I have a BlackBerry application consisting of two VisualForce pages.  Other then the apex:page tag, no other apex tags are used as they are way too heavy for mobile performance constraints.  Instead I use raw HTML Form tags and parameter passing to the controller. 

It all works great except for one thing:  Since you cannot perform DML in a controller constructor or getter, you cannot save or update anything.  You can only read data and make web callouts.

Question:  How do you invoke a controller action method from a raw HTML Form tag (so you can perform DML)?

Thanks!

Dave

Question for an SFDC resource or other expert:

(1) Are master-detail foreign key columns automatically indexed?

(2) Are lookup foreign key columns automatically indexed?

In order to build "selective" queries that do not bump up against the infamous "Non-selective query against large object type (more than 100000 rows).... " you seem to need to create not only a good, tight where clause, but you must use indexed columns in the where clause.  Thus my two questions above.

Thanks!

Dave

As an ISV, say you introduce references to Person Account fields in your Apex code in a managed package.

Does this imply that any customer wishing to install your package needs to enable Person Accounts??  If so, what are the best practices or workarounds for this?  Obviously we cannot assume that all potential customers will want to enable Person Accounts in their orgs...

Thanks.

Dave

I have a custom object:  AccountSetup__c.  On the default page layout for this object I have a section that contains a VisualForce page that starts with:

<apex:page title="Account Setup Process Management"
           standardController="AccountSetup__c" extensions="AccountSetupControllerExtension"
           sidebar="false" showHeader="false">
etc.....

Here's the question:  What SObject fields are freely accessible to the extension controller via StandardController.getRecord()?  The fields on the outer page layout?  The fields on the inner VisualForce page?  A union of these fields?  It is not clear what the answer is and my results are quirky.  The constructor of my extension controller:

    public AccountSetupControllerExtension(ApexPages.StandardController stdController) {
        m_as = (AccountSetup__c)stdController.getRecord();

etc.....

In other words, what fields are pre-populated in m_as?

Thanks!

Dave

I have a function to programmatically create tasks:

    public static ID createTask(SObject taskObject, String subject, String priority,
                                String description, ID assignedToId) {
        Task theTask = new Task();
        theTask.WhatId = taskObject.Id;
        theTask.Subject = subject;
        theTask.Priority = priority;
        theTask.Description = description;
        theTask.OwnerId = assignedToId;
        insert theTask;
        return theTask.Id;
    }

How do I also create a companion email that is sent immediately similar to the behavior of the 'Send Notification Email' checkbox on the new task UI page?

Thanks!

Dave

I am trying to configure a provisioned Trialforce instance for a customer.  The instance has my managed package installed as part of the Trialforce template.  I have created new workflow in the instance firing on custom objects in my package.  This new workflow is NOT in my package, but it depends on my package.

Here's the problem:  When I hook up the IDE to the instance, I cannot see or download the new workflow rules and field updates.  It's as if they are not there.  I cannot add them to the project; I do not see them as choices in the add/remove metadata area (even refreshed).

If I create anything in the IDE, it is properly uploaded to the instance, so I know I am hooked up.  However, the workflow created in the cloud is completely invisible to the IDE.

Help! 

Dave

We are an ISV and have just sold our managed package/single application to a few customers.  They are taking delivery on the Force.com Platform Embedded License as they are not SFDC CRM customers. 

In their individual instances, post-provisioning and post-installation of our application/package, can we further customize their instances by:

- Adding Apex classes and triggers

- Adding custom objects, custom fields

- Adding VisualForce pages

- Adding workflow rules

The general question: Can an admin profile user perform the usual org-specific, ongoing software development/enhancement in the platform embedded license edition?

Thanks!

Dave

How do you navigate to a specific top-level (standard object or custom object) tab from Apex? Not to a specific instance of an SObject, but to the top-level tab/list.

Thanks!

Dave

Is the Content Library functionality included in the Force.com platform-only (no CRM objects) Enterprise Edition - Multiple Apps?

Thanks!

Dave

I have an LMA record for a Trialforce trial at a customer.  Mid-trial, we changed the "licensed seats" from 5 to 15 to accomodate more trial users.  Why are we not seeing the additional licenses in the trial org?  It still shows only five.  The update appears to have not happened...

Thanks!

Dave

I have a VisualForce page fronting a custom object and some child objects that is basically a form containing a lot of input fields using the <apex:inputField> tag in page blocks sections.

A user may want a PDF copy after they fill out the form completely.  Unfortunately, renderAs="pdf" does not render inputField values, just the labels.  Why is this?

Is the workaround that I have to create two custom pages -- one for data entry and one for PDF display (that does not use input fields)??  Ugh...

Thanks.

Dave

We are an ISV with a managed-released package that contains an application object.  We want to add some new custom tabs to the current application object.  Is this allowed?  Can you add tabs to a managed-released application in a subsequent release?  (The packaging documentation is not clear on this.)

Thanks!

Dave

We have a new package on the AppExchange that is Managed-Released status.  Let's call it release 1.0.

Of course, we plan on enhancing and re-releasing this package over time.  What is the best practice for creating a test release for internal QA to install and test before releasing subsequent versions to our customers?  Assume that we will eventually release Managed-Release 2.0 to our customers.

Can you create a Managed-Beta version for QA after you have a Managed-Released version on the AppExchange?  This second QA release would of course have to be modified often during QA as bugs were fixed, and then finally "converted" to a Managed-Released 2.0 status. 

If you cannot do this, what is the best practice for the Released->QA->Released->QA->Released... cycle??

Thanks!

Dave

I understand that all data created during the execution of test methods is rolled back after the test completes. 

Say you are executing 50 test methods at once.  Does the data roll back after every method, or only once at the end of all 50 methods' execution?

Thanks!

Dave

I have coded a web service callout using the vanilla Http, HttpRequest, and HttpResponse classes and am receiving this error:

System.CalloutException --> Exceeded max size limit of 100000

I do not control the web service I am calling, and have no way to reduce the size of the returned XML.  This limit is way too small for many real world situations.  Two questions:

- When will SFDC increase this limit?

- If I change my code to use the WSDL2Apex code generation capabilities of the platform (as it is a SOAP service that happened to be easy to code by me as an Http callout) is the limit on a SOAP response 1 MB or 100 KB?  The documentation says 1 MB, but similar postings seem to indicate that the 100 KB limit is in effect for all callout types...

Thanks!

Dave

I am popping up a new browser window using the Javascript window.open() function from Flex to show a read-only detail page for a custom object using this URL (for example):

https://na6.salesforce.com/a09800000043oz9AAA?isdtp=mn

How do I suppress the Edit, Delete, and Clone buttons that appear on the popup detail page?  I want the page to be read-only with no command buttons.

Thanks!

Dave

We are an ISV developing multiple managed packages for our customers. 

My question concerns the OEM embedded force.com edition, and its limit of 1 installed application per org.  Does this limit extend to packages, too?  Or can we install several packages into an OEM embedded edition org, as long as no more than one application object is included across all the packages installed?

Thanks!

Dave

I am creating a managed package that will be installed on EE, UE, and embedded OEM platform edition org types.  There is optional code -- triggers, Apex classes -- that references the Opportunity standard object.  This object is not available in the embedded OEM platform product.

What happens when a customer installs my code on the OEM embedded platform?  Does it error out completely?  Or, can the installation proceed and somehow ignore the Opportunity-related code?

Thanks!

Dave

I am receiving the following compiler warning when building a page that contains a flash movie and a reference to $Api.Partner_Server_URL_160 in the flashVars parameter.  This did not happen with previous versions of the platform.

Warning Message:  "The reference to entity "server_url" should end with the ';' delimiter. at line 18"

My Code:

<apex:page title="{!$Label.Collections}" controller="CollectionsController">
    <apex:sectionHeader title="{!$Label.Collections}" subtitle=""/>
    <apex:pageMessages />

    <apex:tabpanel switchType="client">

        <apex:tab label="Portfolio">
            <apex:form>
           
       
            <object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" id="CollectionsSummary" width="100%" height="250"
                    codebase="https://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/swflash.cab">
                <param name="movie" value="{!$Resource.CollectionsSummary}" />
                <param name="quality" value="high" />
                <param name="bgcolor" value="#869ca7" />
                <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain" />
                <param name="flashVars" value="session_id={!$Api.Session_ID}&server_url={!$Api.Partner_Server_URL_160}" />
                <embed src="{!$Resource.CollectionsSummary}"
                       width="100%"
                       height="250"
                       quality="high"
                       bgcolor="#869ca7"
                       name="CollectionsSummary"
                       align="middle"
                       play="true"
                       loop="false"
                       quality="high"
                       allowScriptAccess="sameDomain"
                       type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
                       pluginspage="https://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer">
                       flashVars="session_id={!$Api.Session_ID}&server_url={!$Api.Partner_Server_URL_160}"
                </embed>
            </object>

        </apex:form>       
        </apex:tab>

etc...

Any ideas?  Thanks!

Dave

(1) How can you return all custom label objects in a list through a web API call?

(2) Is this capability exposed via the Flash plug-in (Force.com Toolkit for Flex)?  If so, how is it invoked?

Code examples appreciated.

Thanks!

Dave

Question for an SFDC resource or other expert:

(1) Are master-detail foreign key columns automatically indexed?

(2) Are lookup foreign key columns automatically indexed?

In order to build "selective" queries that do not bump up against the infamous "Non-selective query against large object type (more than 100000 rows).... " you seem to need to create not only a good, tight where clause, but you must use indexed columns in the where clause.  Thus my two questions above.

Thanks!

Dave

As an ISV, say you introduce references to Person Account fields in your Apex code in a managed package.

Does this imply that any customer wishing to install your package needs to enable Person Accounts??  If so, what are the best practices or workarounds for this?  Obviously we cannot assume that all potential customers will want to enable Person Accounts in their orgs...

Thanks.

Dave

I have a custom object:  AccountSetup__c.  On the default page layout for this object I have a section that contains a VisualForce page that starts with:

<apex:page title="Account Setup Process Management"
           standardController="AccountSetup__c" extensions="AccountSetupControllerExtension"
           sidebar="false" showHeader="false">
etc.....

Here's the question:  What SObject fields are freely accessible to the extension controller via StandardController.getRecord()?  The fields on the outer page layout?  The fields on the inner VisualForce page?  A union of these fields?  It is not clear what the answer is and my results are quirky.  The constructor of my extension controller:

    public AccountSetupControllerExtension(ApexPages.StandardController stdController) {
        m_as = (AccountSetup__c)stdController.getRecord();

etc.....

In other words, what fields are pre-populated in m_as?

Thanks!

Dave

I have a function to programmatically create tasks:

    public static ID createTask(SObject taskObject, String subject, String priority,
                                String description, ID assignedToId) {
        Task theTask = new Task();
        theTask.WhatId = taskObject.Id;
        theTask.Subject = subject;
        theTask.Priority = priority;
        theTask.Description = description;
        theTask.OwnerId = assignedToId;
        insert theTask;
        return theTask.Id;
    }

How do I also create a companion email that is sent immediately similar to the behavior of the 'Send Notification Email' checkbox on the new task UI page?

Thanks!

Dave

We are an ISV and have just sold our managed package/single application to a few customers.  They are taking delivery on the Force.com Platform Embedded License as they are not SFDC CRM customers. 

In their individual instances, post-provisioning and post-installation of our application/package, can we further customize their instances by:

- Adding Apex classes and triggers

- Adding custom objects, custom fields

- Adding VisualForce pages

- Adding workflow rules

The general question: Can an admin profile user perform the usual org-specific, ongoing software development/enhancement in the platform embedded license edition?

Thanks!

Dave

How do you navigate to a specific top-level (standard object or custom object) tab from Apex? Not to a specific instance of an SObject, but to the top-level tab/list.

Thanks!

Dave

Is the Content Library functionality included in the Force.com platform-only (no CRM objects) Enterprise Edition - Multiple Apps?

Thanks!

Dave

I have an LMA record for a Trialforce trial at a customer.  Mid-trial, we changed the "licensed seats" from 5 to 15 to accomodate more trial users.  Why are we not seeing the additional licenses in the trial org?  It still shows only five.  The update appears to have not happened...

Thanks!

Dave

I have a VisualForce page fronting a custom object and some child objects that is basically a form containing a lot of input fields using the <apex:inputField> tag in page blocks sections.

A user may want a PDF copy after they fill out the form completely.  Unfortunately, renderAs="pdf" does not render inputField values, just the labels.  Why is this?

Is the workaround that I have to create two custom pages -- one for data entry and one for PDF display (that does not use input fields)??  Ugh...

Thanks.

Dave

We are an ISV with a managed-released package that contains an application object.  We want to add some new custom tabs to the current application object.  Is this allowed?  Can you add tabs to a managed-released application in a subsequent release?  (The packaging documentation is not clear on this.)

Thanks!

Dave

We have a new package on the AppExchange that is Managed-Released status.  Let's call it release 1.0.

Of course, we plan on enhancing and re-releasing this package over time.  What is the best practice for creating a test release for internal QA to install and test before releasing subsequent versions to our customers?  Assume that we will eventually release Managed-Release 2.0 to our customers.

Can you create a Managed-Beta version for QA after you have a Managed-Released version on the AppExchange?  This second QA release would of course have to be modified often during QA as bugs were fixed, and then finally "converted" to a Managed-Released 2.0 status. 

If you cannot do this, what is the best practice for the Released->QA->Released->QA->Released... cycle??

Thanks!

Dave

I have coded a web service callout using the vanilla Http, HttpRequest, and HttpResponse classes and am receiving this error:

System.CalloutException --> Exceeded max size limit of 100000

I do not control the web service I am calling, and have no way to reduce the size of the returned XML.  This limit is way too small for many real world situations.  Two questions:

- When will SFDC increase this limit?

- If I change my code to use the WSDL2Apex code generation capabilities of the platform (as it is a SOAP service that happened to be easy to code by me as an Http callout) is the limit on a SOAP response 1 MB or 100 KB?  The documentation says 1 MB, but similar postings seem to indicate that the 100 KB limit is in effect for all callout types...

Thanks!

Dave

I am popping up a new browser window using the Javascript window.open() function from Flex to show a read-only detail page for a custom object using this URL (for example):

https://na6.salesforce.com/a09800000043oz9AAA?isdtp=mn

How do I suppress the Edit, Delete, and Clone buttons that appear on the popup detail page?  I want the page to be read-only with no command buttons.

Thanks!

Dave

(1) Are VisualForce controller classes instantiated by the platform anew for multiple HTTP requests (of, say, the same page), or are they instantiated once for a user's entire session?

(2) If Page A uses controller class X, and Page B uses controller class X also, and a button on Page A performs logic and then navigates to Page B, is the same controller class instance of X used for both the "inbound" (from the user) Page A action and "outbound" (to the user) Page B rendering?

Thanks!

Dave

1.  Can sites be packaged and used by customers downloading our application from the AppExchange?  If so, other than creating their own URL and assigning the appropriate page to it, and assigning appropriate security, what other setup tasks are required?

2.  Does the $15/month OEM ("Platform Embedded") edition for non-SF customers come with Sites access?  If so, what are the monthly free volume maximums?

Thanks!

Dave

I am having trouble writing an Apex class that integrates to a non-SOAP based XML-over-HTTPS web service.  The problem is that the API requires an HTTP request parameter (not a header) to be set.  Here is their documentation on this:

"To implement the XML Data Integration Toolkit in an application, user must post the request to the Data Integration server with the XML request in a specific parameter.

• Data Integration server URL: https://toolkit.dnb.com/access/scripts/broker.asp
• Parameter name: request"

I naively hoped that the following code would work in an Apex class to access this API (since the HttpRequest Apex class does not have a setParameter() or setField() method -- like the equivalent Java or C# request classes do -- just the setHeader() method):

    public static String getLookupResponse() {
        Http h = new Http();
        HttpRequest req = new HttpRequest();
        req.setEndpoint('https://toolkit.dnb.com/access/scripts/broker.asp');
        req.setMethod('POST');
        req.setTimeout(60000);
        req.setBody(m_lookupTemplate);
        HttpResponse res = h.send(req);
        return res.getBody();
    }

where m_lookupTemplate is like the following (which works in their test harness HTML page):

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8' ?>
<DGX>
  <SIGNONMSGSRQV1>
    <SONRQ>
      <DTCLIENT>2009-04-04 10:49:28</DTCLIENT>
      <USERID>craigmiled</USERID>
      <USERPASS>XXXXXXXXX</USERPASS>
      <LANGUAGE>EN</LANGUAGE>
      <FI>
        <ORG>DUN and BRADSTREET</ORG>
      </FI>
      <APPID>XML dnbToolkit</APPID>
      <APPVER>0010</APPVER>
    </SONRQ>
  </SIGNONMSGSRQV1>
  <CREDITMSGSRQV2>
    <LOOKUPTRNRQ>
      <TRNUID>242DF2924CC46</TRNUID>
      <LOOKUPRQ>
        <CTRY_CD>US</CTRY_CD>
        <PRIM_NME>Caterpillar</PRIM_NME>
        <TLCM_NBR></TLCM_NBR>
        <ADR_LINE></ADR_LINE>
        <NON_POST_TOWN></NON_POST_TOWN>
        <POST_TOWN></POST_TOWN>
        <PRIM_GEO_AREA>IL</PRIM_GEO_AREA>
        <POST_CODE></POST_CODE>
        <DUNS_NBR></DUNS_NBR>
        <REGN_NBR></REGN_NBR>
        <FILE_ID></FILE_ID>
        <RTN_MAX></RTN_MAX>
        <PURC_REAS_CD></PURC_REAS_CD>
        <MTCH_TYPE></MTCH_TYPE>
      </LOOKUPRQ>
    </LOOKUPTRNRQ>
  </CREDITMSGSRQV2>
</DGX>

This does not work as the server returns an "invalid request" result.

I tried setHeader('request',m_lookupTemplate) on HttpRequest instead of setBody().  No luck.  The basic problem is that HttpRequest does not allow you to programatically set request parameters.  Any ideas?

Thanks!

Dave