Using the Date Picker Item it wasn’t possible to show a popup without the days, so I began a search and found a month picker jQuery Plugin.

Using that it was easy to create an APEX Plugin with simple settings:

Download

Get the Plugin at apex-plugin.com or try a demo over here at first.

But what does that mean on a more technical level? Which Views have changed, which API’s have changed?

Inspired by the Webinar over here I thought i’ll give the redgate Schema Compare Tool a try.

The Setup was pretty easy. After installing that tool on a Windows VM i just started it and created a new compare project where i entered the connection details from my 2 databases where APEX 4.0 and APEX 4.1 is installed.

On the second Tab of this dialog you can specify some options.

Now all you need to do is hit the “Compare Now” Button, wait a minute (which i think is pretty quick) and see the Result Overview:

Now you can zoom in and check the Details of each and every difference found:

As you can see this was just a matter of minutes and a pretty straight forward process.

For now I’m interested in the differences only and don’t want to use Schema Compare to generate a script to update my 4.1 database with the contents of my 4.0 database.
But if you’re about to move an application from dev to test or push it live, the tool can write the upgrade script  and do the upgrade for you too, if you want.

Changes between APEX 4.0 and 4.1

After creating the Diff between 4.0 and 4.1 i browsed the Details and found some changes which were interesting to me.

Please note that this is not a complete evaluation of the differences, nor might it be important to anyone (but me).

Also note, that many objects are for internal use only, therefore i’ll mention names of Public Objects only  (APEX*-Views).

New / Removed Objects

At first i compared the objects that were removed (exist only in APEX_040000 Schema) and the objects that were created new with APEX 4.1 (Schema APEX_040100).

Here we can find some objects dropped and more created which refer to the new Authorizations and Authentications, which are new Plugins in APEX 4.1 (read this one for details on those Plugins).

Other created Objects are used for the new Data Upload Wizard you can implement in an APEX Application.

The third new Cluster deals with the changed Errorhandling as described by Patrick over here.

But there are also things i didn’t expect, like new public Views for dynamic Translations and the Translation Table itself.

New Views:

• APEX_WORKSPACE_GROUP_USERS
• APEX_WORKSPACE_GROUPS
• APEX_APPLICATION_TRANS_DYNAMIC
• APEX_APPLICATION_TRANS_REPOS
• APEX_APPL_LOAD_TABLES
• APEX_APPL_LOAD_TABLE_LOOKUPS
• APEX_APPL_LOAD_TABLE_RULES

New API’s:

• APEX_AUTHENTICATION
• APEX_DATA_LOAD
• APEX_ERROR

Changed Objects

Changes in the previous existing 154 public Views and API’s can be clustered as:

• most (if not all) Views got a new column WORKSPACE_DISPLAY_NAME
• the security check in all relevant Views got enhanced by also checking the SYS_CONTEXT and the new Build-Status RUN_AND_HIDDEN
• Plugins got enhanced by new types (authentication and authorization) and have now up to 15 attributes instead of 10 before
• APEX_APPLICATION_AUTH and APEX_APPLICATION_AUTHORIZATION got rewritten to reflect that Authorizations/Authentications are Plugins now
• APEX_APPLICATION_LIST_ENTRIES do have a flag indicating if the entry should be translated, or not
• APEX_APPLICATION_LISTS can be static or dynamic now, reflected by the new columns LIST_CODE_TYPE and LIST_QUERY
• APEX_APPLICATION_PAGE_BUTTONS: Buttons now can be normal or “hot”, and both Button types (Region Button and Item Button) now have same functionality.
  Another new Button feature is the Button Action “Defined by Dynamic Action” which basically does nothing at all (in APEX 4.0 you would use target URL “#” to achieve the same)
• Dynamic Actions can directly target Buttons which lead to new columns in APEX_APPLICATION_PAGE_DA
• new Errorhandling Function can be defined on Application or on Page Level, changes in APEX_APPLICATION_PAGES
• Validations for Tabular Form Columns have been enhanced: APEX_APPLICATION_PAGE_VAL
• some preperations for mobile Templates have been made, like the “Render Form Items in Table” Flag in APEX_APPLICATION_TEMP_REGION or special defaults for mobile templates in APEX_APPLICATION_THEMES
• APEX_APPLICATIONS has plenty of new and changed colums
• lots of minor changes like new columns in Views that have been missing before (e.g. Condition-Type in APEX_APPLICATION_BC_ENTRIES)

Of course there have been numerous changes in several API Packages, but this would be too much for a single blog post.
If you want to digg that deep, feel free to do a Diff or look directly at the Package Specs of interest.

Happy Coding, everyone !

You want to join the crowd and provide a mobile interface for your APEX Application? Nothing easier than that!

As pointed out above the variety of mobile phone brands and Operation Systems is wide and our APEX Application should run on any device, regardless if there is a fruit on the back cover or something else (a robot?).

Oracle APEX lets you create a web application and you can influence the HTML Code it creates. That also means you can include a 3rd Party Javascript Library to provide support for mobile devices.

There are several Javascript libraries/frameworks covering mobile support, like: jqTouch, Sencha Touch, jQuery mobile, dhtmlx touch and many more.

After several tests i decided to use jQuery mobile, as it fits the APEX structure best, covers the broadest range of mobile devices and will also be included in APEX 4.1 (or 4.2, whenever they are ready for mobile). See the Statement of direction for more Information.

See what it looks like:

Here you can see it in a demo Showcase: http://www.click-apex.at/apex/f?p=mobile

The good thing is, everything you see is built using standard APEX components. There is at first a Theme with a small number of Templates to create a HTML Structure that jQuery mobile expects. Then there are a couple of Plugins to render HTML5 compliant input items (the type-attribut of the input item makes the mobile browser decide which onscreen keyboard should be used: number, test, phone, email, url).
In the pictures above you can see a standard login screen, a List for the main menu, a report with a special template and a standard form using the HTML5 Plugin for the phone keyboard.

There will be a very detailed article in one of the next issues of the german APEX Community where i describe how this demo Application was built (and provide the Theme source code).
Once this is released i will provide you here with an english version of that.

If you like this and you want to create a mobile APEX Application too, then you have 3 options:

1. create a mobile Theme on your own (that takes some time at the first try…)
2. wait for APEX 4.1 where support for mobile will hopefully be included (this might take a while)
3. wait for my next Blog Posting on this topic (best choice!)

Update: the next Blog Posting was released

Not only can you search there for strings in your application code, you also can enter an page-id and jump directly to the page.

This is so good, that i thought i go a little further and improve it even more.

With Version 2.1 of the ApexLib Builder Plugin the search box is even more enhanced and turned into a quick navigation command and search center.

To get an Overview what’s possible just enter a ? (question mark) into the search field and press enter.

So if you want to switch from your page item screen to the plugins simply enter “g pl” into the search box and hit enter.

And it gets even better: with the new ApexLib BuilderPlugin config files we established the Hotkey “Ctrl+Shift+F” which sets the focus into the search field.

So “Ctrl+Shift+F“, then “g ap“, enter and you are at the Application Processes.

Great, isn’t it?

Now go and get the new ApexLib BuilderPlugin and start getting even more productive.

Also: did you know that using the BuilderPlugin you can use the Hotkeys F10 for save, F8 for Run, Ctrl+Shift+E for Edit Page and much more?

Dieser Artikel liegt auch in deutscher Sprache vor.

Sounds easy, but standard Page Item Buttons always submit the Page, which isn’t what i wanted.

So i created this little Plugin….

This item type plug-in provides a simple Button which can be placed among other Page items and can redirect to a Page or URL or even execute javascript code.

As you can see in the screen-shot, it is really easy to use.

Download

I put that Plugin on www.apex-plugin.com, there is also a demo over here.

This comes in very handy for those users who always seems to forget to enter the whole address.

The new item type Plugin “Address (validation and display map)” gives you an easy way to provide a text-field where the user can enter his address and immediately sees a map and a marker for the address.

This Plugin also has some advanced attributes which you can use to get even more information out of the Google Geocoding API.

See this documentation for examples of what the Google Geocoding API is capable of.

You can find Documentation to that Plugin over here.

How does it work?

The item is a standard input item which takes the entered address, as soon as the user leaves the field, and sends it to the Google Geocoding API.

The first matching address returned by the Geocoding API is displayed in a Google Map.

Download

I put that Plugin on www.apex-plugin.com, there is also a demo over here.

Meine Firma, click-click IT Solutions, veranstaltet zwei Seminare zu Oracle APEX Anfang März in Wien.

Diese Seminare laufen in der Reihe der AOUG Seminare und sind deswegen unfassbar günstig!
Für Mitglieder der AOUG kostet so ein Tag gerade mal EUR 225,- , Nichtmitglieder auch nur EUR 295,- !

Seminar 1: 03.03.2011 APEX Einstieg

Der richtige Einstieg für alle Interessierten, hier bekommen sie einen ganzen Tag lang alles wissenswerte rund um Oracle Application Express vermittelt und “begreifen” Applikationsentwicklung mit gezielten Hands-On Übungen.

Egal ob Entwickler, DBA oder Manager. Nach diesem Tag können sie nicht nur ihre eigene Applikationsentwicklung starten, sondern sie haben auch genug Background um zu entscheiden ob/wie/wo Oracle APEX in ihrem Unternehmen eingesetzt werden kann.

Seminar 2: 04.03.2011 APEX 4.0 new Features

Wer schon Ahnung von Oracle APEX hat, aber die neuen Features der Release 4.0 noch nicht einsetzt, der ist mit diesem Tag richtig beraten.

An diesem Tag dreht sich alles um Interaktivität mit Dynamic Actions, Plugins und den neuen Tabular Form Features.
Aber auch die anderen neuen Features kommen nicht zu kurz:

• neue Charts und Maps
• interaktive Reports
• Team Development
• REST Webservices
• uvm.

Lassen sie sich diese einmalige Gelegenheit nicht entgehen und buchen noch heute einen der wenigen noch verfügbaren Plätze direkt auf der AOUG Seminar-Seite.

Read all about it at Joels Blog.

Thanks to the APEX Development Team! You are doing a great job, hope to see many more releases in the future.

In APEX Instances within corporations you may want to display your own Logo or some custom text explaining your developers what to do and what not.

Some lines of javascript and jQuery to the rescue, i build a nice little function which is super easy to call and gives you full flexibility to customize the Workspace Login Page.

Many thanks to Chris for testing and reviewing the function and some important hints on how to improve my code!

This is what the Login Page per Default looks like:

After calling the new function the Login Page looks much nicer (notice the missing 3 regions at the bottom):

Looks way better, doesn’t it?

Now the most important part, here is all the code you need to get it running on your instance, you put this code in the “Login Message” which is defined in the Apex Administration panel under “Manage Instance”:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://apexlib.oracleapex.info/ApexLib_Loginpage.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
apexlib.loginpage.customizeLoginPage
( "click-click IT Solutions"
, "1.8em"
, "Welcome to the APEX Hosting Instance of <a href='http://www.click-click.at' target='_blank'>click-click IT Solutions</a>.<br />If you don't have a login please contact the Administrator to get one.<br /><br />Have a nice day!"
, "http://www.click-click.at/wp-content/themes/click/images/clickclick_logo.gif"
, "http://www.click-click.at"
, false
, false
, false
, false);
</script>

You can hotlink the new ApexLib_Loginpage.js directly from http://apexlib.oracleapex.info, or you download a local copy from the ApexLib Sourceforge SVN.

Taking a look at the function declaration should explain the options:

apexlib.loginpage.customizeLoginPage = function
( pLoginRegionTitle          // string to be displayed in the region header
, pLoginRegionTitleFontSize  // font-size for the region title, should include em or px
, pLoginRegionText           // replaces the explanation text inside the login-region, can include HTML
, pLoginRegionLogoImage      // URL pointing to an image with max size 240x200px
, pLinkLogoToHref            // when user clicks the new Logo, this URL will be opened
, pShowLoginMessageRegion    // true/false: show the Login Message Region (the yellow one)
, pShowWorkspaceRegion       // true/false: show the Workspace Region
, pShowGettingStartedRegion  // true/false: show the Getting Started Region
, pShowCommunityRegion       // true/false: show the Community Region
)

Yesterday the Patchset APEX 4.0.1.00.03 was released and today i can see it in my APEX Builder.As you can see on the picture below there is a new small section on the right side which appears only if there are any important news.