Archives for 2009

Proof that salesforce.com listens – and comprehends

September 29, 2009 by David Schach 3 Comments

About two weeks ago, I posted a list of the many setup steps I took to make my Winter ‘10 prerelease org useable. Those are the same steps I have to take whenever setting up any Developer Edition org for the first time as well.
An insider at salesforce.com forwarded me this email that a senior person sent to quite a few also-senior people on various product teams:

Subject:
Preparing a New Org. Each Pre-Release. In 27 steps.
Body:
Yikes. http://www.x2od.com/2009/09/16/preparing-a-new-org.html

This is not the most widely-read blog about Salesforce, but it feels good to know that salesforce.com does have its ear to the ground and is taking seriously even the indirect feedback that we bloggers provide.

Kudos, salesforce.com.

Preparing a New Org

September 16, 2009 by David Schach 4 Comments

Every time one encounters a fresh org, there are maintenance tasks to perform. I usually go through an org (whether a Developer Edition org or a Prerelease version) and do the same tasks, generally in no particular order. This time, however, I wrote down what I did as I did it. Looking at the list, it's hardly in any "best practices" order at all - it's just how I did it. There's no need to follow every step, and it is not a complete list of all possibilities, but this should give you some idea of the possibilities and available tweaks: (*** indicates some of the new features in WInter '10)

Show Current Year Using Only Visualforce

August 17, 2009 by David Schach 1 Comment

While perusing some websites, looking at html code, I saw something interesting: A company had used Javascript to update the copyright date of its website using Javascript. This is the code. Of course, as a Force.com developer, I prefer to use Visualforce and Apex over Javascript (as it makes the client thinner - thick clients […]

Overload Apex Class to be Controller AND Extension

July 24, 2009 by David Schach 2 Comments

Coding the new premium version of Mass Update Contacts (details to come), I replaced the two parts of the page with Apex Components. This will allow the app to support custom address fields and international address formats. I didn't want to write one ControllerExtension for the main page, a CustomController for the view section component, and another CustomController for the pageblocktable component. So here is the overloaded class constructor. Note that this works because an extension passes the StandardController to the constructor, and a CustomController passes nothing:

Email Inbox Version 2

July 15, 2009 by David Schach 1 Comment

Well, it took about ten minutes from the release of Email Inbox Version 1 for people to request additional features, screenshots, etc. Version 2 includes some neat icons, and this post has the multiple-times-requested screenshots we promised. First, a teaser screenshot. (There's a better one below the code.) Here's the updated Visualforce code: The Apex […]

Visualforce Email Inbox

July 14, 2009 by David Schach 4 Comments

Sonny Cloward, SysAd at Rainforest Alliance, approached us about writing a Visualforce page to display all incoming emails for a given Case Queue. This led to quite a few interesting discoveries. Here's how we handled the project:

Eclipse as a Password Manager

July 10, 2009 by David Schach Leave a Comment

Recently, Judi Sohn wrote about a URL hack to save your Salesforce username and password (in an exposed, plaintext manner). This is a great way to save a lot of time logging into Salesforce. There is another way to save un/pw combinations: Use Eclipse to store the un/pw/securitytoken. Read more: http://www.x2od.com/?p=625&preview=true#ixzz0Kt2X1lQD&C

Checkbox Formula Field in Visualforce

May 21, 2009 by David Schach Leave a Comment

In keeping with the theme of checkboxes and formulas, we provide an easy way to create a checkbox formula field using Visualforce: the checkbox tag with the disabled attribute:

Pulling Code Out of Triggers

May 18, 2009 by David Schach 6 Comments

To date, triggers have only been accessible on each object's setup page, leading to a lot of hunting for code within the Salesforce CRM application. Even in Eclipse, switching between the Class and Trigger folders for a given project can be a pain. These pains can partially be alleviated by keeping all Apex code in one place--as Apex Classes. Read more: http://www.x2od.com/?p=583&preview=true#ixzz0FncHsqPw&B

Standard Checkbox Images

May 11, 2009 by David Schach 4 Comments

One of Salesforce CRM’s coolest features from a “bright shiny object” standpoint (i.e. something that aids productivity but also looks flashy) is the image formula field. Jamie Grenney first wrote about this a while ago, and his pdf and sample images from the Salesforce built-in library are available on the community site. Sometimes, however, we […]