Skip to main content

Pro Oracle Application Express - Now Shipping

In case you missed it, the book that I contributed to - Pro Oracle Application Express - has finally shipped!

According to the Oracle Bookstore at OpenWorld, it was the hottest book there, at least according to this site:  http://blogs.oracle.com/databaseinsider/2008/09/database_books_top_sellers_at.html

So if you were one of the many who pre-ordered it, you should have it by now and I personally thank you for your patience!  I hope that you get out of it as much as we (especially John) have put into it!

Comments

Scott,
I think it would be a valuable reference to improve my APEX development and I'd like to buy it.

But I have a little problem, I am from Lima, Peru and it looks like this book doesn't get shipped here. I wander if there is a downloadable ebook or pdf version of this book so I can buy online and get it.
Scott said…
Luis,

Not sure what you can do. I'd start by contacting Apress, which is the publisher: http://apress.com/info/contact

They may be of more assistance.

Thanks,

- Scott -
Scott
I've bought and downloaded the ebook from the Apress Web.

Thanks for your help

Luis Enrique
Anonymous said…
May I post a question here about a topic in the last chapter of Pro Oracle Application Express? It is in reference to Using the API: Adding Items to your Pages?
Anonymous said…
First, I realize the following is "unsupported" and I have heeded your "Use with Extreme Caution!" warnings.
I am using a pl/sql process in one page to create page items (radio, checkbox, text) on a second page using: wwv_flow_api.create_page_item(...)
During the creation process I am storing the names of the created items in a table. :P10_Q1, :P10_Q2, etc. Works well.
Now I want to be able to allow user input using the created items, and store the results in a result table. I use a cursor to retrieve the page items names from the table. My insert statement using the cursor pointer inserts the name of the page item, not the page item value. Kinda vague as I'm trying to be brief. More details posted at: http://forums.oracle.com/forums/message.jspa?messageID=3229985#3229985
Really appreciate your help.
Steve
Scott said…
Steve,

You're correct - that process is unsupported, and unfortunately, even if I was aware of how to use it correctly, I would not advocate it or share it.

If you're trying to create a survey, you may want to look at using APEX_ITEM API calls - which are fully supported.

This approach would still support your requirements as outlined in your OTN Forum post, but only use a single page. If you create a smart data model, you should be able to facilitate the creation of any number of questions and then use APEX_ITEM to dynamically generate the corresponding updatable reports and not have to dynamically create any APEX items.

Have a look at this example: http://apex.oracle.com/pls/otn/f?p=18326:7:::::P7_ID:101

While it's a bit old, the data model and concept has not changed at all. It should also install into APEX 3.1 without any issues.

Thanks,

- Scott -
Anonymous said…
I'll venture back into supported territory. Thank you for your time.
Steve

Popular posts from this blog

Custom Export to CSV

It's been a while since I've updated my blog. I've been quite busy lately, and just have not had the time that I used to. We're expecting our 1st child in just a few short weeks now, so most of my free time has been spent learning Lamaze breathing, making the weekly run to Babies R Us, and relocating my office from the larger room upstairs to the smaller one downstairs - which I do happen to like MUCH more than I had anticipated. I have everything I need within a short walk - a bathroom, beer fridge, and 52" HD TV. I only need to go upstairs to eat and sleep now, but alas, this will all change soon... Recently, I was asked if you could change the way Export to CSV in ApEx works. The short answer is, of course, no. But it's not too difficult to "roll your own" CSV export procedure. Why would you want to do this? Well, the customer's requirement was to manipulate some data when the Export link was clicked, and then export it to CSV in a forma...

Manipulating Images with the... Database?

A recent thread on the OTN HTML DB Forum asked about how to determine the width & height of an image stored as a BLOB in an Oracle table. I mentioned in that thread that I have some code to manipulate an image stored in a BLOB column. This is particularly useful if you’re going to let users upload images, and you want to re-size them to display as a thumbnail. Thanks to Oracle interMedia , it is trivial to manipulate the width, height, and other attributes of images stored in an Oracle table. I’ve created a sample application here which demonstrates Oracle interMedia and HTML DB in action. Feel free to have a look. You can download this application from HTML DB Studio as well. Basically, this application allows you to upload images and perform an operation on the image as it is inserted into the PHOTO_CATALOG table. There are two places where some PL/SQL code is required: an After Submit process on page 2, and a procedure to display the images. Here is the PL/SQL for the After...

Refreshing PL/SQL Regions in APEX

If you've been using APEX long enough, you've probably used a PL/SQL Region to render some sort of HTML that the APEX built-in components simply can't handle. Perhaps a complex chart or region that has a lot of custom content and/or layout. While best practices may be to use an APEX component, or if not, build a plugin, we all know that sometimes reality doesn't give us that kind of time or flexibility. While the PL/SQL Region is quite powerful, it still lacks a key feature: the ability to be refreshed by a Dynamic Action. This is true even in APEX 5. Fortunately, there's a simple workaround that only requires a small change to your code: change your procedure to a function and call it from a Classic Report region. In changing your procedure to a function, you'll likely only need to make one type of change: converting and htp.prn calls to instead populate and return a variable at the end of the function. Most, if not all of the rest of the code can rem...