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Get SQL Developer 4 going in 4 steps

July 30, 2013, 7:08 pm
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After a little hiccup on my part, I've started using SQL Developer 4 Early Adopter 1 on two computers I work on. It's pretty easy:
  1. Download SQL Developer 4 and it’s required JDK from:
    http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/sql-developer/downloads/sqldev-download-v4-1925679.html
     
  2. Unpack this to a folder on your system
    sqldeveloper-4.0.0.12.27-no-jre.zip
    I used
    c:\sqldeveloper4EA\ 
  3. Install the latest JDK,  probably not accepting the new toolbar for your browser...
    jdk-7u25-windows-i586.exe
  4. Open by running - I tend to copy a shortcut on my quick-launch bar
    sqldeveloper.exeWhen prompted for location of java.exe the first time you open, I used
    C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_25
    I also allow it to copy my existing preferences across.
Job done, let's see what interesting features I encounter. 
The slightly flashier icon
The slightly flashier icon
If you want to actively learn more, you must visit www.thatjeffsmith.com

Scott
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Post eastern Insync 2013

September 6, 2013, 12:18 am
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It's been over a month since my last confession - mainly due to a lot of interstate travel.

The reason for most of the travel was the AUSOUG Insync Conference Series - on the eastern coast anyway. So in the past month I've been to Sydney (and surrounds), Melbourne (twice) & Brisbane (extra 90 mins to fly home).

The conference series was due to begin in Sydney on the 15th, but unfortunately due to a number of factors (which I won't get into here) it had to be cancelled, along with the Canberra and Adelaide legs. Perth preparations are still going strong, and we look forward to bucking the trend.

This turned out expensive for me because I had promised my wife would come over on frequent flyer points and we'd spent time driving through the blue mountains and other touristy type things. And extra two days of that when the company can't sport for accommodation before I head to the Melbourne gig after the weekend - bummer!

I'll just say Sydney was beautiful and treated us to lovely weather - but we had no success whale watching day.

Melbourne was cold, and the conference numbers were lower than previous. Penny (my boss) was still happy with the turnouts to our talks and networking engagement was reasonably successful.

My presentations went well, and for those coming to Perth and want to join any of the half-day workshops (eg: DB 12c, JDeveloper & APEX) I recommend you bring your laptops and become aware of software needs before hand to make the most of the time. See further comments below.

Some presentations I'm keepto keep an eye out for in Perth in November:

  1. Penny Cookson - Redesigning core on-line systems in ADF JDeveloper - if you ever want a case study on a ADF migration project - this is the perfect chance
  2. Scott Wesley (me) - APEX in your Hands - another case study on an APEX application preparing for deployment on a tablet. We hope to get our client involved with the intro to this in Perth
  3. Chris Muir (et al) - The Future of Oracle Forms: Upgrade. Modernize, or Migrate - if you still use Oracle Forms, come even just to keep yourself informed on where things are at and what's truly available.
  4. Mark Lancaster - APEX 4.2 Building Responsive application using Twitter Bootstrap - a good overview of a framework worth incoroporating into your applications - it's not hard.
  5. Penny Cookson - New Optimizer Features in Oracle 12c - A technical look at tuning features in 12c, with a funny twist. Uber nerd alert.
  6. Kylie Payne - ADF for Newbies - I know there are plenty of you out there. Fresh perspective from an Oracle professional.
  7. Connor McDonald - CloneDB - a new one from Connor, let's place bets on the slide count.
  8. Jeff Kemp - APEX and row level security - presenting the works of an excellent blog post
  9. Phil Robinson - Testing the limits of testing - everybody should be incorporating more testing.
We have a few more to be confirmed from Oracle ACEs.

Workshop tips

  1. DB 12c - Martin Power - bring a 64 bit laptop with plenty of gigs free. Download his recommended files first and do your best to get VirtualBox booting beforehand. He brings a thumbdrive with a pre-built image, but it will take a while to copy, initiate, boot.
  2. Forms -> ADF - Penny Cookson - Read her setup instructions and try your best to come prepared
  3. APEX Plugins - Scott Wesley - the easiest to prepare for - just bring a laptop! You can also do it easily in your own 4.2 environment, just grab a few files beforehand so you can play along.

For those in the east - also good was

  1. Guy Harrison - Avoiding death by Big Data - a lighthearted but effective 1000 ft view of how big data is shaping our world. I enjoy his talks, and try to incorporate some of his style in mine. Imitation is the sincerest form flattery, they say...
  2. Tim Daniell - Being Productive in IT - a different, thought provoking comparison of the human brain and an Oracle database.
  3. Connor McDonald - SQL Tuning 101 - if you missed it last year, too bad - a fast paced, humorous look at SQL basics that everyone will learn from.
SAGE will be exhibiting in Perth and will continue our fine form of booth design, thanks to Branka.

Scott

ps - to all Australian readers - happy footy finals month.
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Help APEX find it's way

September 6, 2013, 1:02 am
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In case you missed it, there was an OTN forum post about asking about the APEX5 release date. As Hilary mentions, it's Oracle's privilege to release it whenever they like.

That being said, there is an APEX Feature Request application.

While new feature will always be cool, I'd also like to see an introspection regarding some facets of the Development Builder.

I've requested a few myself, but for example (to get creative juices flowing)
I think it's also fairly safe to expect a third User Interface for tablets.
All of this on top of what is already mentioned in the APEX Statement of Direction.

For more APEX 5 thoughts, check out


Let me know if you've seen any others.

I look forward to the next release, whenever it may come ;-)

Scott

ps - the post also noted 4.2.3 would be 'soon'
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SQL 101 - Group by ROLLUP

September 12, 2013, 7:45 pm
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One of the reasons I called renamed this blog grassroots-oracle was to occasionally illustrate some simple examples of functionality not everyone is aware of - or are maybe too scared to give it a go (or research).
Still today I occasionally work with people who aren't familiar with some features I almost take for granted.

Today's little observation was with ROLLUP - a function used in group by queries to provide sub-totals.

I was looking at log frequency by month, and I also needed to consider grand total, so consider:
Rollup folks!
It's one of those features in the data warehousing guide that should possibly be in an area more accessible. While I don't necessarily use it for production code - it's syntax that I often find handy with ad hoc queries while interrogating the database.

select count(*), trunc(view_date,'mm') 
from activity_log 
group by rollup(trunc(view_date,'mm')) 
order by 2 desc nulls last

You'll also want to check out single row functions such as GROUPING.


Go nuts.
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APEX information from Montreal

September 15, 2013, 7:46 pm
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The trick with triggers

September 17, 2013, 8:56 pm
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Creating triggers, prior to 11g, would default them to an enabled state.

From 11g, we have this in the documentation:
By default, a trigger is created in enabled state. To create a trigger in disabled state, use the DISABLE clause of the CREATE TRIGGER statement.
So when I write my DDL scripts, given this behaviour, I know what I'd prefer:
SQL> create table test_table(a number);
table TEST_TABLE created.
create or replace trigger test_trigger_good before insert on test_table for each row DISABLE
begin
  null -- missing semicolon
end;
/
TRIGGER test_trigger_good compiled
Warning: execution completed with warning

SQL> insert into test_table (a) values (1);

1 rows inserted.
or
SQL> create or replace trigger test_trigger_bad before insert on test_table for each row 
begin
  null -- missing semicolon
end;
/
TRIGGER test_trigger_bad compiled
Warning: execution completed with warning

SQL> insert into test_table (a) values (1);

SQL Error: ORA-04098: trigger 'DEVMGR.TEST_TRIGGER_BAD' is invalid and failed re-validation
04098. 00000 -  "trigger '%s.%s' is invalid and failed re-validation"
*Cause:    A trigger was attempted to be retrieved for execution and was
           found to be invalid.  This also means that compilation/authorization
           failed for the trigger.
*Action:   Options are to resolve the compilation/authorization errors,
           disable the trigger, or drop the trigger.
Only run this when you know things are cool, ie - the triggers does not have compilation errors.

alter trigger test_trigger_good enable;

Otherwise you get the same problem, since you can enable an invalid trigger.

Tip of the hat to Connor McDonald for suggesting this many moons ago.
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Perth 2013 Insync conference program now available

September 23, 2013, 10:49 pm
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While many in the Oracle universe are enjoying OOW, here in Perth we are preparing for our leg of the Insync Conference Series.

This year it's on 12-13 November at Pan Pacific Perth Hotel  - a healthy walk or short free bus ride from the Perth CBD.

Long story short - the program is now available. 

Download it now and see why you should come along. It you can only make it for one day, good luck in deciding which day would be best for you!

Consider attending the workshops, they're just like being in training. If you do want to attend any, please let us know - you'll also get the most out of them if you come prepared, so we can help you out with what to download (if relevant).

Scott
2013 Program Chair
Perth Insync
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Regular Expressions 101 - REGEXP_COUNT

September 24, 2013, 9:44 pm
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Not all regular expressions are scary.

As the documentation states, REGEXP_COUNT returns the number of times a pattern occurs in a string.

We can do this to simply count how many times the letter S appears in a string
select job, regexp_count(job,'S') 
from scott.emp;
JOB       REGEXP_COUNT(JOB,'S')  
--------- ---------------------- 
CLERK     0                      
SALESMAN  2                      
SALESMAN  2                      
MANAGER   0                      
SALESMAN  2                      
MANAGER   0                      
MANAGER   0                      
ANALYST   1                      
PRESIDENT 1                      
SALESMAN  2                      
CLERK     0                      
CLERK     0                      
ANALYST   1                      
CLERK     0                      

 14 rows selected
Today I used this function to detect/count how many carriage returns in a string using CHR(13) instead of 'S', but no doubt you could use the power of regular expressions to do all sorts of things. One such example is validating email address format.

I've also used it in the past to identify dirty data - those with numeric digits when it should be all alphabetical characters (names).
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Using LDAP to authenticate your APEX users

September 24, 2013, 10:01 pm
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It can be fairly simple to configure your APEX application to authenticate against your Active Directory server - this means your users can use the same username/password as the use to log onto their desktop machine - a big plus.

Declarative definition can be as simple as heading to Shared Components -> Authentication scheme and selecting 'LDAP Directory' from the scheme gallery.

Settings might be as simple as:
Host : myserver
Port : 389
DN String : MYDOMAIN\%LDAP_USER%

Further examples of the distinguished name string are shown in the item help.

LDAP Authentication definition
I've also seen an interesting use case in a popular APEX book. Here they also enabled authorisation definition (roles based on LDAP groups) - and they did it efficiently with some PL/SQL & materialized views.

There are a number of other examples in the #orclapex blogosphere on this:
http://ruepprich.wordpress.com/2012/11/02/ldap-authentication-with-apex/
http://doloracle.blogspot.com.au/2011/10/how-to-apex-ldap-authentication-for.html
and plenty of support in the OTN forum.

If you're keen to get your hands a little dirtier, there is also a supporting package APEX_LDAP.

Scott
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Formatting 101 - Nested single row functions

October 1, 2013, 10:26 pm
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Sometimes to get the data displayed exactly how you want it, you need to employ some nested functions.

with t as (
  select null n from dual union all 
  select 0  from dual union all 
  select 0.5 from dual union all 
  select 4 from dual union all 
  select 4.5 from dual)
select to_number(n) verbatim
  ,TO_CHAR(n,'fm90.9') no_trail
  ,TO_CHAR(n,'fm90.0') trail_zero
  ,RTRIM(TO_CHAR(n,'fm90.9'),'.') trail_decimal
  ,RTRIM(TO_CHAR(NVL(n,0),'fm90.9'),'.') and_null
from t
/

  VERBATIM NO_TRAIL TRAIL_ZERO TRAIL_DECIMAL AND_NULL
---------- -------- ---------- ------------- --------
                                             0        
         0 0.       0.0        0             0        
       0.5 0.5      0.5        0.5           0.5      
         4 4.       4.0        4             4        
       4.5 4.5      4.5        4.5           4.5

I'm curious - does anyone have formatting techniques the prefer/hate to help follow the brackets & commas?

For example, I might indent similar to JavaScript, and line up brackets/commas.
<< my_loop >>
FOR r_rec IN (
  SELECT 
    DECODE(this_value
          ,'Y', 'Yes'
          ,'N', 'No'
          ,'Maybe')
  FROM   that_table
) LOOP
  null;
END LOOP my_loop;

Scott
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Advert: SAGE APEX 4.2 course

October 7, 2013, 10:19 pm
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SAGE Computing
Attention Perth residents - and perhaps those interstate...

SAGE Computing are holding a 4 day Oracle Application 4.2 course from the 28th October, 2013.

Please contact me or Penny if you're interested in attending.

Scott.
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Friday Fun : Tim Minchin

October 11, 2013, 2:41 am
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I like Tim Minchin.

One year I took my wife to see him with West Australian Symphony Orchestra (WASO) at Kings Park in Perth - now she likes Tim Minchin.
It's a shame he didn't perform his 10 minute beat poem, but that's best watched animated, thanks to a project led by Tracy King.

Just recently he received an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters for his contribution to the arts - a field in which he's a master at melding with science.
I think if you watch his acceptance speech, I think you'll also like Tim Minchin. 

Note - the recording automatically shows Tim's portion, keep watching to see his introduction.


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APEX 101 - Dynamic actions

October 13, 2013, 7:22 pm
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Dynamic actions are awesome.

Let's so you have a scenario where after you change the value of one item, you would like to validate it or perhaps calculate the value of a separate item - or both!

Given an entry of Radius, I would like to calcular Sphere area.
Let's add an Oracle Forms style when-validate-item
This requires a relatively simple Dynamic Action that fires on 'Change' of the field P16_RADIUS.
In this case no condition is required - any change will fire the action. You could ensure the value is above zero, for example.
Dynamic Action properties
The action itself contains the PL/SQL formula.
:P16_SPHERE_AREA := POWER(:P16_RADIUS,2) * 4 * 3.141592;
This can be any anonymous block, or call to a PL/SQL package.
'True' action properties
The most important part of this action are the 'Page items to Submit' and 'Page items to return' fields.
This is what passes information from the browser to the database (session state) and back again.

In this case, the P16_RADIUS value is sent from the browser to the database so it can be used in the PL/SQL expression calculation, then the resulting P16_SURFACE_AREA is set in the browser.

Note some of the other options facilitated by the checkboxes.

The flexibility that dynamic actions provide give me just cause to vote them the best feature of APEX 4.x, just above plug-ins.

Other links

Inspired by this forum post, amongst many others like it.
For a more in depth tutorial, check out this Oracle-by-example.
This example is among others on session state in a page of my sample application.
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Customise Totals row in APEX classic report

October 15, 2013, 6:53 pm
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This post covers one way of customising the declarative sum totals on classic APEX reports.

Classic Report sum totals

The default output isn't that flash looking, and no doubt many would prefer at least a different label. Unfortunately I haven't found a method within APEX, so I applied some jQuery.

If you're not aware, these are turned on using the checkbox in the 'Sum' column on the relevant region's 'Report Attributes'.

Classic Report Attributes

So to customise the label, first we should add a Static ID on the region attributes. This will be used to help identify the report.

Static Region ID

Then we can use Chrome's 'Inspect Element' option upon right-clicking the label. Using this we can identify more of the jQuery selector we'll need to identify this cell.

Using the browser to identify DOM components

Now I'd still consider myself beginner/intermediate when it comes to jQuery. I know how to adopt code well, but I'm not yet familiar with the full suite. So if any of you have suggestions on how to improve this bit of code, especially from a performance perspective - I'd be happy to hear them. I've resigned myself to never being an elegant OO programmer, but fire away if I've also made this ugly.

jQuery code running as part of page render

$('#emp td.data').each(function(){
     if ($(this).text() == 'report total:') {
        $(this).text('Total Salary');
        $(this).css({'font-weight':'bold', 'color':'red'});
     }
});
This code identifies the cell using the selector specified within the $(''). This is the #emp ID we added to the region, and any cell within that report. For each cell it will check the contents to match the default label, then modify that cell as desired.

The final product
So add CSS to your heart's content. I'd be happy to hear people's ideas on how to add snaz.

Extra challenge : find a way to extend the selection to locate the cells with numeric totals.

Suggested references

jQuery selectors
Related OTN forum post


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APEX 101 - Set region title on page load

October 21, 2013, 7:38 pm
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I saw a forum post recently asking how to dynamically change the region title.

This is a little ambiguous - is this dynamic to the value set in APEX meta-data, or dynamic as a result of user events on the page?

Here is the instructions for the former. Soon I will post how to modify the title after the page has rendered - often useful for modal dialogs.

1) Create new hidden item called P6_REGION_TITLE. I placed it on the same region as my form items.

2) Create a computation for this item Before Header, with perhaps a SQL expression like
Region title computation
This extends the concept of Pn_MODE demonstrated in my sample application, discussed in this tutorial. You could also interrogate Pn_ID to determine if reading an existing record or creating a new one.
CASE :P6_MODE 
WHEN 'R' THEN 'View employee'
WHEN 'E' THEN 'Edit employee'
END

3) Modify the region title to
&P6_REGION_TITLE.

When the page renders, the region title will be set relevant to the edit mode.

Scott
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Happy Friday - something from Isaac Asimov

October 24, 2013, 6:47 pm
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"which I repeat here for everyone that find's this page"
Well Morgan, I found the page.

The backstory - I've been tidying my bookmarks, and I read through ACE Director Daniel Morgan's thoughts for 2013.
(For those Oracle technologists who haven't seen his Library, bookmark it now.)

Anyway, he referenced a book dedication from Isaac Asimov which I thought was a little terrific.

To Mankind

And the hope that the war against folly may someday be won, after all

After reading about the book, it's now on my list.

Happy Friday, Isaac
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Why I think GlassFish isn't dead

November 14, 2013, 7:56 am
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At this week's Perth Insync conference I attended a great session comparing Oracle Glassfish Server (OGS) with Web Logic Server (WLS), only to find out that Oracle will discontinue future commercial support of the OGS product as of 4th November 2013.

This instigated a great flurry of discussion as one of our current clients is on the way to deploying a server dedicated to APEX using one of the Glassfish products.

Background

Oracle recommends WLS as the web tier of choice for JDeveloper ADF, and the only choice for legacy Forms applications currently running on Apache that want to keep up with upgrading OS platforms.
OGS is typically a cheaper, lightweight alternative that can also support ADF - but is a more obvious choice for APEX deployments, in conjunction with the APEX Listener.

My head is rarely in the application server space, and I tend to not get too caught up with licencing discussions - no doubt others I refer to in this post know more about the topic than I, but I'm more than happy to provide an opinion from my perspective.

I try to catch up on my RSS feeds before the conference to keep an eye out for major announcements, this one obviously got through.
My first impression is that GlassFish has returned to what it was prior to the Oracle-Sun acquisition, so I found this made reading people's passionate opinions on the topic even more interesting.

The announcements

After finding this news story from ZDNet, this first post from familiar sources I encountered on the topic was from Kris Rice regarding APEX Listener support for application servers.

He confirmed the APEX Listener was still supported for WLS and Glassfish (3+), and in future support will be available for Apache Tomcat - thanks to public demand.

He also linked to the Aquarium's official annoucement regarding the Java EE and GlassFish Server Roadmap Update.

The discussion

I felt I needed more input so I started poking around to find a very vivid discussion on the topic, from Markus Eisele suggesting OGS is essentially dead and "thanks for all the fish".

I continued to read articles and they did seem to lean to one direction (anti-Oracle). Some looked back at Oracle's history with with open source projects, considering MySQL's fork into MariaDB.
The general concern is that since MySQL wouldn't be a revenue earner for Oracle, it would go neglected - stating that Oracle is even removing features.

To me this sounded like a slanted discussion without asking the other side. I'm not familiar with how MySQL works, but I'm sure Oracle limits the amount of hard parsing of SQL statements similar to this feature, just in a different component of the architecture.

I remember listening to a podcast describing what's new in MySQL 5.6 thinking that Oracle is vastly improving the MySQL architecture with solutions to match how the Oracle DB solves typical database issues. I didn't get the impression of neglect after reading these new features.

A number of people seem cynical of Larry Ellison's commitment to open source projects, but the information out there doesn't seem to reflect that.

Oracle's opinion

Then I started finding other contributions from Oracle's direction that started to provide some balance - and facts over fancy. Bruno Borges offered 6 Facts about GlassFish Announcement.

Someone else (I can't find the reference) noted the number of free/open source projects Oracle still delivers - some of them rather high profile, so I think GlassFish shares some great company. To note just a few:
  • VirtualBox
  • SQL Developer
  • Oracle Express Edition
  • Hudson CI
  • Various Linux projects
Many of them supporting arms for Oracle's revenue engines - as per what the Aquarium originally stated:
The primary role of GlassFish Server Open Source Edition has been, and continues to be, driving adoption of the latest release of the Java Platform, Enterprise Edition
Oracle can't resource every project, so others such as OpenOffice have been handed over to the Apache Software Foundation.

Conclusion

At the end of the day we can always refer to Oracle support document. Premier support ends for OGS 3.1.x in March 2016, extended support until 2019 - but sustaining support is indefinite.

GlassFish continues to feed & support important components of Oracle's infrastructure and I would have confidence it will continue to thrive in the forseeable future.

The following points help me come to this conclusion
  1. APEX Listener continues to support OGS, in addition to WLS (and maybe Tomcat) - Oracle is pandering to customers needs, they don't need to 
  2. OGS and WLS share code and are closely coupled with the Oracle JDK - oracle is committed to Java EE
  3. OGS fills a niche and already shares a decent portion of the market - it has critical mass
I welcome further discussion on this and welcome any corrections to my statements.
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Perth Insync13 Conference Review

November 14, 2013, 10:37 pm
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From my employer's perspective we had a very successful year at the Perth Insync13 conference. Sage had 7 papers from 4 of our team, and as usual our exhibition booth was very popular.

We were pushing the mobile theme this year to help stand out to enter our giveaway you needed to use an APEX application, instead of the usual business card in a bowl.  It seemed we were going against the grain of some old habits, but this is 21st century IT so we encouraged all visitors to give it a go.

SAGE exhibition booth

Day 1

I was a busy boy with a half-day workshop and two presentations so I didn't get to see many other papers, but I had already seen quite a few at the Melbourne and Brisbane legs.

So I ended up being rather selective, and I was pretty happy with the ones I attended. First off the rank was an international guest Bjoern Rost Tackling Time Troubles. He was entertaining, engaging and a nice fellow - so we felt me must teach him some Australian vernacular.

I had already seen Penny's 12c optimizer [pdf] presentation but listened to the first few lego star wars jokes and she was well received - so I snuck in to see most of Chris Muir talk about UX design patterns.

I then had to prepare for my half-day workshop on consuming APEX plug-ins. My laptop started to get clammy and freeze which gave me a little scare, but I ended up kicking off in time. Attendees would claim a workspace from my laptop, but in hindsight I now know a much better way to arrange this - next time...

Interaction was good, and my main mission was accomplished - more awareness of the capability and availability of APEX plug-ins. I'll write a separate post on this with all the relevant links.

I finished the day with Phil Robinson talking about testing - I would have liked to see more developers at this very informative session.

Unfortunately I had to leave early on the best session of all - networking drinks, so I didn't attend any dinners. I did bump into Tariq Farooq, great to put a face to an online entity!

Day 2

Andrew Rosson from Lansen started the day with a comparison of GlassFish & WebLogic, which also included some very interesting news about GlassFish.

I took a break before the feature from Connor McDonald on CloneDB. It delivered much more than I was expecting, including 7 very impressive demonstrations.

Once again I did some presentation hopping, listening to Chris' perspective on the future of Oracle Forms before listening to Phil Robinson talk about mind maps and rich pictures - all conferences should have more presentations like this.

It was my turn again with my talk regarding an APEX tablet application. I had the pleasure of including an introduction on the issues at hand from our client Craig Purser from Ventura Home Group.

My prezi is available here: APEX in your hands - lessons learned from an APEX table project
Again, I'll write a separate post later summarising things we've learnt.

Jeff Kemp followed up with more APEX content using row level security, a paper inspired by information received from Connor earlier in the year.

Penny & I finished the day with a light hearted session on Being Productive in IT [pdf]. This was originally presented in Brisbane by Tim Daniell from Fresh Computer Systems, and he kindly gave us permission to offer our perspective on left-right brain issues. Penny was the left brain and I acted as the right - it was entertaining and well received.

While Sage wound down with a beer at the pub next door, I came up with an idea for a similar presentation next year - focussing on one of the issues we covered, stay tuned ;-)

It was great to see everyone I managed to catch up with, and hope it's not another year until I see you all again.

Thank you to all presenters, organisers, volunteers and delegates for making this another enjoyable conference.

Scott
2013 Perth Program Chair
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Spice up your APEX application with third party plug-ins

November 18, 2013, 9:15 pm
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At this year's Australian Oracle User Group Insync13 conference series I conducted a half-day workshop in Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth called "Spice up your APEX application with third party plug-ins"

I selected some commonly used plug-ins that I thought would be interesting and showed attendees how to download, configure and use them. I hoped this would build further awareness of the usefulness and expandability of APEX 4.x

I spent the first 10-15 minutes introducing what plug-ins are all about, and you can find link to the slides here.



I have a tutorial application that demonstrates the eleven GPL/MIT licenced (available for commerical use) plug-ins I chose do illustrate:
http://apex.oracle.com/pls/apex/f?p=PLUGIN

Future readers may find this useful as I've also listed instructions on how to use each of them.

Plug-in instructions
You can now ignore the 'claim workspace' section. On a side note, when running workshops at conferences I certainly learned a few ways to make things run more smoothly!

You can also download setup scripts to run the application in your own environment from here
sagecomputing.com.au/workshops

Many thanks to the author's of the APEX plug-ins that make our lives easier!
Find more at apex-plugin.com

Scott
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Use jQuery to dynamically modify Region title

November 21, 2013, 7:27 pm
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In a recent post I showed how to determine the APEX region title on load of the page. This post will show how to change the region title dynamically - without submitting the page, and still in three steps.

1) Add a static ID to the region you want to change, this helps the jQuery selector identify the component to change. I set mine to edit_emp

2) Add JavaScript variable to your function and global variable declaration section in your page attributes.
var orig = "x";
I'm not completely happy with this part of the solution, but I find greater confidence than null comparisons in JavaScript.

3) Create a dynamic action on the event you wish to invoke change on the region heading. In my case I'll set it on change of the department. It needs to execute some JavaScript.
Dynamic Action definition
The JavaScript does two things. First, it records the original value of the region title - if this isn't done then the title will keep extending after each change. We use the region static ID to identify the region, then refer to H1 to identify the header text.

As I suggested in point 2, this comparison of orig is a little clunky, I welcome suggestions to make it more elegant (besides just defining your own text from scratch).
if (orig == "x")
   orig = $('#edit_emp h1').text();

$('#edit_emp h1').text(orig + ' (' + $('#P6_DEPTNO option:selected').text() + ')');
The second part extents the original region text with whatever you like - in my case I take the label of the value chosen in the select list.

This is demonstrated in my sample application.

Scott
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