Display Standard Mini Page Layout in Visualforce

Did you ever run into a situation, when you were asked to display a standard mini page layout in Visualforce, on hover of a link?

Assuming that you haven’t faced the situation, and are not sure how to go about it? Am writing this blog post, to let you know, following options available, to meet the requirement.

1. Search and download a relevant javascript from internet, and use it in your VF page.
2. Write your own html/javascript.
3. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Instead, use salesforce’s standard mini page layout display mechanism.

Per my experience, options 1 & 2 are very time consuming and may not guarantee native look and feel.

However, option 3 is my favorite, as it saves lot of time and effort and is very much native. You just don’t need to write any complicated javascript/html. Instead, you will call some of the salesforce’s javascript functions. Now, that’s smart thinking.

Here is the Visuaforce markup, enjoy!!

<apex:page standardController="Account" recordSetVar="accounts">
<apex:pageBlock >
<apex:pageBlockTable value="{!accounts}" var="acc">
<apex:column headerValue="{!$ObjectType.Account.Fields.Name.Label}">
<a href="/{!acc.id}"
id="lookup{!acc.id}opp4"
onblur="LookupHoverDetail.getHover('lookup{!acc.id}opp4').hide();"
onfocus="LookupHoverDetail.getHover('lookup{!acc.id}opp4', '/{!acc.id}/m?retURL=/{!acc.id}&isAjaxRequest=1').show();"
onmouseout="LookupHoverDetail.getHover('lookup{!acc.id}opp4').hide();"
onmouseover="LookupHoverDetail.getHover('lookup{!acc.id}opp4', '/{!acc.id}/m?retURL=/{!acc.id}&isAjaxRequest=1').show();">
{!acc.Name}
</a>
</apex:column>
<apex:column headerValue="{!$ObjectType.Account.Fields.Type.Label}" value="{!acc.Type}" />
</apex:pageBlockTable>
</apex:pageBlock>
</apex:page>

I tried to keep it simple. However, you can create a re-usable custom component for this and use it where ever you need it.

Hope that’s helpful

Sorting, Pagination in Visualforce using DataTables JQuery plug-in.

What is this DataTables.net?
DataTables is a plug-in for the jQuery Javascript library. It is a highly flexible tool, based upon the foundations of progressive enhancement, which will add advanced interaction controls to any HTML table.

My Attempt
I did little bit of dotnet programming in my early days. I remember using ado.net controls for binding data to a list on an aspx page with just drag and drop. It was exciting to be able to pass SQL statements to controls directly in design time.

I always wondered if Salesforce would introduce similar VF components. For good or bad, that didn’t happen. However, Salesforce did a better thing by introducing VF components. Encouraging developers to create their our own VF components and reuse them just like you do in dotnet or java world.

Here is my attempt to create a VF component, which can take SOQL query, List of fields and Headers in design time.

I tried keep the code simple, you may tweak it as needed.

Here is the code…enjoy..!

VF Page

<apex:page docType="html-4.01-strict">
    <c:quickTableComp cContainerId="testtable"
        columnFields="Id, Name, AccountNumber"
        columnTitles="Record ID, Account Name, Account Number"
        soql="select Id, Name, AccountNumber from Account"    
    />
</apex:page>

VF Component

<apex:component controller="quickTableHandler">
    <apex:attribute name="cContainerId" type="String" required="true"  description="Id of the container which will hold & display the table" assignTo="{!cContainerId}"  />
    <apex:attribute name="soql" assignTo="{!soql}" type="String" description="SOQL query to execute and populate records." />
    <apex:attribute name="columnFields" assignTo="{!columnFields}" type="String" description="Comma-separated list of fields to display." />
    <apex:attribute name="columnTitles" assignTo="{!columnTitles}" type="String" description="Comma-separated list of column titles." />

    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://cdn.datatables.net/1.10.0/css/jquery.dataTables.css"/>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.10.2.min.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="http://cdn.datatables.net/1.10.0/js/jquery.dataTables.js"></script>
    
    <script type="text/javascript">
            $(document).ready( function() {
                $('#{!cContainerId}').dataTable();
            } );
    </script>        

    <div class="full_width">
                
        <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" class="display" id="{!cContainerId}" style="width:980px">
            <thead>
                <apex:outputPanel layout="none">
                    <tr>
                        <apex:repeat value="{!columnTitlesList}" var="t">
                            <th>
                                <apex:outputText value="{!t}" />
                            </th>                   
                        </apex:repeat>
                    </tr>
                </apex:outputPanel>
            </thead>
            <tbody>
                <apex:repeat value="{!records}" var="r">
                    <tr>
                        <apex:repeat value="{!columnFieldsList}" var="f">
                            <td>
                                <apex:outputField value="{!r[f]}" />
                            </td>
                        </apex:repeat>
                    </tr>
                </apex:repeat>
            </tbody>
        </table>
    </div>    

</apex:component>

Apex Class

public with sharing class quickTableHandler {

    public String columnFields { get; set; }
    public String soql { get; set; }
    public String columnTitles { get; set; }

    public List<String> columnFieldsList {
        get {
            if(columnFieldsList == null && columnFields != null) {
                columnFieldsList = columnFields.split(',');
                for(Integer x = 0; x < columnFieldsList.size(); x++) {
                    columnFieldsList[x] = columnFieldsList[x].trim();
                }
            }
            return columnFieldsList;
        }
        set;
    }
    
    public List<String> columnTitlesList {
        get {
            if(columnTitlesList == null && columnTitles != null) {
                columnTitlesList = columnTitles.split(',');
                for(Integer x = 0; x < columnTitlesList.size(); x++) {
                    columnTitlesList[x] = columnTitlesList[x].trim();
                }
            }
            return columnTitlesList;
        }
        set;
    }

    public List<sObject> records {
        get {
            if(records == null && soql != null) {
                records = Database.query(soql);
            }
            return records;
        }
        set;
    }
}