To say that we’ve been busy here at Salesforce is a bit of an understatement. But with Salesforce1 Lightning, the Mobile SDK 3.1, Trailhead as a learning platform, the Salesforce Wear Developer Pack for Apple Watch and the upcoming Summer Release, we’ve been busy writing articles, blogs and video tutorials to help developers leverage these technologies. Following is a wrap-up of all the latest new articles, blogs, video tutorials and developments organized by topic that you can use as a quick-reference.
Lightning Components
This week, Force.com MVP, Salesforce Certified Instructor and Master Jedi, Don Robins, introduces a new video course, Creating Lightning Components, produced by Salesforce Univeristy. Don also shares his own insights in developing Lightning Components, and discusses the complexities of building Single Page Appications. For those who have followed the development of Aura and are wondering how the framework fits in with JavaScript and your overall development, the course puts it into perspective. In addition to learning how to craft your own components, the course gives some insight into the framework’s evolution. As Don puts it:
The Lightning Component Framework is built on top of the open source Aura JavaScript UI framework, [which was] created by Salesforce engineers to support the Salesforce1 platform. Aura continues to evolve outside the Salesforce1 Platform as an open source product. So, Lightning Components provide a new UI framework built on top of and extending Aura, now fully integrated with Force.com and the Salesforce1 Platform.
We are also in the midst of the two 6-week blog series covering the development of Lightning Components. The first, by Peter Knowle breaks down component development by client and server side controllers, then introduces the event model before explaining component inheritance.
- Salesforce1 Lightning Components – Working with Controllers – This first post explains how developers can define client-side controllers with methods that respond to client and server-side events. Learn how different controller types work together in a component.
- Handling Custom Events in the Lightning Component Framework – Learn about the mechanisms provided for working with custom events in the Lightning Component Framework.
- Quickly Assemble Components Using Lightning Component Composition – Learn how to prebuilt Lightning components to quickly build (or compose) new components or apps.
- Extending Lightning Components by Example – Learn how to extend other lightning components using these examples, and how component inheritance increases developer productivity.
- Building Apps with the Lightning Components JavaScript API – Learn how to build client-side apps using the Lightning Components JavaScript API.
Peter Daniel takes a hands-on approach to developing apps by walking you through building and extending a reporting app:
- Build Reporting Apps Using Lightning Components and the Salesforce Analytics API – This post sets the stage for using Salesforce1 Lightning and the reporting API for Apex to make a reporting app. It gives a brief intro to Lightning components, and describes how to get data out of the analytics API.
- Displaying Reports in Salesforce1 Using Lightning Components, jQuery Mobile and the Analytics API. – Learn how to display a basic report built with jQuery mobile, Lightning Components, and the Analytics API inside of the Salesforce1 mobile app.
- Transforming Analytics API Data for Lightning Components – Learn how to take the rich analytics API response and convert it into a user defined data structure optimized for displaying in our Salesforce1 Lightning Component reports.
- Navigating to Reports & Records Using Lightning Component Events – Learn how to create a client-side autocomplete to navigate to specific reports, and add events to navigate to a report and drill down.
- Displaying Summary and Matrix Reports with Lightning Components – Learn how to modify the Report App to display simple summary and matrix reports using Lightning Components.
Other Lightning Posts
- Lightning Process Builder Hot Topics: Q&A with Product Manager, Shelly Erceg – Learn how Process Builder can help you manage bulk handling issues, how to move processes between orgs, choose the right automation tool, and more using these tips and techniques from Product Manager, Shelley Erceg.
- Creating a Salesforce Lightning Map Component – Learn how to create a Map component using Lightning Components. Step-by-step instructions and source code provided. This component also shows how to load external Javascript libraries and CSS stylesheets using the ltng:require tag.
Apple Watch
- Apple Watch – Building a Salesforce Events Watch App – Learn how you can use the Salesforce Mobile SDK and SmartSync to Communicate with an Apple Watch Parent App.
- Optimizing UI Performance in an Apple Watch App with Salesforce Smartsync – Learn how you can use the Salesforce Mobile SDK and SmartSync to Communicate with an Apple Watch Parent App.
- Salesforce Wear Developer Pack for Apple Watch – The Salesforce Wear Developer Pack for Apple Watch provides a sample app that uses WatchKit and the Salesforce Mobile SDK for iOS to build connected apps.
- Announcing the Salesforce Wear Developer Pack for Apple Watch – Apple announced the availability of the Apple Watch, the latest in the rise of wearable devices. The time has never been better to start building wearable apps for the enterprise. Here’s how you can leverage the Salesforce Wear Developer Pack for Apple Watch.
- Design Native Mobile Apps With Sketch – One of the biggest challenges I hear when building mobile apps is “how do I design them?” While there is definitely a art in designing beautiful mobile apps, you don’t have to be professional graphic designer to make a good looking app. Here’s how.
Agile
- Overcommitting in Agile: (Part 1) The Perils – In 30 years developing software, managing organizations, and coaching Agile teams and organizations, I’ve observed and coached dozens of teams where overcommitting is a strong reality. I’ve seen sprint plans with planned velocities that were 2x or more than the team’s average historical velocity. In this post, we’ll explore some of the reasons why overcommitting happens and what it results in. Then in part two, we’ll cover what the likely root cause behind overcommitment is and explore some ideas to try to avoid overcommitting going forward. Overcommitting is not specific to any one company.
Microsoft
- Accessing a SQL Server Azure Database with Lightning Connect – Learn how to access real-time data from a SQL Server Azure database and display it seamlessly in Salesforce using OData and Lightning Connect.
- Microsoft + Salesforce = Developer Goodness! – Salesforce and Microsoft announced a new partnership initiative back in October 2014. The basis of the partnership is to make customers successful with their IT endeavors. While there will be a lot of customer facing integrations with Office 365, Salesforce1 on Windows Phone and Power BI integrations, it is also very good news for Developers.
Articles
- Building Single Page Apps with JavaScript and Visualforce Remote Objects?Description: Learn how to build a single-page application using Visualforce Remote Objects that will perform CRUD operations in a Visualforce page without writing a single line of Apex code.
- Building a Data Integration Proof of Concept Using Lightning Connect?Description: One developer shares his first-hand experiences in connecting their organization’s Sales Cloud with on-premise corporate business systems to create related lists of invoices grouped by account, and accessed in real-time.
- Salesforce Backup and Restore Essentials Part 1: Backup Overview, API Options an?Description: Planning and implementing a data backup and restore plan can involve significant technical challenges. This article, part 1 in a series, discusses some of the challenges with backup APIs and performance.