Since Lightning Experience was released, the concept of Classic App and Lightning Apps came up.
- Classic App: an application that has been built in the Classic UI. You can make it visible in Lightning Experience, but that does not convert it into a Lightning App.
- Lightning App: an application that has been built in the Lightning Experience UI.
In this post I want to talk about the benefits that Lightning Apps introduce, with an extra bonus of things to take into account if you are an ISV who builds managed packages.
You can check which type your Apps are in the Lightning Experience App Manager:
There are some Lightning Experience features that are only available for Lightning Apps:
1) Lightning Apps let you brand your apps with a custom color and logo.
- Color and logo can be configured when creating / editing the app, from the app manager:
- Color and logo will be visible in the app launcher application icon:
- Color and logo will be visible also when the application is selected:
- Color and logo are subscriber editable
- Color and logo are not upgradeable
When adding a logo to a Lightning managed app, share the logo (in “Files”) with the Company defined in the organization (Company Information), in order it is visible in subscriber orgs.
2) Lightning app navigation can be standard (as in classic apps), but also we can have a Console navigation. Console navigation allows customers to be more productive, visualizing more data in the same screen, using keyboard shortcuts etc. Read the docs to know more.
3) You can include a Utility bar in Lightning Apps:
- Lightning Voice and Open CTI Softphone can be added to the Utility bar
- Lightning Components can be added to the Utility bar
- Utility bar is not subscriber editable
- Utility bar is upgradeable
4) You can include Lightning Page tabs in your App
- Lightning Pages can be created in App builder to override Home, Record pages or to be App pages by themselves
- They can include a big variety of things, such as Lightning Components
- Lightning Pages are not subscriber editable
- Lightning Pages are upgradeable
Bear in mind that restrictions about having my domain activated in order to visualize Lightning Pages that contain Lightning Components have been relaxed. If you don’t have my domain enabled, you can now install or upgrade a package that has a Lightning page containing a custom component.
5) In contrast with classic apps, the set of tabs that are part of an app are upgradeable. But also, from Winter 18, customers can add tabs to our Lightning managed apps, which is extremely interesting, as we have flexibility combined with upgradeability, in contrast with classic apps.
Want to know more? Check the Lightning Apps trailhead module.
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