Roels Blog

Now and then it happens when we're logging in into our APEX instance: We have to change our password again .... And that means, typing it in an awful number of times: 1. Current Password 2. New Password (and of course preferably the same as the current one ...) 3. Confirm New Password 4. Press Apply Changes 5. Press Retun 6. And we're back at Square One : The login screen - and here we type that password again... But in APEX 5 the APEX Development Team made it easier for us: When you have to change your password, you're automagically logged in with that brand new password. Finally. Sigh .... It's a very small thing - but it takes away just that little bit of irritation every few months or so ;-)

As a lot of the new APEX 5 features are " by developers for developers ", this one is also a nifty little thing that make our lives easier. Only the developer part of our lives of course.... In the upper right corner of APEX 5 you'll see your login name and a rather anonymous avatar. Just for fun - and recognisability - you can add your own face there. Or a picture of your dog of you like that one better. Just click " Edit Profile " to upload a picture. O yeah - you can change your username and password as well in that pop up. Way more functional is what's below the " Preferences " button. You can specify here how you want APEX to act when you press a "Run Application" button. You can define whether the Application should start in a new tab or in a new window. What's pretty cool is that when you keep that tab or window open and press the Run button again, focus will switch to that tab/window and your page will be reloaded there. S...

Oracle Open World 2014 starts in just over 4 weeks from now. And I am one of the (50,000?) lucky people who will be there .... I will even take part in three sessions, one straight at the start and one almost at the end: What Are They Thinking? With Oracle Application Express and Oracle Data Miner [UGF2861] Sunday, Sep 28, 9:00 AM - 9:45 AM - Moscone South - 304 Panel Discussion: Bring Your Questions About Integration (or Anything Else) [UGF9093] Sunday, Sep 28, 3:30 PM - 4:15 PM - Moscone South - 300 The Best of Both Worlds: Going Hybrid with Your Mobile Oracle Application Express Applications [CON2296] Thursday, Oct 2, 10:45 AM - 11:30 AM - Moscone South - 303 Hope to see you there!

In the current version of Oracle Application Express you could use up to three items in a Column Link. Most of the times that is enough. But there were always some use cases where you needed four or even five. And of course, just like with all limitations, you can figure out a work around. But wouldn't it be just awesome if APEX offers us more items out of the box. And in APEX 5 they do! The number of items you can use in a Column Link isn't restricted anymore. So you don't get four. Or five. Or even six. You get "unlimited" (between " because there's probably some 32k sizing limit somewhere.. but you'll get the point). But wait ... there's more! The "Target Type" isn't limited to "URL" or "Page in this Application". You can now - declaratively ! - link to Pages in other Applications as well as you can see below. So one more reason to add to the already long lists of reasons to upgrade to APEX ...

In the current version of APEX the Supporting Objects feature is undervalued. You can create (sort of) self installing applications with it, but it is not widely used. Why? Because people don't realy know the feature or people do and experience lack of functionality. In both cases : Check out the functionality of APEX 5! When you have scripts for creating tables, packages etc., in the current version you have to manually keep those install scripts in sync with "reality". You have to do it manually - so it'll go wrong sooner or later. But in APEX 5 you can sync your scripts with the click of a button. Well, in fact two clicks: one for the check box and one for the button. See the animation below. So when you click "Refresh Checked" your script will be recreated, reflecting the current situation of your database. Well how does that work? If you click on the pencil icon and then navigate to the "Script Editor' tab, you'll see that the script i...

While playing around in the APEX 5 EA2 environment I discovered a few neat little features for Calendar regions. First of all you can export the data of the calendar - only the data that's currently visible - to four types of format. Especially the iCal format is new and interesting as this is readable by most calendar applications. Right now, in EA2, the PDF option doesn't seem to work yet. And alas, the iCal format is not readable by the Apple Calendar - but I hope that'll be fixed when the product becomes available! It is promising nevertheless.... Another cool feature is the Google URL. You can enter a URL of a public Gcalendar (or your private calendar if you want to) and your appointments will show up in your APEX application (see the green entries in the screenshot below)! And last but not least : You can add your own (or someone else's) RESTful webservice feed to the calendar as well. By defining your own Resource Handler using a query to return a JSON ...