Quickstart: Using the Force.com IDE

1. Create a Project

The following steps create an Eclipse project and connect it to the home organization (the organization associated with the project):

1. Select File | New | Force.com Project.

   If you do not see Force.com Project in the File | New menu, you are not using the Force.com perspective. You can still create a Force.com project without using the Force.com perspective by selecting File | New | Other | Force.com | Force.com Project; however, you should use the Force.com perspective because it includes other views and features that aid development. To activate the Force.com perspective, select Window | Open Perspective | Other | Force.com Perspective.

   Note

2. Enter the following information and click Next:

   Field	Value
   Project Name	Enter a name for your project.
   Username	Enter the username you use to log in to the organization associated with this project (“home organization”). The username must have the “Modify All Data” permission.
   Password	Enter the password for the specified username.
   Security Token	If you are using a security token, enter the value here.
   Environment	Choose the appropriate environment for your connection (Developer Edition or Sandbox).
   Do not change endpoint	Leave this option unchecked.
   Timeout (sec)	Set to a value between 3 and 600 seconds.
   Proxy Settings	If you connect through a proxy, click the Proxy Settings link to open the Network Connections dialog.

   For details on these settings, see Force.com Project Properties.
3. On the Project Contents page, choose Apex and Visualforce.
4. Click Finish to create the project, connect it to the associated organization, and copy components from the home organization into the project in the appropriate folders.

Now that you have created a project, when you edit and save items in the project, the edits are saved to the server. (If the items fail to compile, they are not saved.)

2. Create Apex Components

The following steps create an Apex class and trigger to pre-populate a field on the Accounts tab.

Create a class that populates the Hello field on the Accounts tab with the word “World”:

1. In Eclipse, right-click on the project you created in the Package Explorer, and select New | Apex Class.
2. Enter MyHelloWorld as the name for the project, leave the other settings as is, and click Finish.
3. The source for the new MyHelloWorld.cls class is displayed. Replace the auto-generated text with the following:

   Save your changes.

4. If the IDE asks if you want to save the changes to the server, click Yes.

Next, create a trigger that calls MyHelloWorld.cls whenever a new record is created.

1. Right-click on your project in the Package Explorer and select File | New | Apex Trigger.
2. Enter helloWorldAccountTrigger as the name of the trigger.
3. Click the Object drop-down list and select Account.
4. In the Apex Trigger Operations section, check the before insert checkbox.
5. Click Finish.
6. The source for the new helloWorldAccountTrigger.trigger file is displayed. Replace the auto-generated text with the following:

   Save your changes.

To see your new Apex class and trigger working, log in to your Salesforce organization in a browser and create a new account. You should see the Description field pre-populated with the value “Hello World”.

At this point, you can make changes to the class or trigger in the project. When you save, the changes are automatically saved to the associated organization, assuming no conflicts exist. If you make changes from the organization itself, you must synchronize those changes to the project. For details, see Server Synchronization.

3. Add Tests

Unit tests are class methods that verify whether a particular piece of code is working properly. Unit test methods take no arguments, commit no data to the database, and are flagged with the testMethod keyword in the method definition. A rich set of unit tests gives you confidence that your code works correctly and can help you catch bugs when a code change suddenly causes a test to fail.

The steps below create a simple unit test for the Hello World program:

1. Open MyHelloWorld.cls and add the test methods below:
2. Create another Apex class with the name MyHelloWorld.cls. Replace the auto-generated text with the following test class:
3. Save your changes.
4. To execute Apex unit tests:

   1. Select Run | Run Configurations | Apex Test | New launch configuration ().
   2. Select the Test tab.
   3. Add tests to your run configuration.
      • To add a test class or test method, click one of the Search buttons. To select a method, first select the class that contains that method.
      • To create a run of test suites:
        1. Select Use suites.
        2. Select one or more test suites.
   4. Click Apply.
   5. To execute the selected test run configuration, click Run.
   

For detailed information on testing, see Testing Code with the Force.com IDE.