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Inline Visualforce Page Layouts!
We’re all used to using inline S-Controls, dragging and dropping them into page layouts. And the entire Salesforce community has been spending tons of time recreating page layouts in Visualforce, just to edit one small piece of a page.
As an example, how would you implement the example at developer.force.com: Visualforce Dynamic Edit Page? You would do it the way it was explained in the blog post!
Well the rules of the game have changed.
As long as you use a Standard Controller, you can now place Visualforce pages IN regular page layouts!
Inline Visualforce Page Layout screenshot
The article was written by Sati Hillyear, who is also an expert on the License Manager Application. Check it out!
[Addendum 5-9-2009: For another example of this, see Jeff Douglas' blog post.]
Upcoming Plans
This is my first blog post since Dreamforce 2008, and I had an amazing time. Hello to everyone I met, and hello to all the people that I said I’d meet – but couldn’t. I left Dreamforce and came to Sydney to visit my family, and am writing this blog post sitting on a deck chair under a setting sun, listening to my niece and nephew play nicely.
This blog post is partly an announcement of X-Squared’s upcoming plans and projects, and partly a way to hold myself to my word. It is said that while managing the Yankees, Joe Torre tried to quit many times, until someone bet him $1000 that he couldn’t quit… and told everyone he knew about the bet. Clearly, $1000 is small change to Torre, but the pressure of the whole world knowing his plan to quit helped him quite a bit. So here is X-Squared On Demand’s list of projects and plans (outside of the standard billing work for our amazing clients):
Jon Mountjoy suggested that I pick one Salesforce development feature and learn it completely instead of making the mistake of trying to learn everything and doing it all poorly. I chose Visualforce. All my side projects from now on will involve Visualforce to some degree.
- Lookup to Picklist: I’ve always been interested in lookup fields and have written some interesting implementations that use error messages and custom buttons to simplify and focus allowed values for lookups. Here, I plan to present the user with a list of all the target records available and to present them in a picklist. (Of course, if there are more than 50 records, I will leave the field as a lookup.)
- Filtered Lookup: I have the code for a filtered lookup that utilizes a three-page wizard to choose the proper record for a lookup, but I want to simplify this to allow an administrator to limit a lookup to one Record Type or any other hard-coded filter. Then I’ll use a simplified wizard to enhance that feature, which would basically be like using the lookup filters in Enhanced Lookups currently available in the standard UI.
- NonProfit EventForce using Google Sites: We started this project at Dreamforce 2008, and I have a non-profit client who would like a tool to allow registration for various kinds of events. This is a super opportunity to expand upon this hackathon project. Colin Loretz has agreed to help on this, and Steve Wright of Salesforce.com Foundation has offered to provide a salesforce.com technical resource if we make the code open-source. I told Steve that in my mind I was writing the code for the Foundation, and that the Foundation could do whatever it wanted with the code. So keep an eye out for this in the next month or two.
- Airport Codes to Full Name of the airport when entered into a field, using Visualforce.
- SIC to NAICS: I have NO idea why Salesforce CRM is so attached to SIC codes–after all, the government has completed its changeover to NAICS codes. I plan to use the existing conversion charts provided by the government to allow orgs to convert their data from SIC to NAICS.
- Google Maps as a Data Enrichment Tool: Input the ZIP Code, and Google Maps will return a city/state. Or input the Street and City/State, and Google Maps will return the ZIP Code. Sorry, DemandTools and Postcode Anywhere, this might cut into your profit margin.
- Drop.io for AppExchange: I love drop.io as a file sharing and storage tool, and with the release of their API–and Ron Hess’s explanation of his XMLDom Apex Class, it may be time to create a nice app allowing 100MB of storage per record in Salesforce CRM. It might require a couple of hacks before it can be used for more than standard objects, but this will likely be my ongoing work in progress.
- Use Amazon EC2 Windows to put the Workbench in the Cloud.
- And finally, I will spend the next year making a list of everyone I want to meet at Dreamforce 2009, and will find a way to see everyone there!
There are probably many more ideas sketched on napkins and pads of paper around my office, but this is a beginning list of projects I’m most passionate about. If anyone would like to help with any, please let me know!
X-Squared at Dreamforce 2008
Please be sure to register for sessions at Dreamforce.
And DEFINITELY don’t miss my session!
Wrangle Data & Pump up the Configuration
“I’m administering Salesforce. I’ve learned the ropes. Now I want to get great!” In this session, we’ll review the latest insights and subtlties that top Salesforce consultants have learned on the front lines. We’ll focus on data and configuration to help cut the time you spend massaging data. You’ll also learn how to implement tricky config quirks you never thought possible.
Speaker: Ezra Kenigsberg, SALESFORCE.COM
Speaker: David Schach, X-Squared On Demand LLC
Date: Monday, November 3
Time: 11:45 a.m. – 12:45 p.m.
I’m on the Administrator track – we’ll be providing tips for configuring your org implementation and optimizations, and for ensuring that things remain smooth as you move forward as a Super Administrator.
Winter 09 (156) – New And Updated Documentation
More Winter 09 documentation has been released. Scott Hemmeter wrote a post listing some of the pages containing new content, but I wanted to go a bit in-depth on those and some other parts of developer.force.com.
Documentation
This should be your first stop whenever you have any questions about ANYTHING on the Platform. It has sections on Web Services API (formerly just called API, to distinguish it from Metadata API), Metadata API, Apex, Visualforce, AJAX, Office Toolkit, Force.com Migration Tool, IDE, and the Library.
Core Resources
In addition to a super Documentation page, force.com has a new section which contains, well, resources sectioned by the Platform’s service categories: Logic (Apex), User Interface (Visualforce), Database (Objects, formulas, triggers, etc.), Integration (API, REST), Services –What? We now have Services as a Service?–(Workflow), Packaging and Distribution (AppExchange), Development (Metadata), and Tools (IDE, Force.com Builder, Data Loader).
Now that we’ve seen my two favorite pages, let’s look at the content on the Documentation page:
- Web Services API – No longer in Prerelease, the 14.0 documentation is finalized for 156. Version 13.0 is still online.
- Metadata API – Also no longer in Prerelease, version 14.0 is available. Don’t worry; version 13.0 is still available!
- Visualforce – Also no longer in Prerelease. View Online or PDF.
- Question: Why “release” the prerelease version when it has things we can’t use in Summer 08 orgs? Seems premature.
- Apex – Same story: Version 14.0 is ready, but I can’t find 13.0 online. I guess it doesn’t matter much, except to those of us coding in 154 orgs who might use 156 features.
- AJAX – This one is available in 14.0 and 13.0 flavors.
Note: For those of you wondering about all the 13.0/14.0 and 154/156 references, here’s a guide:
With each release, Salesforce CRM (the new name for the application) increments two numbers.
Releases are generally three times a year, and increment the release number by TWO. Yes, we have only even numbers. So Winter 09 is 156, Winter 08 was 150, Summer 06 was 142, etc. Releases are in Winter, Spring, and Summer of each year, named according to the season in San Francisco, the site of salesforce.com’s corporate headquarters. Counting backwards, some say that the original release was 62. I have no idea why that number was chosen. Of note, salesforce.com refers to its org as 62; maybe that has something to do with it. My bet is that salesforce.com has Unlimited Edition, by the way. Just a hunch.
API versions are incremented by 1 each release. There have been some smaller releases, which is why you might find references to #.1 here and there. As you can see, Summer 08 was version 13, and Winter 09 is version 14.
This is my question: Why do we call the release Winter 09 when it is clearly coming out in 2008? I don’t have an answer to that; does anyone?
Winter 09 Main Page
This is my starting point for all things 156, though I wish the links worked. For more information on specific features, download the PDF files in the sidebar of this page.
Salesforce Application Name Change to Salesforce CRM
As you can see from these logos, with the Winter 09 release the application Salesforce is now called Salesforce CRM.
To clarify any confusion:
The company is called salesforce.com (no capitalization).
The application is called Salesforce CRM.
The platform is still force.com.
Force.com Logo - Winter 09
SFA Logo 156
Marketing Logo - Winter 09
Ideas Logo - Winter 09
Support Logo - Winter 09
