Visualforce is a framework in Salesforce that allows developers to build custom user interfaces that can be hosted natively on the Salesforce platform. It’s especially useful when standard Salesforce UI components don’t meet the business needs.
Key Highlights
- Visualforce is a markup language similar to HTML.
- It uses custom tags, all beginning with
<apex:...>. - Visualforce pages are tightly integrated with Apex (Salesforce’s Java-like programming language).
- You can use it to override standard pages or create completely custom pages.
Basic Structure of a Visualforce Page
xmlCopyEdit<apex:page>
<h1>Welcome to Visualforce</h1>
<apex:form>
<apex:inputText value="{!name}" label="Your Name"/>
<apex:commandButton value="Submit" action="{!submit}"/>
</apex:form>
</apex:page>
<apex:page>– Main container for your Visualforce code<apex:form>– Allows user input<apex:inputText>– Accepts user input<apex:commandButton>– Submits the form and triggers a controller action
Why Use Visualforce?
- Create custom UIs beyond standard Salesforce layouts
- Integrate complex logic through Apex controllers
- Override default Salesforce behavior for specific business needs
- Render pages as PDFs, emails, or public web forms
Real-World Use Cases
- Building a custom product catalog view
- Creating printable invoices in PDF format
- Custom lead intake or contact forms
- Building internal dashboards tailored to user roles
When to Use Lightning Instead?
Salesforce is now pushing Lightning Web Components (LWC) for modern UI development. However, Visualforce is still:
- Widely used in legacy systems
- Easier for simple customizations
- Supported in both Classic and Lightning Experience