Maintaining custom settings

Custom settings are a natural fit for data that controls application behavior. They are similar to custom sObjects but are cached, and so do not have to be retrieved from the Salesforce database each time they are accessed. For more information, refer to the Custom Settings Overview page in the Salesforce online help. Unlike custom sObjects, custom settings do not have a configurable user interface provided by the platform, which can make maintenance a challenge for inexperienced administrators.

In this recipe, we will create a Visualforce frontend to an existing custom setting that allows an administrator to take an application in and out of maintenance, with an associated message to display to users.

Getting ready

This recipe makes use of a custom setting, so this will need to be created and populated before the Visualforce page can be created.

1. Navigate to the Custom Settings setup page by clicking on Your Name | Setup | Develop | Custom Settings.

2. Click on the New...