Visualforce Developer Guide

Introducing Visualforce
What is Visualforce?
Why Should I Use Lightning Web Components instead of Visualforce?
Which Permissions are Required for Visualforce Development?
How is Visualforce Architected?
How Do Visualforce Pages Compare to S-Controls?
How Visualforce is Versioned
Tools for Visualforce Development
Getting a Quick Start with Visualforce
Customizing the Appearance and Output of Visualforce Pages
Standard Controllers
Standard List Controllers
Custom Controllers and Controller Extensions
Advanced Examples
Override Buttons, Links, and Tabs with Visualforce
Using Static Resources
Creating and Using Custom Components
Dynamic Visualforce Bindings
Dynamic Visualforce Components
Integrate 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
Visualforce Best Practices
Standard Visualforce Component Reference
Appendices
PDF

Note: This release is in preview. Features described here don’t become generally available until the latest general availability date that Salesforce announces for this release. Before then, and where features are noted as beta, pilot, or developer preview, we can’t guarantee general availability within any particular time frame or at all. Make your purchase decisions only on the basis of generally available products and features.

How Do Visualforce Pages Compare to S-Controls?

Visualforce pages supersede s-controls. Organizations that haven't previously used s-controls can’t create them. Existing s-controls are unaffected and can still be edited.

Important

Visualforce pages are considered the next-generation of s-controls and should be used instead of s-controls whenever possible, both for their increased performance and the ease with which they can be written. The following table outlines the differences between Visualforce pages and s-controls.
Visualforce Pages S-Controls
Required technical skills HTML, XML HTML, JavaScript, Ajax Toolkit
Language style Tag markup Procedural code
Page override model Assemble standard and custom components using tags Write HTML and JavaScript for entire page
Standard Salesforce component library Yes No
Access to built-in platform behavior Yes, through the standard controller No
Data binding Yes

Developers can bind an input component (such as a text box) with a particular field (such as Account Name). If a user saves a value in that input component, it is also saved in the database.

 No

Developers can't bind an input component with a particular field. Instead, they must write JavaScript code that uses the API to update the database with user-specified field values.
Stylesheet inheritance Yes No, must bring in Salesforce stylesheets manually
Respect for field metadata, such as uniqueness Yes, by default

If a user attempts to save a record that violates uniqueness or requiredness field attributes, an error message is automatically displayed and the user can try again.

 Yes, if coded in JavaScript using a describe API call

If a user attempts to save a record that violates uniqueness or requiredness field attributes, an error message is only displayed if the s-control developer wrote code that checked those attributes.
Interaction with Apex Direct, by binding to a custom controller Indirect, by using Apex webService methods through the API
Performance More responsive because markup is generated on the Lightning Platform Less responsive because every call to the API requires a round trip to the server—the burden rests with the developer to tune performance
Page container Native In an iFrame