About a year ago, I started learning PHP and was just getting my feet wet with the Force.com API, and I soon realized what I would need to do to really learn both --  build a web-based version of Apex Data Loader. I had used the Data Loader to import and extract data, and it did this pretty well, but thinking how cool it would be if this could all be done directly in a web browser like the rest of the Salesforce on-demand applications, I was very excited to start this project.

It started with downloading the open source PHP Toolkit and understanding how to make basic connections and calls to the Force.com API, and this quickly progressed into building out all the major functions of the Data Loader completely in PHP. Being my first major project in PHP, it was still had its fair share of not-so-good practices, but as a testament to the simplicity of both PHP and the Force.com API, the DataLoader.PHP (as the Workbench was once known) became reality. Building on this foundation, more and more features were added and the existing code was refactored to be more efficient and extensible. Soon I realized that I had something that could do much more than the Data Loader with the new Describe, Undelete, and Purge functions and plans to implement a whole suite of useful tools for Salesforce administrators and developers, the application was renamed the Workbench and version 1.0 was released as an open source project on Google Code.

With a modest number of downloads and feedback from the open source community, the feature requests started to roll in for the next generation of the Workbench. Back at the drawing board, I implemented a SOSL Search function, added new Smart Lookup capabilities, built an extensible configuration framework, and tuned the overall performance. All of this was packaged in a new, clean user interface and delivered as Workbench 2.0 just in time for the Salesforce Summer '08 release.

For more information and to download Workbench 2.0 or its source code, visit the project page on developer.force.com.