7. Advanced User Interfaces

Now that you are familiar with the basics of Visualforce, this chapter introduces features that enable you to build richer, more interactive user interfaces. The features are divided into the following sections:

Asynchronous actions—Visualforce has built-in, cross-browser support for Ajax behavior, without requiring you to write JavaScript code or integrate with JavaScript libraries.

Modular Visualforce—Visualforce has a number of features to enable you to write modular pages. You can embed static content, build pages that include other pages, define page templates, and create your own library of custom Visualforce components.

Dynamic Visualforce—Learn how to create Visualforce pages that can change their structure on the fly, based on administrator-maintainable declarative metadata or the results of executing Apex code.

Single-page applications in Force.com—Take a slight detour away from Visualforce to develop high-performance Web applications that use the latest client-side frameworks and Force.com as the data layer.

Introduction to Force.com Sites—Visualforce pages can be accessed by users who do not have accounts in your Force.com organization using a feature called Force.com Sites.

Sample application—The Services Manager sample application’s Skills Matrix is enhanced to demonstrate Ajax behavior and the use of JavaScript libraries and custom Visualforce components.