Change Item Position using jQuery

See this example on how to change the item position. In APEX you can position the buttons after the action bar in an interactive report. However, you can't put the items there. Using jQuery this is easy to achieve.

React on Tab Change

See this example on how to react on tab change in APEX 5. The problem is to determine the right selector to trigger the corresponding dynamic action. Thanks Christian Rokitta for your help.

APEX Dashboard Competition

APEX Dashboard Competition initiated by Tobias Arnhold is now online. If you want to compete against your colleagues all you need to do is to create a nice looking dashboard based on the prepared set of data, crate a packaged application and send it to the jury. You can apply here: Submit your application and win some nice prices. Hurry up. The closing is on Friday the 1st of April 2016.

Remove Blanks from Formated Date Column

This small example is showing how powerful jQuery is and how easy it is to use it in APEX. In this case, I needed to correct the oracle formatting, which adds blanks to the name of the day prior to comma. Probably oracle RPAD's the day names to the longest (Wednesday). Those are showing in APEX as one blank - see the left column. The only good way to go around that annoying side effect is to use jquery and basically one line of code.

APEX Feature Request

Just created a new feature request for APEX at https://apex.oracle.com/pls/apex/f?p=55447:19:::NO:19:P19_ID:50481528500531591330407043519019274105 … Extend Interactive Report API - Get IR Query. The feature request is abut the following:

"This API should deliver a couple of different SQL statements for an interactive report. There are several possible requirements I can think of:

1. IR query including visible columns and filter values - actual SQL for the user session,
2. IR query including all columns and the original SQL,
3. get column names of an IR with or without column alias,...

Having this SQL we should be able to run it as EXECUTE IMMEDIATE, without having to replace any binds.

This feature could be included in the actions menu and available as a plugin for dynamic actions - new dynamic action feature (action)."

Please, feel free to go there and vote for it.

Select all Checkboxes in IR - APEX 5

If <input type="checkbox" onclick="$f_CheckFirstColumn(this)"> doesn't work for you in APEX 5 Interactive Reports then you will need to disable Fixed Headings (standard). Fixed headings splits the report into two tables and the function won't work.

Oracle Live SQL

Oracle Live SQL is a great source for learning SQL and PL/SQL. It has a lot of good examples and interactive educational tutorials. The best thing is, it runs on APEX ;) Add this site to your bookmarks.

Oracle Database Developer Choice Awards (2nd)

I was just looking at the voting results for ORDS and APEX. In the ORDS category Dietmar Aust is leading and in the category APEX it is Morten Braten. So far so good. These men deserve the award for sure - they did a lot for the community and the most of us are using (or have used) their solutions. Think of Morten's PL/SQL Utility Library or Dietmar's PDF Printing...

The only thing I have a problem with is the absolutely microscopic number of votes. The most votes in the category ORDS has Dietmar - 134. In APEX it is 98 votes for Morten. Even Jari Lane who is very well known in the APEX community and has helped numerous people with his solutions has received all together 103 votes - obviously almost the half of it as down-voitng. To my point of view this is incredible. But if I think back and do a comparison with my own experience then this is actually normal. In the last seven years I have received more than 9.000 emails from the community asking either for access to my workspace, my Demo Application or asking for an APEX solution of some kind. As a result of that I have created almost 4.000 accounts and answered 95% of those emails. But all together, maybe 50 receivers responded saying thank you.

Conclusion:

Shame on us. We are lazy and cynic. We are constantly talking about how big the APEX community and how strong it is. Maybe, because there are a few people out there like Dietmar, Jari, Jürgen Schuster, Morten and few others. The rest seem to be there only when they need something.

Oracle Database Developer Choice Awards

Don't forget to vote for the expert of your choice at https://community.oracle.com/community/database/awards. There are a lot of good men there deserving your voice for their activities in the community and for their selfless engagement.

Count Selected Rows

This small example is showing hot to make sure at least one row in your tabular form has been selected prior to proceeding:

https://apex.oracle.com/pls/apex/f?p=93000:806

Switch Panes in Page Designer

This is definitely worth of mentioning. Go here and download this plugin for Firefox or Chrome. You will like it. It switches the panes in the Page Designer so you can much easier access the properties of the selected elements. Congrats Filip. This is a cool feature. Thanks.

Expert Oracle Application Express 2nd Edition

Expert Oracle Application Express 2nd Edition seems to be available at Apress. Buy this book and support the charity project in memory of Carl Backstrom and Scott Spadafore (previous members of the APEX Team). Please note that all funds will be donated to the families of these two great men.

New APEX Blog

This is a new blog on APEX. I expect a lots of good stuff there in the future. The last example describes how to modify the Page Designer and move the panes, adjust the layout and simplify the development of an application since accessing element attributes is much easier that way. I think this is worth of looking at and maybe the APEX team considers this as an improvement for the future release.

APEX 5 - Opening and Closing Modal Window

This example is showing how to open a Modal Page from any element in your application. It is easy to get it working using some standards like a button or a link in a report. However, it is not 100% clear how to get it working with some other elements which don't have the redirect functionality built in (item, region title, custom links, etc.). This example is also showing how to get the success message displayed on the parent page after closing of the Modal Page.

APEX 5.0 New Features Training September 2015

Oracle Application Express 5.0 wurde am 15.04.2015 freigegeben und ist als Download verfügbar.

Wir haben jetzt alle über zwei Jahre auf das neue Release gewartet ... und das Warten hat sich mehr als gelohnt ... die neuen Möglichkeiten werden Sie umhauen!

Wir haben die neuen Möglichkeiten genau unter die Lupe genommen und sind selbst total begeistert, weil sie das tägliche Arbeiten extrem vereinfachen. Wir haben schon einige Anwendungen in APEX 5.0 neu programmiert und einige ältere Versionan auf 5.0 umgestellt.

Mit dem neuen Pagedesigner sind wir so produktiv wie noch nie, das Universal Theme erlaubt auf einfache Weise, richtig elegante Applikationen zu entwickeln. Damit ist wirklich ein Durchbruch gelungen, die Konfiguration (über Template Optionen) und selbst farbliche Anpassungen sind ein Kinderspiel, der integrierte Theme Roller ist einfach genial!

Modale Dialoge, multiple Interaktive Berichte pro Seite, Erweiterungen für die mobilen Endgeräte, ein komplett neues File-Handling und viele neue Security - Features ... dieses Release ist wirklich umfangreich!

Neben diesen großen Features wurden auch wieder über 100 kleinere oder auch größere Verbesserungen implementiert.

In unseren Kursen haben wir schon über 200 APEX-Fans die besten Herangehensweisen, Tipps und Tricks beigebracht. Durch die Hands-On Übungen vertiefen wir diese und Sie können diese sofort einsetzen ... oder Sie schlagen sie nach ... wenn Sie sie später brauchen ;). Aber auf jeden Fall wissen Sie nach dem Kurs, was möglich ist!

Wir beide (Denes und Dietmar) entwickeln seit 2006 fast jeden Tag mit APEX Applikationen für unsere Kunden, wir haben mit APEX schon alles ausprobiert.

Nehmen Sie die Abkürzung und lernen Sie von den Besten, was für die Praxis am wichtigsten sein wird.

Um die Vorteile des neuen Releases möglichst schnell nutzen zu können, melden Sie sich am besten sofort an und sichern Sie sich Ihren Platz!

• Klicken Sie auf den Link "Anmeldung zum Kurs".
• Tragen Sie Ihre Anmeldedaten ein und klicken Sie auf den Button "Anmelden".
• Sie bekommen sofort eine Bestätigungs-Email zugeschickt.
• Sobald Sie in der Email auf den Link zur Bestätigung klicken, haben Sie Ihren Platz gesichert und sind auf jeden Fall dabei!

Anmeldung zum Kurs

P.S.: Die vollständige Agenda und weitere Infos zum Kurs gibt es online in der Kursbeschreibung.

Quick and Dirty - Refreshing a Select List of Values

This is a quick and dirty solution but it works. It shows hot to update a select list of values on demand without a lot of coding.

AJAX Callback and jQuery creating Page Items Dynamically

This example shows a couple of interesting techniques:

• 1. How to create and use an AJAX Callback process instead of an Application Process on Demand,
• 2. how to create a dynamic page item,
• 3. how to modify the item display settings and reference Font Awsome icon set and finaly,
• 4. it shows how to call an AJAX process from javascript.

This question is based on a recent forum posting where this question was asked.

Have a look and enjoy.

APEX Meetup Frankfurt

Am 26.06.2015 17.00 treffen wir uns in Frankfurt a. M. bei einem weiteren APEX Meetup. Danke an Sabine Heimsath und Moritz Klein für die Organisation. Ich zeige dort, wie man lokal eine XE Datenbank zusammen mit ORDS und Glassfish konfigurieren kann. Danach kann sehr leicht jede beliebige Version von APEX nachinstalliert werden. Der Vorteil ist, ich kann alle Features einsetzen (RESTful Services, XLS Upload) und der Austausch vo Images bzw. Konfiguration für die neue Version von APEX sind kein Problem mehr.

Die Adresse ist:

Ericsson Telekommunikation GmbH
Herriotstr. 1
Frankfurt

Our next meetup is in Frankfurt on 26th of June. Thanks to Sabine Heimsath and Moritz Klein we will meet at Ericsson Telekommunikation GmbH Herriotstr. 1 Frankfurt. I will demonstrate how to install XE with ORDS and Glassfish and how to upgrade to APEX 5.0 on a local virtual machine.

APEX 5.0 - Run Applications in New Tabs Part 2

In this blog posting I was showing how to get the Firefox Browser to work with tabs in APEX 5.0. It looks like APEX 5.0 was "optimized" to work in Google Chrome and the other browsers like IE and Firefox were not fully considered. I was able to make it working using the settings I described in the first post. However, the old style popup windows would also open in a new tab. Yesterday I discovered a feature I wasn't aware of. Changing the settings using that feature helped me to get everything working as it worked before. Here is what I did:

• 1. I uninstalled all Tab-Addons in Firefox.
• 2. The standard settings in Tools / Options / Tabs are shown in the following screenshot:
  
  
• 3. I installed Tab Mix Plus Add-On and changed the settings as in the screenshot:
  
  
• 4. Finaly, I changed the preferences in my workspace:
  
  
  

Now, the consequences were that clicking on Run Application button, would automatically open the application in a new tab:

and the classic popups like image popup would open in a new window:

The only thing is that you need to set the options for each workspace you use.

Enjoy.

APEX Plugins

This may sound like a joke but I think there must be something wrong here. This page APEX-Plugin.com is supposed to provide all the plugins out there. The only thing is that you need to log in before you download and that's O.K. However, I forgot my password and wanted to change it. The process is quite simple:

• I click on forgot my password link.
• Enter my email address.
• After that I receive a unique token per email.
• I enter that token and change my password.
• The last thing to do is to log in with the new password.

And this is where it starts. I can't log in and nothing happens. I did write an email asking for help but except a confirmation email there was no response whatsoever.

Anyone with the similar problem?