It can be summed up in one word. Javascript. It’s a hell of a tide change for Salesforce. So long Visualforce, hello lightning components! They are coming mainstream!
So, what does this mean for developers? Is Salesforce switching off the old UI? No… well not yet, too many companies have invested too much in it and VisualForce. Are they switching off Visualforce? will you still be able to develop VisualForce? Yes of course.
The Lightning UI is still a little way off from being complete. One of the reasons is that it doesn’t have a vast amount of components that VisualForce has, but this is defiantly going to change! With Lightning Components your creating a whole application rather than just a page in VisualForce, so the complexity is higher than regular VisualForce.
I’m expecting VisualForce to go the way of SControls in the long term, but this will still be a way off. But it’s time to start thinking about when to use Lightning Components over VisualForce, what are the scenarios that make sense to use Lightning Components? At some point Salesforce will stop the ability to create new VisualForce pages, only allowing you to edit. I doubt Salesforce will be actively developing new features into VisualForce as the concentration will be shifting on to Lightning Components, which to me makes sense.
You do have the ability to view VisualForce pages in the new UI in several areas. But the old and new UIs are very different and in that transitional period of replacing visualForce with lightning components I would love a full proof way to see if the page is being executed either in the new or old UI…Â and tweak the Visualforce page UI in order for it to display nicely.
Is there an easy way to migrate my VisualForce pages to Lightning Components?
No. They are two different frameworks. The only thing they have in common is that they use Apex as their controller layer (this is optional in Lightning as components have their own javascript controller), but the Apex will need re-developed/refactored to support Lightning.
Where can I learn more?
If you haven’t tried Trailhead now is your time to start! It’s a great free online tool for learning Salesforce. There are now 41 modules, 11 trails & 6 projects strong, and they have just create two trailhead modules dedicated to the new Lightning UI Experience. I would start there, it’s what I’m going to be doing!
 Admin Trail: Migrating to the Lightning Experience |
 Developer Trail Lightning Experience |
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Create Lightning with Lightning & IoT
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Description: With Salesforce Lightning Components and Process Builder, it’s now even easier to have physical devices react to events happening within the Salesforce Platform. Join us to learn how to use Lighting Components, basic Apex, Process Builder, push topics, and a simple node.js application to talk to devices to publicly reward success or warn of impending doom within your office.
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JanBask
July 20, 2016 at 7:40 pm
very helpful for salesforce developer. I find in this article you provide great meaning of salesforce lightning.