如何更新存储在Sharepoint加载项应用程序文件中的URL？

Question

I created an High-Trust add-in for SharePoint 2013 with custom ribbon action and custom menu action.

For this, I have an ASP.NET MVC WebSite with the methods in the controller which match with the virtual urls put as custom action url. So, in the different elements.xml files, I filled action urls using the token 'remoteUrl', so no problem with the mapping.

When i create a package with VS2013, I write the url of my website which is on VM reachable from SP Server, and the client ID (I got from SP while registring my app). When I click on 'Finish', VS2013 generates a file '.app' which can be imported in SP online store or SP internal store.

Here is my problem, if I need to change the address of my website (which is stored in the app file, VS2013 just replaces the token 'RemoteUrl' with the url I give to it), is there any clean way to update the app file or may be if possible, directly the app stored in the SP application store (local to the server) ?

I found nothing for this problem. I saw few things about updating app with events and web services, but I didn't understood.

[EDIT] : I didn't understood that I have to change app version each time I need to update it that's why It didn't worked. Also, it seems that there is no other way to update the url in app file than modifying the AppManifest.xml in app file (which is a zip).

Answer 1

In one of my projects we used to do it with the following PowerShell script. It extracted the app file (it's just a ZIP) and modified multiple nodes in the manifest XML. For packaging it uses a local copy of 7zip.

function ModifyAppPackage($appPackagePath, $applicationUrl, $clientId){
[Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.IO.Compression.FileSystem");

$item = get-item $appPackagePath;    
$zipFilePath = Join-Path $item.Directory.FullName $($item.BaseName + ".zip");

Copy-Item $item $zipFilePath;

$unzipDirectory = Join-Path $PSScriptRoot "\Temp";
New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force -Path $unzipDirectory;

if (Test-Path -Path $unzipDirectory\*)
{
    Remove-Item $unzipDirectory\* -Force -Confirm:$false -Recurse:$true;
}

[System.IO.Compression.ZipFile]::ExtractToDirectory($zipFilePath, $unzipDirectory);

$modifiedFile = Join-Path $unzipDirectory "modified.txt"
if (Test-Path -Path $modifiedFile)
{
    $modifiedContent = Get-Content $modifiedFile
    if ($modifiedContent -eq $applicationUrl)
    {
        Remove-Item $unzipDirectory -Confirm:$false -Recurse:$true;
        Remove-Item $zipFilePath;
        return;
    }
    Remove-Item $modifiedFile;
}
$modifiedFileContent = $applicationUrl;
$modifiedFileContent >> $modifiedFile;


$manifestFileName = "AppManifest.xml";
$manifestFilePath = Join-Path $unzipDirectory $manifestFileName;
$manifestXml = [xml](get-content $manifestFilePath);

$nameSpaceManager = New-Object System.Xml.XmlNamespaceManager($manifestXml.NameTable);
$nameSpaceManager.AddNamespace("ns", $manifestXml.DocumentElement.NamespaceURI);

$startPageElement = $manifestXml.SelectSingleNode("/ns:App/ns:Properties/ns:StartPage", $nameSpaceManager);
$StartPage = $applicationUrl + "?{StandardTokens}"
$startPageElement.'#text' = $StartPage


$InstalledEventEndpointElement = $manifestXml.SelectSingleNode("/ns:App/ns:Properties/ns:InstalledEventEndpoint", $nameSpaceManager);
$InstalledEventEndpoint = $applicationUrl + "/Services/AppEventReceiver.svc"
$InstalledEventEndpointElement.'#text' = $InstalledEventEndpoint

$clientIdElement = $manifestXml.SelectSingleNode("/ns:App/ns:AppPrincipal/ns:RemoteWebApplication", $nameSpaceManager);
$clientIdElement.ClientId = $clientId;  

$manifestXml.Save($manifestFilePath);

if (Test-Path -Path $zipFilePath)
{
    Remove-Item $zipFilePath;
}

$pathToZipExe = $("$PSScriptRoot\7za.exe");
[Array]$arguments = "a", "-tzip", "$zipFilePath", "$unzipDirectory\*.*", "-r";
& $pathToZipExe $arguments;

# Cleanup
Remove-Item $unzipDirectory -Confirm:$false -Recurse:$true;
Remove-Item $appPackagePath -Confirm:$false;

# Rename new zip to .app
Rename-Item $zipFilePath $appPackagePath -Force -Confirm:$false;

return $true;

}

Answer 2

I think it would be possible to store the url in one of custom list in the app. Refer the url from the list. Whenever you need to change the url it can be done from the app itself.