Last Updated on April 15, 2019 by Rakesh Gupta
The Lightning Component modern framework is a User Interface framework to develop dynamic web apps for mobile and desktop devices. As is the case with each release, the latest Summer‘18 release is packed with rich features including, the newly added Lightning Component features!
Currently, Summer’18 release is available under the pre-release program. On the 4th and 5th of May, Sandboxes will be upgraded; as a result, your organization will get the look and feel of Summer’18 release.
If you have not read the entire 476 pages of Salesforce Summer’18 release notes yet, check out Summer’18 release quick summary and, the Top 10 Lightning Experience Gems of Salesforce Summer’18 Release! written by me.
I combed through the release notes and highlighted the added capabilities to the Lightning Component features. Believe me, it was hard to stop at just five! To kick things off, here is my take on the coolest Lightning Component features from Summer’18 release.
1) Build Exciting User Interfaces with New Base Lightning Components:- Now you can accelerate your development with a fresh medley of new built-in Lightning components. The new components cover a broad range of user interface elements and give you a whole new tool bag for your development. Following are few of the new component features. Please note that these features require API version 43.0 or later.
a) lightning:insertImageButton: – It will open the native file browser so that you can select an image to upload and inserts the image inline in the text area.
b) lightning:navigation: – It generates a URL for the given pageReference object, which describes a page’s type, attributes, and state.
c) lightning:recordForm: – Streamlines creating a form to add, view, or update a record. This component makes it easier to create record forms than building them manually with lightning:recordEditForm and lightning:recordViewForm. Set the mode attribute to view, edit, or readonly to specify the type of form.
d) lightning:navigationItemAPI: – It provides access to methods for programmatically controlling navigation items in Lightning console apps in which navigation items display in an item menu. This component provides access to the following Lightning Console JavaScript API methods:
- focusNavigationItem()
- getNavigationItems()
- getSelectedNavigationItem()
- refreshNavigationItem()
e) lightning:quickActionAPI: – It provides access to methods for interacting with the quick actions on a Lightning page. Use this component to call the Lightning Quick Action JavaScript APIs. This component provides similar functionality to the Salesforce Classic Publisher JavaScript APIs.
2) Enable Debug Mode for Only the Users Who Need It:- When debugging Lightning component JavaScript code, enable debug mode only for the users who are actively debugging to not affect the performance of Salesforce for other users of your Org. Salesforce is slower when running in debug mode. Now you can debug problems that appear in your production environment without worrying that other users will complain or even notice.
3) Lightning Component Library Is Generally Available:- Tired of switching back and forth between the Developer Guide and the Component Library? Now, there is one single source of truth for reference documentation. Find the documentation you need for components, interfaces, and events in the Component Library. The Component Library is available as an authenticated experience at https://<myDomain>.lightning.force.com/componentReference/suite.app, where <myDomain> is the name of your custom Salesforce domain.
4) Returning Blobs from the Server No Longer Causes Generic Errors:- Returning a blob used to cause a generic error that was hard to debug. Now, a blob returns the string, Blob(sizeOfBlobInBytes). To access the actual blob contents on the client, return a value as a JSON-serializable type, such as a string or integer, instead. On the client, you can convert the returned value to your preferred data structure in JavaScript. You can return a blob from a server-side controller by:
- Returning an object that contains a blob object, such as ContentNote
- Returning the results of a SOQL query that references a blob field
- Returning an Apex object containing a field of type Blob
In all cases, the value returned is the string describing its size.
5) Lightning Navigation APIs for Lightning Components:- With the lightning:isUrlAddressable interface, you now control which Lightning components can be opened programmatically. You can also now easily capture URL parameters using the v.PageReference attribute and use the parameter values in your component. With the lightning:navigation component, define a pageReference object for navigating to a custom component that implements lightning:isUrlAddressable and set any attributes the component allows.
Note: – You can download release notes in HTML format!, for PDF file.
What are your favorite Summer’18 release note gems?
🍔 🌮 🍪 🍰 I am thankful to Resco.net for sponsoring my blog. 🍔 🌮 🍪 🍰
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