Reference from page to SObject which is another package

Question

I have a reference in VF page to a SOBject from another package like this...

  <apex:pageBlockTable value="{!UsageStats}" var="usageStatRecord"> 
     <apex:column headerValue="AM_Details__c" value="{!usageStatRecord.OTHER_PKG__AM_Details__c}"/>

This mean I can't build one of my own packages because it has a reference to this package.

When I try I get:

An extension of a beta package (OTHER_PKG) cannot be uploaded

This seem fair enough. Why should I be allowed build a package that is not modular. However, any tips how I get around this?

Is it possible to change this from a static reference to a dynamic reference? Or can I build my package another way?

Answer 1

The error message here seems to suggest that OTHER_PKG is in fact a beta release of that package. If true, salesforce is doing you a favor by blocking this as building an extension package off of a beta release would mean that you are forever locked into that specific version of the package. Why?

• You can't upgrade beta packages.
• You can't uninstall a package that your managed package has dependencies on.
• Once your package is released as managed you can't remove many types of components.

If you want to build an extension of OTHER_PKG make sure you get a non-beta release installed in your dev org, then try again. Extension packages like this are supported (although salesforce tries to discourage them as they're harder to test and can have some interesting side effects), so I suspect the beta package is what's holding you up here.