lightning experience with visualforce best practices

Lightning Experience with VisualForce best practices

Shashank SrivatsavayaSenior Developer Advocate

@shashforce

Lightning Experience with VisualForce best practicesKeeping VisualForce in context with Lightning Experience and Lightning Components

Shashank SrivatsavayaSenior Developer Advocate

@shashforce

Forward-Looking StatementsStatement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995:This presentation may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. If any such uncertainties materialize or if any of the assumptions proves incorrect, the results of salesforce.com, inc. could differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements we make. All statements other than statements of historical fact could be deemed forward-looking, including any projections of product or service availability, subscriber growth, earnings, revenues, or other financial items and any statements regarding strategies or plans of management for future operations, statements of belief, any statements concerning new, planned, or upgraded services or technology developments and customer contracts or use of our services.The risks and uncertainties referred to above include – but are not limited to – risks associated with developing and delivering new functionality for our service, new products and services, our new business model, our past operating losses, possible fluctuations in our operating results and rate of growth, interruptions or delays in our Web hosting, breach of our security measures, the outcome of any litigation, risks associated with completed and any possible mergers and acquisitions, the immature market in which we operate, our relatively limited operating history, our ability to expand, retain, and motivate our employees and manage our growth, new releases of our service and successful customer deployment, our limited history reselling non-salesforce.com products, and utilization and selling to larger enterprise customers. Further information on potential factors that could affect the financial results of salesforce.com, inc. is included in our annual report on Form 10-K for the most recent fiscal year and in our quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the most recent fiscal quarter. These documents and others containing important disclosures are available on the SEC Filings section of the Investor Information section of our Web site.Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other presentations, press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase our services should make the purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce.com, inc. assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements.

Lightning Summer ‘16!

Summer ‘16 Release Dates• May 6th and 7th – Sandboxes upgraded• May 20th – NA44 and NA45 upgraded• June 3rd – NA6,7,8,9,17,18,22,28,29,31,EU5 upgraded• June 8th and 9th – Release Readiness Live Broadcasts• June 12th and 13th – All other instances, Summer ‘16 fully live

www.salesforce.com/customer-resources/releases/summer16/

Visualforce in LEx, GA with Summer ‘16Previously beta with Spring ‘16

Visualforce in Lightning Experience

Run a Visualforce page from the app launcher

Using Visualforce in Lightning Experience“Just Works”, mostly

Add a Visualforce page to the Navigation Menu


Display a Visualforce page within a standard page layout


Add a Visualforce page as a component in the Lightning App Builder


Launch a Visualforce page as a Quick Action


Override standard/custom buttons/links with Visualforce. (No JavaScript buttons yet)


• Classic UI Development mode footer is not available in LEx UI• /apex/vfpagename shows the page in Classic UI• To test in LEx, create a Visualforce tab and add it to an App• Test in multiple environments: Classic, LEx, Salesforce1• Don’t wait till the end. Test Early, often, everything!

Developing Visualforce for Lightning ExperienceSome subtle differences…

Unlike in Classic UI,• VF does NOT own the whole page in LEx• VF runs in an iframe inside the “one/one.app” LEx container• “window.location” will not work• Use built-in “sforce.one” javascript utility (unavailable in Classic UI)

for navigation• <apex:page> “showHeader” and “showSidebar” Attributes Are

Always FALSE

Visualforce in Classic UI v/s Lightning ExperienceVF app container v/s LEx app container

• Use global variables in Visualforce expressions to adapt your pages to Lightning Experience, Salesforce Classic, and Salesforce1.

• Use $User.UITheme to get user’s UI theme “preference”• Use $User.UIThemeDisplayed to get the user’s “current UI context”.• In Apex, use equivalent system methods UserInfo.getUiTheme() and

UserInfo.getUiThemeDisplayed()• Through SOQL or API, use the field “UserPreferencesLightningExperiencePreferred” on the

User object. This only gives user’s “preference”, not “current UI context”. Not recommended, but it’s there

Detecting the UI Where am I? Classic or LEx or SF1 or the century old basic UI?

• Theme1—Obsolete Salesforce theme• Theme2—Salesforce Classic 2005 user interface theme• Theme3—Salesforce Classic 2010 user interface theme• Theme4d—Modern “Lightning Experience” Salesforce theme• Theme4t—Salesforce1 mobile Salesforce theme• PortalDefault—Salesforce Customer Portal theme• Webstore—Salesforce AppExchange theme

Detecting the UI UITheme and UIThemeDisplayed possible values

• PageReference redirection works like a charm, part of “Just Works”• However, consider using modern navigation, like the sforce.one utility• DON’T use “window.location”, doesn’t work!• Try not to use static URLs, like link = '/' + accountId + '/e’• VF markup example: use !URLFOR($Action.Contact.Edit, recordId)}• Javascript example: use sforce.one.navigateToSObject(recordId)

Visualforce navigation in Lightning ExperienceWhat’s different and what’s not!

• Visualforce using standard style, looks the same in LEx as well.• Adding and changing style in VF is the same as in Classic UI, “Just

Works”• For new Visualforce pages, consider using the “Salesforce Lightning

Design System”• For existing Visualforce pages, don’t worry too much about changing

styles to suit LEx, watch out for LEx’s further evolution

Styling Visualforce for Lightning ExperienceVisual design considerations

• Lightning Experience Header and Navigation Menu Can’t Be Suppressed

• Salesforce Classic Header and Sidebar are Always Suppressed in Lex• Not recommended to use <apex:iframe> in VF for LEx, avoid nested

iframes complications• LEx Home Page doesn’t automatically show Visualforce which is part

of Classic UI Home Page. Any VF should be explicitly added to the LEx Home Page.

• <apex:relatedList> support based on whether the object is supported

What else to look out for?Other considerations for Visualforce in Lightning Experience

Lightning Components in Visualforce

• Lightning Components can be added to Visualforce using a mechanism of the “Lightning Out” feature

• Lightning Out allows including a Lightning Component inside any external web application outside a Salesforce org.

Lightning inside VisualforceUse Lightning Components inside a Visualforce page

Add <apex:includeLightning /> at the beginning of your VF page. This component loads the JavaScript file used by Lightning Components for VF.

Alternatively, use can just add the more generic line:<apex:includeScript value="/lightning/lightning.out.js" />

Including a Lightning Component in VFStep 1 of 3: Add Lightning capability in VF

Define component dependencies, by creating a special purpose “Lightning Dependency App”, which declares dependencies on any Lightning Components that it uses.

Any Lightning Components you wish to include in the Visualforce pabe should be declared as dependencies in this app. Give it a name, like “lcvfTest.app”

Reference the app in the VF page using $Lightning.Use()

Including a Lightning Component in VFStep 2 of 3: Reference a Lightning App

Create the component on a page using $Lightning.createComponent(String type, Object attributes, String locator, function callback)

This function is similar to $A.createComponent(), but includes an additional parameter, domLocator, which specifies the DOM element where you want the component inserted.

Including a Lightning Component in VFStep 3 of 3: Create Component on the page

Simple sample, sample simple!Including a Lightning Component in VF

• Lightning is the future of Salesforce technology• Both our mobile and new desktop are built with Lightning

Components• Visualforce and your customizations will continue to be supported in

Lightning Experience

Experience Platform Design

We will support Visualforce for the long termYour customizations will be brought forward

Blending in with Lightning ExperienceExample approach to migrating VF Pages based on customer usage

What should be my

approach?Visualforce Visualforce +

JSVisualforce Mobile

Low Usage Wait for LEx evolution Consider SLDS Componentize: LCVF + SLDS

Medium Usage

Componentize: LCVF + SLDS

Restyle: SLDS Convert to LC + SLDS

High Usage Convert to LC + SLDS Convert to LC + SLDS

Convert to LC + SLDS

Consider Lightning Components for new development projects

Convert key Visualforce inventory if it aligns with your business strategy

Align new development to your business strategyLightning Components for new projects; optional for existing Visualforce

NOT required to migrate entire Visualforce inventoryConsider building key Visualforce assets with Lightning Components

Product backlog /new app

Select high value business processes

Questions?

thank y u

lightning experience with visualforce best practices

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