Visualforce Developer Guide

Introducing Visualforce
Tools for Visualforce Development
Getting a Quick Start with Visualforce
Compiling Visualforce Successfully
Creating Your First Page
Displaying Field Values with Visualforce
Using the Visualforce Component Library
Overriding an Existing Page with a Visualforce Page
Redirecting to a Standard Object List Page
Using Input Components in a Page
Adding and Customizing Input Field Labels
Setting the Tab Order for Fields in a Form
Adding Dependent Fields to a Page
Creating Visualforce Dashboard Components
Displaying Related Lists for Custom Objects
Enabling Inline Editing
Converting a Page to a PDF File
Building a Table of Data in a Page
Editing a Table of Data in a Page
Using Query String Parameters in a Page
Using Ajax in a Page
Implementing Partial Page Updates with Command Links and Buttons
Providing Status for Asynchronous Operations
Applying Ajax Behavior to Events on Any Component
Putting Visualforce Pages on External Domains
Customizing the Appearance and Output of Visualforce Pages
Standard Controllers
Standard List Controllers
Custom Controllers and Controller Extensions
Live Controller (Pilot)
Advanced Examples
Overriding Buttons, Links, and Tabs with Visualforce
Using Static Resources
Creating and Using Custom Components
Dynamic Visualforce Bindings
Dynamic Visualforce Components
Integrating Email with Visualforce
Visualforce Charting
Creating Maps with Visualforce
Render Flows with Visualforce
Templating with Visualforce
Developing Salesforce Apps with Visualforce
Adding Visualforce to a Salesforce AppExchange App
Using JavaScript in Visualforce Pages
Communicating Across the DOM with Lightning Message Service
Best Practices
Standard Component Reference
Appendices
Glossary
PDF

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Providing Status for Asynchronous Operations

Ajax behaviors, such as partial page updates, are asynchronous events that occur in the background while a page user continues to work. For good usability, designers often add a status element to alert the user of any background activity currently in progress.

Visualforce supports status updates with the <apex:actionStatus> tag. This tag allows you to display text at the beginning or end of a background event with the startText or stopText attributes, or, for more advanced developers, allows you to display an image or other component.

For this example, we'll add status text to the contact list page that we have been developing. After a user clicks the name of a contact, the detail area displays the text, “Requesting...” while the detail area is rendered.

To implement the message, wrap <apex:actionStatus> around the <apex:detail> component, since that is the component being updated asynchronously. In between the two tags, add an <apex:facet> tag named “stop”.

A facet consists of content in an area of a Visualforce component that provides contextual information about the data that is presented in the component. For example, <apex:dataTable> supports facets for the header, footer, and caption of a table, while <apex:column> only supports facets for the header and footer of the column. The <apex:facet> component allows you to override the default facet on a Visualforce component with your own content. Facets only allow a single child within the start and close tags.

Not all components support facets. Those that do are listed in the Standard Component Reference.

Note

In the following example, <apex:actionStatus> supports a facet named “stop” that contains the component that should be displayed as soon as the action completes—in this case, the detail area:

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