Why there is Server Connection “Online” While Developing WebParts in VS2012 for SP2013

Question

I am new to SharePoint. And though I am taking my training on CloudShare by creating cloud machine of SharePoint-2013.

When ever I am developing any visual WebPart in Visual Studio 2012 there is one property called ServerConnection of the Project Which is always set to Online.

I want know that why it is set to Online? When I use one WebPart which was developed in SharePoint 2010 in that there was not set that property to online. when I changed the Site URL property It automatically changed to Online.

And now I have installed SharePoint-2013 in my PC and VS2012 also. And in that again the same property is displaying. ServerConnection : Online.

Is it because I am using the CloudShare Or there are different reasons for deploying the WebParts???

Thank you in advance for the answers...!!

Answer 1

I don't think it has to do something with you being on CloudShare. I get the same value of the property when I am completely on-premise on my local dev box.

This property was a new inclusion in Visual Studio 2012 tooling to show you whether Visual Studio can connect to the SharePoint Site which you have specified in the Site Url property.

The SharePoint section includes the Active Deployment Configuration property, which you use to specify the series of steps that are performed during deployment; the Server Connection property, which you use to specify whether the project connects to the server that's running SharePoint; and the Site URL property, which you use to specify the URL where the app for SharePoint is located.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj220042.aspx#SP15projprop_properties

The link focuses on App Project properties but the same should hold true for Web Part Projects too.