A downloadable wall poster that documents the JavaScript API for Office is the latest ploy to persuade developers to create apps for the Office Store.

Microsoft wants developers to extend the Office 2013 applications with apps using web technologies such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, REST, OData, and OAuth. The idea is to provide new experiences in Office applications by bring cloud services into  Office documents, email messages, meeting requests, and appointments.

There are three basic types of apps for Office: task pane, content, and mail and the common components for all of these are an XML manifest and a webpage:

The Overview of Apps for Office explains that an app for Office is expected to have similar functionality to a webpage within a browser, such as:

• Provide an interactive UI and custom logic through JavaScript.

• Use JavaScript frameworks such as jQuery.

• Connect to REST endpoints and web services via HTTP and AJAX.

• Run server-side code or logic, if the page is implemented using a server-side scripting language such as ASP or PHP.

This video gives an overview of how Apps for Office are expected to work;

Apps for Office interact with the Office application and the user's content through a JavaScript library provided by the infrastructure and to help developers quickly make use of the JavaScript API for Office Microsoft has produced a full-color, large-scale mapping of its objects, methods, properties, events, and enumerations. The poster is provided in PDF format and when you print it from the PDF, you should specify the dimensions as 22 in. by 34 in. (56 cm by 87 cm).

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