I am trying to represent environment variables in the Salesforce codebase and came across Custom Metadata Types. So based on which Sandbox I am in, I want to vary the baseURL of an external service that I am hitting from my apex class. I want to avoid hard coding anything in the class, and hence trying to find out an environment variable like solution.
How would you represent the URL as a custom metadata type? Also, how can I access it in the class? What happens when a qa sandbox is refreshed from prod? Do they custom metadata type records get overridden?
How are you calling that external service? If it's truly a base url you might be better of using "named credential" for it. It'll abstract the base url away for you, include authentication or certificate if you have to present any...
Failing that - custom metadata might be a poor choice. They're kind of dictionary objects, you can add more (but not from apex) but if you deploy stuff using Git/Ant/SFDX CLI rather than changesets it'd become bit pain, you'd need different custom metadata value for sandbox vs prod. Kinda defeats the purpose.
You might be better off using custom setting instead (hierarchy is enabled by default, list you'd have to flip a checkbox in setup. List is useful if you need key-value kind of pairs, similar to custom metadata): https://salesforce.stackexchange.com/questions/74049/what-is-the-difference-between-custom-settings-and-custom-metadata-types
And you can modify them with Apex too. Which means that in ideal world you could have a "postcopy" class running as soon as sandbox is refreshed that overwrites the custom setting with the non-prod value. For named credential I don't think you can pull it off, you'd need a mini deployment that changes it or manual step (have you seen https://salesforce.stackexchange.com/q/955/799 ?)
Related
I have recently taken up salesforce.com and i have very little idea about its workings and stuff. Recently i was going through some of the stuff and i had a doubt...
Is there any way through which i can find out where an particular field/ object/ visualforce page has been used in an application. For example lets say i have a field labeled Sales, i want to be able to find where that particular field is used, under which object, and the object in which visualforce page/ Apex class, and the visualforce page/ Apex class is used in which application.
Hope i have made my Q clear.
Thanking everyone for their help
It's not really a programming question, you might be better off asking about administrative stuff like that on salesforce.stackexchange.com.
If you have a test environment (sandbox) - you could always try deleting the field there ;) I'm kidding but if you'll try it the page should display you a list where the field is being used.
Similar thing could be achieved by creating a changeset, adding that field to it and then checking dependencies.
But probably the best way would require some preparations upfront. Read about Force.com IDE (or Eclipse IDE) and how to use it to download files that represent your object definitions, page layouts, classes, visualforce pages, reports... This is great as backup but also will let you search the files (Ctrl+H in Eclipse or just use whatever you want once you have the files locally). Search for API name of the field (similar to My_Custom_Field__c should be most effective.
Pretty old thread but adding another option. I have a free and open source app that scans the fields in your Org and returns the components it's used in (Workflows, Processes, Page Layouts, Apex etc).
Keep in mind that returning fields in Apex and VF is not 100% accurate, as a field with the same API name on different objects would return as being found in a class, even though it might not (as others have mentioned).
Also, it can take quite a while to run on large Orgs.
App: http://schemalister.herokuapp.com/
Source Code: https://github.com/benedwards44/schemalister
Searching for ways to build REST APIs, I found skue (https://code.google.com/p/skue/). However there is not much information on the site. My plan is to build a rest api as follows strictly:
Models << Business logics << Restful Resources.
What this means is: the models are access exclusively by the business logic; the restful resources interface is the only layer a client has direct access to. I am specifying all this to avoid people suggesting using the appengine-rest-server.
My question is: has anyone ever successfully used Skue? If so do you have any examples you would not mind sharing? GET and POST would be sufficient, but more is welcomed. If not Skue, are there any frameworks out there that allow building such rest-apis on top of the google-app-engine?
I'm the author of Skuë. Skuë means "mouse" in Bribrí which is the language of an indigenous group of people of Costa Rica, my Country.
I know there isn't enough information on the site: (https://code.google.com/p/skue/)
For developers that want to use it on their own projects. I'm sorry for that I just haven't had the time to do a proper documentation since this is just a side project and not my daily work.
However, I'm willing to help you out with ramping up so you will be able to use it. The first thing to notice is the small example that it's part of the source code. Go to the site then click on Source -> Browse and then expand the "app" branch.
The code inside of the "app" folder represents your own API implementation. The package "skue" contains the actual implementation of the library so basically you just create your Python project for Google App Engine and includes the skuë package directly into it.
Now overwrite your main.py file with the content of the downloaded main.py: main.py on Skuë project.
The most important part of that file is where you put your own routes to your resources implementations: Notice here the use of the "ContactResource".
TASK_HANDLERS = [
]
API_HANDLERS = [
('/contacts/(.*)', ContactResource)
]
API_DOC = [ ('/', ApiDocumentationResource) ]
Browse to the contact resource implementation.
There are a lot of things going on under the hood there.. but the idea is for you to not worry about those.
You need to inherit from the proper Resource parent class depending on the kind of resource you want to create, there are four basic types:
DocumentResource: A document resource is a singular concept that is akin to an object instance or database record.
CollectionResource: A collection resource is a server-managed directory of resources. Clients may propose new resources to be added to a collection. However, it is up to the collection to choose to create a new resource, or not.
StoreResource: A store is a client-managed resource repository. A store resource lets an API client put resources in, get them back out, and decide when to delete them.
ControllerResource: A controller resource models a procedural concept. Controller resources are like exe- cutable functions, with parameters and return values; inputs and outputs.
Like a traditional web application’s use of HTML forms, a REST API relies on controller resources to perform application-specific actions that cannot be logically mapped to one of the standard methods (create, retrieve, update, and delete, also known as CRUD).
Now take a look at the "describe_resource" implementation on ContactResource example. When you inherit from the basic resource types described above the next step is to programmatically describe your resource to the outside world using that method. The underlying Skuë implementation uses that method to validate require parameters and also to self describe the endpoints when you perform an OPTIONS request on them.
And the final step is for you to implement the methods (CRUD) that you want to handle for your resource.
Again with the ContactResource example, that resource handles the creation, update and read of Contact items.
I hope this helps you at least to understand how to start using the library. I will create better tutorials in the future, though.
In the meantime you can contact me via email: greivin.lopez#gmail.com and I will send you a more elaborated example or even something that matches your requirements.
Important Note: Currently the Skuë project only supports responses in JSON format. If you plan to use another format you will need to create the proper classes to handle it.
Greetings from Costa Rica.
I haven't used skue, but what you're looking for sounds like a good fit for Google Cloud Endpoints. See my previous answers on the subject for more details.
Is there a way to create custom objects and fields by using script or IDE ?
Salesforce is very easy to use, however, it's so time-consuming to create so many fields on Web interface. So, just wonder if there's ways to use script or IDE to create objects and fields in Salesforce?
You're looking for the Metadata API, or already developed tools which use the metadata api.
http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/api_meta/Content/meta_intro.htm
http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/api_meta/index.htm
Though using it directly will still require some developement, which may not save you much time. you get metadata in XML, but would still need to process it to what you want to achieve.
Somewhat also depend on the nature of what you want to do. I for instance had a requirement today for 150 custom labels based on an input file. Was much faster to generate metadata XML than to ever do that in the web interface. Deployed the metadata using the force.com IDE.
I'm developing an open-source web application (a helpdesk) where the users will download it and install. This application will have some settings like: title, colors, default e-mail, logs... (for example). This settings will be edited by the user on the admin panel because most of them will not understand how to do it in code.
My question is what is the best way to store this on a (MySQL) database model? And counting that this application will upgrade and add more "settings" to that settings table.
Thank you in advance
There are a lot of different ways to do this, and it depends on what you think the final needs will be.
There's nothing wrong with saving parameters in a dedicated table, each parameter/user/value on a separate row. This is a fast way to set and get the information, and allows you to easily get access to reports by parameter and value and user, for example, what colors are the most popular.
If you are just using this for configuration, you can store the parameters as an XML or JSON string in a text/blob field. This has the benefit of giving you a single load to get all of the parameter values. Even more powerful, if your application already has default values for the parameters, you can easily extend the application without changing the database records. For a large number of parameters, this reduces the number of DB calls to load up all the parameters.
Can anyone give a high level description of what is going on in the Composite C1 core? In particular I am interested in knowing how the plugin architecture works and what the core components are of the system i.e. when a request arrives what is happening in the architecture. The description doesn't have to be too verbose just a list of steps and the classes involved.
Hopefully one of the core development team would enlighten me... and maybe publish some more API (hint hint more class documentation please).
From request to rendered page
The concrete path a request takes depends on the version of C1 you're using, since it was changed to use Routing in version 2.1.2. So lets see
< 2.1.2
Composite.Core.WebClient.Renderings.RequestInterceptorHttpModule will intercept all incoming requests and figure out if the requested path correspond to a valid C1 page. If it does, the url will be rewritten to the C1 page handler ~/Rendererings/Page.aspx
2.1.1
Composite.Core.Routing.Routes.Register() adds a C1 page route (Composite.Core.Routing.Pages.C1PageRoute) to the Routes-collection that looks at the incoming path, figures out if its a valid C1 page. If it is, it returns an instance of ~/Rendererings/Page.aspx ready to be executed.
Okay, so now we have an instance of a IHttpHandler ready to make up the page to be returned to the client. The actual code for the IHttpHandler is easy to see since its located in ~/Renderers/Page.aspx.cs.
OnPreInit
Here we're figuring out which Page Id and which language that was requested and looking at whether we're in preview mode or not, which datascope etc.
OnInit
Now we're fetching the content from each Content Placeholder of our page, and excuting its functions it may contain. Its done by calling Composite.Core.WebClient.Renderings.Page.PageRenderer.Render passing the current page and our placeholders. Internally it will call the method ExecuteFunctions which will run through the content and recursively resolve C1 function elements (<f:function />), execute them and replace the element with the functions output. This will be done until there are no more function elements in the content in case functions them selves output other functions.
Now the whole content is wrapped in a Asp.Net WebForms control, and inserted into our WebForms page. Since C1 functions can return WebForms controls like UserControl etc., this is necessary for them to work correctly and trigger the Event Lifecycle of WebForms.
And, that's basically it. Rendering of a requested page is very simple and very extendable. For instance is there an extension that enables the usage of MasterPages which simply hooks into this rendering flow very elegantly. And because we're using Routing to map which handler to use, its also possible to forget about ~/Rendering/Page.aspx and just return a MvcHandler if your a Mvc fanatic.
API
Now, when it comes to the more core API's there are many, depending on what you want to do. But you can be pretty sure, no matter what there is the necessary ones to get the job done.
At the deep end we have the Data Layer which most other API's and facades are centered around. This means you can do most things working with the raw data, instead of going through facades all the time. This is possible since most configuration of C1 is done by using its own data layer to store configuration.
The Composite C1 core group have yet to validate/refactor and document all the API's in the system and hence operate with the concept of 'a public API' and what can become an API when the demand is there. The latter is a pretty darn stable API, but without guarantees.
The public API documentation is online at http://api.composite.net/
Functions
Functions is a fundamental part of C1 and is a technique to abstract logic from execution. Basically everything that either performs a action or returns some data/string/values can be candidates for functions. At the lowest level a function is a .Net class implementing the IFunction interface, but luckily there are many easier ways to work with it. Out of the box C1 supports functions defined as XSLT templates, C# methods or Sql. There are also community support for writing functions using Razor or having ASP.Net UserControls (.ascx files) to be functions.
Since all functions are registered in C1 during system startup, we use the Composite.Functions.FunctionFacade to execute whatever function we know the name of. Use the GetFunction to get a reference to a function, and then Execute to execute it and get a return value. Functions can take parameters which are passed as real .Net objects when executing a function. There is also full support for calling functions with Xml markup using the <f:function /> element, meaning that editors, designers, template makers etc. easily can access a wealth of functionality without having to know how to write .Net code.
Read more about functions here http://users.composite.net/C1/Functions.aspx and how to use ie Razor to make functions here http://docs.composite.net/C1/ASP-NET/Razor-Functions.aspx
Globalization and Localization
C1 has full multi-language support in the core. Composite.Core.Localization.LocalizationFacade is used for managing the installed locales in the system; querying, adding and removing. Locales can be whatever CultureInfo object is known by your system.
Composite.Core.ResourceSystem.StringResourceSystemFacade is used for getting strings at runtime that matches the CultureInfo your request is running in. Use this, instead of hardcoding strings on your pages or in your templates.
Read more about Localization here http://docs.composite.net/C1/HTML/C1-Localization.aspx
Global events
Composite.C1Console.Events.GlobalEventSystemFacade is important to know if you need to keep track on when the system is shutting down so you can make last-minute changes. Since C1 is highly multithreaded its easy to write extensions and modules for C1 that are multithreaded as well, taking advantage of multi core systems and parallelization and therefor its also crucial to shut down ones threads in a proper manner. The GlobalEventSystemFacade helps you do that.
Startup events
If you write plug-ins these can have a custom factory. Other code can use the ApplicationStartupAttribute attribute to get called by the Composite C1 core when the web app start up.
Data events
You can subscribe to data add, edit and delete events (pre and post) using the static methods on Composite.Data.DataEvents<T>. To attach to these events when the system start up, use the ApplicationStartupAttribute attribute.
Data
Composite.Core.Threading.ThreadDataManager is important if your accessing the Data Layer outside of a corresponding C1 Page request. This could be a custom handler that just has to feed all newest news as a Rss feed, or your maybe writing a console application. In these cases, always remember to wrap your code that accesses the data like this
using(Composite.Core.Threading.ThreadDataManager.EnsureInitialize())
{
// Code that works with C1 data layer goes here
}
For accessing and manipulating data its recommended NOT to use the DataFacade class, but wrap all code that gets or updates or deletes or adds data like this
using(var data = new DataConnection())
{
// Do things with data
}
IO
When working with files and directories its important to use the C1 equivalent classes Composite.Core.IO.C1File and Composite.Core.IO.C1Directory to .Net's File and Directory. This is due to the nature where C1 can be hosted on Azure, where you might not have access to the filesystem in the same way as you have on a normal Windows Server. By using the C1's File and Directory wrappers you can be sure that code you write will be able to run on Azure as well.
C1 Console
The console is a whole subject on itself and has many many API's.
You can create your own trees using Composite.C1Console.Trees.TreeFacade or Composite.C1Console.Elements.ElementFacade and implementing a Composite.C1Console.Elements.Plugins.ElementProvider.IElementProvider.
You can use the Composite.C1Console.Events.ConsoleMessageQueueFacade to send messages from the server to the client to make it do things like open a message box, refreshing a tree, set focus on a specific element, open a new tab etc. etc.
Composite.C1Console.Workflow.WorkflowFacade is used for getting instances of specific workflows and interacting with them. Workflows is a very fundamental part of C1 and is the way multi-step operations are defined and executed. This makes it possible to save state of operation so ie. a 10 step wizard is persisted even if the server restarts or anything else unexpected happens. Workflows are build using Windows Workflow Foundation, so are you familiar with this, you should be feeling at home
There is also a wealth of javascript facades and methods you can hook into when writing extensions to the Console. Much more than i could ever cover here so i will refrain myself from even getting started on that subject here.
composite.config
A fundamental part of C1 is providers, almost everything is made up of providers, even much of the core functionality. Everything in the console from Perspectives to Trees and elements and actions are feeded into C1 with providers. All the standard functions, the datalayer and all the widgets for use with the Function Call editor is feeded into C1 with providers. All the localisation strings for use with the Resources, users and permissions, url formatters etc. is all providers.
Composite.Data.Plugins.DataProviderConfiguration
Here all providers that can respond to the methods on DataFacade, Get, Update, Delete, Add etc. are registered. Every provider informs the system which interfaces it can interact with and C1 makes sure to route all requests for specific interfaces to their respective dataproviders.
Composite.C1Console.Elements.Plugins.ElementProviderConfiguration
Here we're defining the perspectives and the trees inside the Console. All the standard perspectives you see when you start the Console the first time are configured here, no magic or black box involved.
Composite.C1Console.Elements.Plugins.ElementActionProviderConfiguration
Action providers are able to add new menuitems to all elements in the system, based on their EntityToken. This is very powerful when you want to add new functionality to existing content like versioning, extranet security, custom cut/paste and the list goes on.
Composite.C1Console.Security.Plugins.LoginProviderConfiguration
A LoginProvider is what the C1 console will use to authenticate a user and let you log in or not. Unfortunately this isn't very open but with some reflection you should be all set.
Composite.Functions.Plugins.FunctionProviderConfiguration
Composite C1 will use all the registered FunctionProviders to populate its internal list of functions on system startup.
Composite.Functions.Plugins.WidgetFunctionProviderConfiguration
WidgetProviders are used in things like the Function Call Editor or in Forms Markup to render custom UI for selecting data.
Composite.Functions.Plugins.XslExtensionsProviderConfiguration
Custom extensions for use in XSLT templates are registered here
And then we have a few sections for pure configuration, like caching or what to to parallelize but its not as interesting as the providers.
Defining and using sections
Sections in composite.config, and other related .config files are completely standard .Net configuration and obeys the rules thereof. That means that to be able to use a custom element, like ie. Composite.Functions.Plugins.WidgetFunctionProviderConfiguration it has to be defined as a section. A section has a name and refers to a type that would inherit from System.Configuration.ConfigurationSection. Composite uses the Microsoft Enterprise Libraries for handling most of these common things like configuration and logging and validation and therefor all Composites sections inherit from Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Common.Configuration.SerializableConfigurationSection. Now, this type just has to have properties for all the elements we want to be able to define in the .config-file, and .Net will automatically make sure to wire things up for us.
If you want to access configuration for a particular section you would call Composite.Core.Configuration.ConfigurationServices.ConfigurationSource.GetSection(".. section name") and cast it to your specific type and your good to go.
Adding extra properties to already defined sections
Normally .Net would complain if you write elements or attributes in the .config files that aren't recognized by the type responsible for the section or for the element. This makes it hard to write a truly flexible module-system where external authors can add specific configuration options to their providers, and therefor we have the notion of a Assembler. Its a ConfigurationElement class with a Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Common.Configuration.ObjectBuilder.AssemblerAttribute attribute assigned to it that in turns takes a Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Common.Configuration.ObjectBuilder.IAssembler interface as argument that is responsible for getting these custom attributes and values from the element in the .config file and emit usable object from it. This way .Net won't complain about an invalid .config file, since we inject a ConfigurationElement object that has properties for all our custom attributes, and we can get hold of them when reading the configuration through the IAssembler
Slides
Some overview slides can be found on these lins
Overview
Extensibility points
Page request handling
Function system
Data system
Data type system
Inspiration and examples
The C1Contrib project on GitHub is a very good introduction how to interact with the different parts of C1. Its a collection of small packages, that can be used as it is, or for inspiration. There are packages that manipulates with dynamic types to enable interface inheritance. Other packages uses the javascript api in the console, while others show how to make Function Providers, Trees and hook commands unto existing elements. There is even examples of how to manipulate with the Soap webservice communication going on between client and server so you can make it do things the way you want it. And the list goes on.