May 2008 - Issue 26

Visualforce is in Summer '08. Cross-Object Formula Fields Too.       The forthcoming Tour de Force events highlight many of the new developer features in Summer '08, which rolls out in June. You'll soon be able to use Visualforce to build your presentation logic, and take advantage of Visualforce Components to build reusable, modular presentation logic. For a guided tour of what you can do with Visualforce, sign up for the upcoming webinar. That's not all though.  The Summer '08 release adds a number of great features to the Force.com platform such as Enhanced List Views with Inline Editing and Custom Paging,  Cross-Object Formula Fields,  Many-to-Many Object Relationships,  SAML Support for enhanced SSO,  Visualforce Pages to PDF and much more. For all the details, see the release preview and read the detailed release notes (PDF).             Next for Tour de Force: Silicon Valley, Dublin, and Tokyo       The previous leg of the Tour wrapped up in London with a great Dreamforce Europe, and the next leg will start in Santa Clara, California on June 23. Then it's back to the airport to literally circle the globe by bringing the tour to Dublin, Ireland on June 30 and Tokyo, Japan on July 3. These are all free, full-day events focussed on bringing you the technical education you need to be successful with Force.com. Learn more about these cities and all the others at the new Tour de Force microsite, and register for the next event near you.           Keynoting the eBay Developers Conference       Look for us at the eBay Developers Conference 2008 in Chicago on June 16-18. We're a sponsor of the event and our own Adam Gross, VP of Platform Marketing, will be keynoting. So come on out to hear about how Force.com developers can build great e-commerce solutions in the cloud that utilize the eBay, PayPal, Shopping.com, ProStores, and Skype APIs. For more information, visit the conference website.         New Force.com Resources     :: Ready to Deploy Visualforce? It's Coming in Summer '08! Dreamforce Europe opened with the announcement that Visualforce and Visualforce Components will be made available with the Summer '08 release. Force.com’s Visualforce provides a complete framework for building and deploying any kind of user experience, and enabling any kind of interface design and interaction to be built and delivered entirely on demand. Get started by signing up for the preview release and following our tutorials, demos, code samples and more. Check out the new Visualforce page and Visualforce Components Demonstration to get a feel for the power of custom Visualforce Components.             :: SaaS VC 101: Insider Tips for SaaS Entrepreneurs Webinar SaaS-savvy VCs have invested over $450 million in salesforce.com partner companies in the last 18 months! Using the Force.com platform, you can build killer SaaS applications faster than ever, but how do you build a business plan that attracts venture capital investment? Watch an on-demand webinar for insider tips from an experienced VC on how to achieve SaaS startup success!           Customers & ISV Partners Share their Secrets to Becoming Force.com Innovators       Discover the latest customers and ISV partners that have developed wildly successful applications on the world's first platform as a service. You'll learn how they did it—and how you can become the next success story. Hear how these partners delivered cost-effective solutions quickly by building their apps on the Force.com platform:               :: Papa Murphy's: Papa Murphy's Serves Up Mobile Franchise Management on Force.com       :: CODA: CODA Builds On-Demand "2go" Version of its Financial Management Software       :: MyLoanBiz: MyLoanBiz Builds Mortgage Application on the Force.com Platform             From the Boards             :: General Development       JCoppedge suggests a solution to differentiate web to case coming from different sources to TJMaxx     :: Apex Development       BarryPlum receives a few tips from the community on testing Apex Triggers.     :: Visualforce Development       Ron and Aballard help Jina to dynamically display a pageBlock triggered by a button click.     :: Java Development        learnSF learns how attachments encoded in base64 are returned in an API call.     :: .NET Development       sq now understands how the performance of large SOQL operations can be made better using the emptyRecycleBin call.     :: Perl, PHP, Python, & Ruby Development       vkernal gets help with calling Apex code web services from PHP.     :: Hot Force.com Job of the Month       We're always looking for top-notch technical talent to add to the Force.com team. Check out the Force.com Boards and the new job listings!             Force.com App of the Month: Datasul Fleet Management             Officially launched at Dreamforce Europe earlier this month, CODA2go is the first financials application delivered on the Force.com platform. Utilizing the latest platform technologies including Apex and Visualforce, the CODA team delivered a fully-featured order-to-cash application in less than 6 months, which was accelerated by adopting an agile development methodology (Scrum). If you want a glimpse into their experience using Force.com, visit their development blog.                 Calendar of Events Beyond S-Controls. Master Visualforce in Summer '08 :: Live Webinar • June 18 Google I/O Event :: San Francisco, CA • May 28 eBay Developer Conference :: Chicago, IL • June 16 Tour de Force Event :: Silicon Valley, CA • June 23 :: Dublin, Ireland • June 30 :: Tokyo, Japan • July 3 Training: Force.com Application Laboratory :: London, UK • June 23 Training: Developing with Apex Code :: San Mateo, CA • June 9 :: Atlanta, GA • June 16 :: New York, NY • June 23 :: London, UK • July 2 :: Boston, MA • July 7       News Highlights ThomasNet   Online Platform helps create any interface for any device.       LinuxPlanet   Force.com: Salesforce Moves into the Platform Business        PC World   Salesforce.com Promotes Development in the Cloud       ZDNet   CODA2Go and the economics of PaaS       Investors.com   Trend Could Radically Alter Software Biz