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The Welkin Suite

Score9 out of 10

3 Reviews and Ratings

What is The Welkin Suite?

The Welkin Suite is an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) specifically designed for Salesforce development. According to the vendor, it offers a comprehensive set of tools and features aimed at enhancing productivity and efficiency when working with the Salesforce platform. The product is suitable for companies of all sizes, from small businesses to large enterprises, and is utilized by Salesforce Developers, Salesforce Administrators, IT Professionals, Software Development Companies, and Consulting Firms across various industries.

Key Features

Apex Code Completion: The Welkin Suite provides intelligent code completion for the Apex language, offering type-ahead suggestions for classes, objects, and their members. The vendor claims that it filters suggestions based on scope and type, aiming to improve coding accuracy and speed.

Automatic Code Formatting: The Welkin Suite includes automatic code formatting, which conforms to predefined style rules to enhance code readability and maintainability. Users have the ability to customize formatting options according to their preferences.

ApexDoc: The Welkin Suite generates comprehensive Apex code documentation based on comments, following a standardized format. The vendor states that this feature promotes collaboration among developers and aids in understanding and maintaining Apex code.

Errors Highlighting in the Code: The Welkin Suite provides real-time highlighting of syntax errors and potential issues in code. According to the vendor, this feature assists developers in quickly identifying and resolving errors, ultimately improving code quality and reducing debugging time.

Go to Definition: The Welkin Suite allows users to navigate directly to the definition of classes, methods, and variables, aiming to save time in understanding code structure and dependencies. This feature enhances code navigation and exploration.

Lightning Components: The Welkin Suite offers a comprehensive set of tools for Lightning Application and Component development. It includes features such as Lightning Markup Completion and Lightning Bundle Explorer, which the vendor claims enable efficient development of Lightning experiences.

Lightning Previewer for Lightning Applications: The Welkin Suite includes a Lightning Previewer, allowing developers to conveniently preview Lightning Applications within the IDE. According to the vendor, this feature provides a quick and easy way to test Lightning Applications.

Enhanced Visualforce Editor: The Welkin Suite provides an advanced editor for Visualforce pages, featuring syntax highlighting, code completion, and code formatting. This feature aims to simplify Visualforce development and improve productivity.

Javascript Code Completion: The Welkin Suite offers code completion for JavaScript in Visualforce pages and Lightning components. According to the vendor, this feature provides suggestions for JavaScript objects, functions, and properties, assisting developers in writing accurate and efficient JavaScript code.

Automated and Simplified Work with Archived Static Resources: The Welkin Suite streamlines the management of archived static resources in Salesforce. According to the vendor, this feature simplifies the process of adding, updating, and deleting static resources, improving efficiency and organization.

Well if you need an IDE you ought to be using Welkin.

Pros

  • Great coding envirionment
  • Allows for easy and direct deployment
  • It's great for searching all of the code in a project to determine where a variable may be used.

Cons

  • It would be nice if IDE feature releases were timed to coincide with Salesforce releases (i.e. make Lightning Web Components available on the day they become available in Salesforce instances).
  • The IDE can be a bit buggy especially when you have several windows of the IDE open to different Salesforce instances at the same time on one machine.
  • Sometimes, when you click to retrieve your data too soon, before the program has a chance to ask you to connect to the instance, it can cause the IDE to freeze.

Return on Investment

  • I have probably saved about three hours, on larger projects.
  • It has definitely saved me the overhead of having to work with other IDEs that have heavier setup requirements.

Salesforce-Focussed IDE

Pros

  • Local History - Without having to setup GitHub this has been a time saver!
  • AutoComplete
  • Saves the entire project at once

Cons

  • The Field-Level Security editor - I haven't been able to get this to successfully work on a project after going through their documentation.

Return on Investment

  • The ability to recover and compare to local history
  • Reliable vs. open source alternatives!

Alternatives Considered

Eclipse

Other Software Used

FreshBooks, Slack