Hello, “lightning lovers”! Are you trying to learn Salesforce lightning but not sure where to start from? You have gone through tons of resources but still confused? Don’t worry I will explain every concept related to lightning from scratch in an easy, relatable way, so you have a good understanding of the topic.
Target Audience
The target audience for this article is someone who wants to learn Salesforce Lightning.
Prerequisite
Basic Knowledge about Salesforce
Topics Covered
1. What is Lightning?
2. Why is Lightning so special?
3. Evolution of Salesforce
4. Create your Developer org
5. Switch between classic and lightning
6. Create my domain to create lightning components
7. Video explaining all the concepts
Introduction
Lightning is a visual treat to everyone. Everybody wants to move to lightning and enjoy the new features. It has become increasingly popular with so much demand in the market. However, it has come with lot unfamiliar words like lightning, lightning experience, aura framework, components, events, etc. You google these words, and then more technical words come up. You get lost in the search, and then you finally stop looking. How do I know all this? Because I have been through the phase, so keep trying, you are not alone.
What is Lightning?
Now the main question still triggers in your mind. What is lightning?
Lightning is a modern UI framework used in the development of dynamic web apps for desktop and mobile devices. Lightning brings tools and technology used to build a lightning experience which is interactive and easy to use. So, the key take away is we can make a standalone mobile app with lightning.
What makes lightning so special?
It’s not just amazing new user experience. It’s also stuffed with lot of new features to help sell faster. I am listing some of the features below.
Lightning App Builder
It Enables non-developers to build apps by assembling standard or custom components.
Lightning Process Builder
Automates complex processes and workflows without coding
Uses open source framework
It can take advantage of open source framework like HTML, CSS, JavaScript to create a Lightning fast mobile-ready application
Evolution of lightning
Before understanding lightning, it is crucial to understand why Salesforce came up with lightning in the first place. What challenges it was facing with the present technology that it introduced lightning.
Salesforce established in 1999, believe it or not in a bedroom apartment.
Customization using S-Controls, 2006
It used JavaScript and now depreciated s-controls to customize the application. It was one big code file with no structure. It was a complete mess. However, before the advent of Visualforce and apex, S-Control looked magical.
Apex and Visualforce exploded the platform,2008
Apex is Object Oriented Programming language, similar to Java. Visualforce is a markup language. Together Apex and Visualforce created a customized solution.
However, Apex and Visualforce had some problems. Since Visualforce depends on the server to fetch a new page when a user interacts with the application, it becomes quite difficult to deliver a modern and dynamic experience as expected by the users.
Support jQuery in 2011
By adding jQuery to Visualforce helped in increasing performance. However, manipulating DOM was not easy.
JavaScript remoting,2012
JS Remoting was defining the moment for JavaScript development in the platform. Developers were able to build single page apps with JavaScript framework. JavaScript remoting helped the user to perform tasks on the page without having to reload the entire page. It brought interactive pages that feel more responsive than traditional Visualforce pages.
It brought some challenges as well. It took extra time to develop pages that used it. It was a tedious process.
Salesforce1 Mobile,2014
It used to build a mobile app using the lightning framework. Mobile App allowed developers to create mobile applications quickly.
Our Beloved Lightning was introduced, 2016
Salesforce Introduced lightning in 2016. It is different from other frameworks. It helped in creating mobile-ready apps. It has so many features
Create new developer org
- Google Free developer edition
- Fill up the form
- Click on submit, you will get email. Once you confirm you will be able to access your developer org.
Switching between classic and lightning
Just by one click you can leverage classic and lightning. What a wonderful tool.Is’nt it?
Switch from classic to lightning
Switch from lightning to classic
Enable my domain in org to build custom lightning components
My domain is required to create lightning components. Using My Domain, Salesforce lets you define a sub domain within their Salesforce org. The sub domain name appears in all org URLs and replaces the instance name
Example
Salesforce provided my the above instance name
- Go to setup
- Type my domain
- Choose your Domain name
- Check Availability
- Register Domain
I choose my own custom sub domain. Isn’t cool.
Video explaining the above concepts
I hope you enjoyed this article. For more articles in this series, stay tuned.
Together we can learn faster!
You can join Salesforce Whatsapp Group.
You can join Salesforce Telegram Group.
Write your coding problems in the document: Let’s solve coding problems together
Quote of the day : “Everything easy is once difficult”
Please click on the like button below and subscribe to our blog with signup with you get the latest update.
Reference
Lightning Aura Components Developer Guide
