple things like the fonts on online are much more readable than on SP19 / SE?
I find it hard to believe that none of the customers you have talked to have been asking for more of the web parts seen online in your on-premises solution and furthermore for the existing web parts to incorporate all of the functionality / options that their online counterparts have. For you to base this new product on a many years old forked version of online (AKA SP19) is astounding and even more astounding to claim it is somehow a giant leap forward. I can tell you that most of our users prefer to continue using classic experience because of how limited modern is in these offerings.
MicrosoftHi sharepointWoes, can you provide more details about your font concerns? I took a quick look at SharePoint Online and SharePoint Server Subscription Edition and didn't notice an obvious difference in fonts.
It's true that many of our investments in SharePoint Server Subscription Edition have focused on the core architecture of SharePoint. These are often less visible to customers, but are needed to ensure its long-term supportability. You can think of it as whether we should focus on remodeling a kitchen vs. replacing a house's foundation that has developed several cracks over the years. The cracks are easy to ignore and you'd get to enjoy the benefits of a remodeled kitchen immediately. But you may have wasted your money if the house's long-term structural stability is in question. From talking with our customers, more and more of them are using SharePoint Server for their most sensitive data scenarios while moving the rest to SharePoint Online. The long-term stability and security of their on-premises environments are among their top concerns.
We also spent (and continue to spend) a significant amount of engineering effort on accessibility. This is again based on the direct feedback from customers who say they need strong accessibility support to be able to continue to use the product.
I'm sorry if there were improvements you were hoping to see that weren't in the SharePoint Server Subscription Edition RTM release. As I mentioned previously in this thread, we now have the ability to more easily provide new and improved features over time to SharePoint Server Subscription Edition instead of having to wait ~ 3 years for a new major release. So I hope you'll continue to share feedback about what you'd like to see in SharePoint Server going forward. We really do want to have productive conversations with our customers and learn more about your needs. And as always, specific feedback with specific explanations of why it's needed are much more actionable for us as we do our planning and prioritization. (For example, "I'd like web part X to be available in on-prem because I need it to unblock scenario Y" is more likely to get traction than "I want all of the SPO web parts in on-prem.")