Roels Blog

Just like previous years, AMIS organizes a Sneak Preview of the ODTUG presentations by the Dutch speaking 'crowd' - for those who can not make it to Monterey next month (budget- or otherwise). This little ODTUG is on Monday June 15th, from 16:30 to .. the end. For an overview of the sessions and a subscription link, click here . The attendees will get more than available at ODTUG, because even Dimitri will do a presentation!

Last week I received an e-mail from the editor of Oracle Scene - the magazine of the UK Oracle User Group - that my article on Forms to APEX Conversion will be published in the next issue (due for publication in July). So, right after my first article , the second one will be published! And indeed, I am very excited about that!

As a follow up on my previous post I created a more elaborate example of the Anycharts 4 features. Take a look on this site and play around with the settings. Just click on the Horizontal/Vertical, 2D/3D settings or Bar Shapes: The chart will refresh automagically. You can easily achieve the same results - replacing your AnyCharts 3 with AnyCharts 4 - in your current APEX application (and - quote from Dimitri - nicer charts = more money ;-) ). Just edit the Chart Region Source as described in the previous post and cut-and-past the XML from the demo site into your Custom XML and you're done. The good news is, is that my colleague Rutger is working on a package that even generates that AnyCharts 4 XML, using the definitions in the APEX Repository! So you even don't have to get your hands dirty editing Custom XML... I expect that he will publish that piece of work ' soon ' (i.e. in the next two weeks), so keep a close watch on his blog !

With the current APEX version you can create nice looking Charts using Anycharts 3. The charts you create with Interactive Reports use Anycharts 4. These charts look better than the regular ones, and we - my colleague Rutger and I - started to investigate the options for enhancing the regular charts. Of course we could wait for APEX 4.0 or go for Anycharts 5, using the Anychart Integration Kit , but we love a quick and more cost neutral (as in ' free ') solution... So let's go: Create a simple chart using the "SELECT NULL LINK, ENAME LABEL, SAL VALUE FROM EMP ORDER BY ENAME" query. Now make let's make some changes in the generated Region Source to use Anychart 4: Change <param name="movie" value="#IMAGE_PREFIX#flashchart/#CHART_TYPE#.swf?XMLFile=#HOST#apex_util.flash?p=&APP_ID.:&FLOW_PAGE_ID.:&APP_SESSION.:FLOW_FLASH_CHART_R#REGION_ID#"> to <param name="movie" value="#IMAGE_PREFIX#flashchart/swf/AnyChar

It's still a long time to go, but the Call for Papers for the next UKOUG conference (30/11 - 2/12 in Birmingham) just opened. You can submit an abstract before June 5 (look here ). I have been there twice and I can recommend this conference!