For The new-age business application developers, it’s a highly competitive and challenging task to create different business applications. Such web-based, desktop, and mobile applications needed for all business stakeholders to keep integrated and also operate various tasks with precision and perfection. While making such business apps, the conventional development methods and strategies aren’t enough, and this is where development platforms like Salesforce DX come into the picture. As of late, Salesforce DX is one of the most robust business app development suites, which will help individual developers and corporate development teams to meet any challenges in terms of business app development.
When it comes to developing using Salesforce DX, all the projects handled this way tend to have a specific source format and structure. Unlike the conventional method of custom development of business apps, the source of truth in Salesforce DX development tends to be a unique set of files and file extensions. For the beginners, it may not be the same as what you have already used to while using Metadata APIs. Let’s explore further to understand the Salesforce DX project structure in detail.
Transformation of source
You can see it clearly as the formatted sources of metadata are usually very large, which further makes it difficult to find what you look for exactly. In terms of software development teams, which consist of multiple developers who need to access the same metadata updates, the team needs to deal with multiple file merging.
However, Salesforce DX has an advanced solution to this issue by offering a unique source shape, which further breaks down the larger source files into much smaller and easily manageable sources with the help of a version control system. This is ideally called as the source format.
In any given Salesforce DX project, you may see the custom objects and their translations in various subdirectories. This model of source format may make it so easier for the developers to find out what they exactly need in case of a change of update is required. In a comprehensive corporate development environment, this will further help save a lot of time and effort of the developers and make the overall development process quicker.
Handling static resources
In the Salesforce DX development life cycle, you can set the static resources to reside in /main/default/static resources directory. Just use the command as a force:source:push or otherwise force:source:pull, which can further support compression or expansion of the archived MIME types in the development projects. It also supports .jar or .zip types of MIME. This way, the source files are easily integrated with the Salesforce DX project, and developers can more easily get access to it.
As suggested by Flosum.com, while the developers upload any types of static resources archives using Scratch Org or Setup UI, commands like the force:source:pull many further expand it to directory structure which lays inside the specific project. To mimic the process further from the file system, one many just add the directory structure as well as to compress it to the static resources directory to further get associated with the resource-meta.xml file.
Choosing the file extensions
Alongside converting existing metadata to the source format, developers can easily create an XML file. This can be created for each bit, and the files with XML markup can also have the extension as .xml. A developer may simply use any XML editor to access the source files and explore it. Further to sync local projects with the Scratch Org, they can use any directory structure with some custom objects. Object translations, Lightning components, and documents also can be synced in the same way.
Other features of Salesforce DX
In order to support the above developmental practices, let’s further explore some of the other major Salesforce DX features.
Version control: Administrators and development professionals use Salesforce DX for various tasks in a typical development process. As we can see, Salesforce offers an advanced version control mechanism. With all additional features it offers, developers can now more effectively control the audit, collaboration, and also disaster management when need arise. Version control becomes important to stick to a proper release plan. With only limited risks, Salesforce DX users can easily build and release many new features on-the-go as needed with version control.
Also, those who work with Heroku, it becomes much simpler and easier to work with Salesforce DX. Developers can find the most advanced version of Heroku Flow at Force.com. Comparing to this, Salesforce DX also comes up with various new features and options from time to time. As of late, you can find migration options at Force.com. Following these upgraded standards will offer the users a very stable and mighty platform for enterprise application development with easy integration.
A few other DS benefits
For the beginner developers on Salesforce DX, it will be beneficial to know about some more significant advantages of working with DX to be more productive and smarter on it. Let’s explore.
- Source of Truth – The best developmental approach by Salesforce DX, which makes CI tool development much easier and quicker for corporate development teams as well as individual developers.
- Scratch Orgs – Very effective in the development of CI tools in enterprise applications.
- Test Runner – Offering the app developers the power to define their test profile and function accordingly.
- Continuous Integration – Ensures seamless integration with third-party applications. Ongoing integration regularly is made possible with the help of this tool.
- Source Sync – This is an advanced feature that will offer the privilege of syncing metadata with the scratch orgs.
All these advanced features come together to make Salesforce DX a high-performing application development platform. Not only for developers, but these will also make the task easier for the administrators too. DX is also getting updated frequently with many add-on tools and features. Easy and seamless integration capabilities also make it instantly adaptable to all types of development teams with varying needs. Compared to other existing solutions in terms of enterprise development, Salesforce DX is a step ahead in terms of in-line development, integration, collaboration, risk assessment, as well as disaster recovery.