The purpose of this app is to be able to track longrunning contracts with their renewalperiods. One month before you should end the contract (checked on contract enddate) you’ll receive an email. I used Oracle’s DBMS_SCHEDUAL to call the procedure that sends out the email. Also, it has an authentication scheme so that different users can use this online app. Although it’s dutch, everyone can apply now.

 http://apex.oracle.com/pls/otn/f?p=23729

Click here to see the full UKOUG agenda online.

Both presentations aren’t fully booked yet, so if you have the time and happen to be around…you can add these to your OOW-schedule!

Should we use the available calendar?
Could we use a tabular form?
Do we use standard APEX DML report/forms?

Well, this is what we did

The design

1. Collect the data for the planboard view, it will show the truck number (equipment number) and the orders in the days of the week:

Datamodel

Viewquery

SELECT trucks.truck_id
,      to_char(to_date(load_date), 'YYYYIW') load_week
,      max(decode( rtrim(to_char(load_date,'day', 'nls_date_language = DUTCH')), 'maandag'  , order_id, null )) mon
,      max(decode( rtrim(to_char(load_date,'day', 'nls_date_language = DUTCH')), 'dinsdag'  , order_id, null )) tue
,      max(decode( rtrim(to_char(load_date,'day', 'nls_date_language = DUTCH')), 'woensdag' , order_id, null )) wed
,      max(decode( rtrim(to_char(load_date,'day', 'nls_date_language = DUTCH')), 'donderdag', order_id, null )) thu
,      max(decode( rtrim(to_char(load_date,'day', 'nls_date_language = DUTCH')), 'vrijdag'  , order_id, null )) fri
,      max(decode( rtrim(to_char(load_date,'day', 'nls_date_language = DUTCH')), 'zaterdag' , order_id, null )) sat
,      max(decode( rtrim(to_char(load_date,'day', 'nls_date_language = DUTCH')), 'zondag'   , order_id, null )) sun
FROM   trucks,
     orders
WHERE  orders.truck_id (+) = trucks.truck_id
GROUP BY trucks.truck_id,
to_char(to_date(load_date), 'YYYYIW')
ORDER BY trucks.truck_id

2. The report region has the planboard view as source. For every column box (value or not) a unique id is created . These id’s make sure that a column box is a container where you can drop items in. The column boxes with a value, should show the item with its value.

Report buildup

The column formatting for every day column

3. The report region must also call a javascript function CreateDragContainer, for every container in the region. While doing this, all items inside a container (or just the values selected with the view) become draggable. With the unique id’s, movement can be tracked, and when an order item is dropped in a container, the rest of the handling can start. This is all done by Javascript, where credit must go out for a part of the dragging & dropping to Mark Kahn at webreference.
The most important part is that the id’s are filtered, and passed to application items, and that an AJAX call is made to an application process. Here’s the AJAX call code:

var ajaxRequest = new htmldb_Get(null,&APP_ID.,’APPLICATION_PROCESS=updatePlanbord’,null);
if (curTarget.id.substr(0,3) == ‘new’){
ajaxRequest.add(’P_TARGET’, curTarget.id.substring(13, curTarget.id.length));
ajaxRequest.add(’P_ADDACTION’, ‘true’);
var cDay = curTarget.id.substring(9,12);
}else{
ajaxRequest.add(’P_TARGET’, curTarget.id.substring(9, curTarget.id.length));
ajaxRequest.add(’P_ADDACTION’, ‘false’);

var cDay = curTarget.id.substring(5,8);
}
var cDayDate
if (cDay == ‘mon’){
cDayDate = html_GetElement(’P1_MON_DAT’).value;
}else if (cDay == ‘tue’){
cDayDate = html_GetElement(’P1_TUE_DATE’).value;
}else if (cDay == ‘wed’){

cDayDate = html_GetElement(’P1_WED_DATE’).value;
}else if (cDay == ‘thu’){
cDayDate = html_GetElement(’P1_THU_DATE’).value;
}else if (cDay == ‘fri’){
cDayDate = html_GetElement(’P1_FRI_DATE’).value;
}else if (cDay == ’sat’){
cDayDate = html_GetElement(’P1_SAT_DATE’).value;
}else if (cDay == ’sun’){
cDayDate = html_GetElement(’P1_SUN_DATE’).value;
}

ajaxRequest.add(’P_PARENT’, rootContainer.id.substring(9, rootContainer.id.length));
ajaxRequest.add(’P_LOADDATE’, cDayDate);

ajaxRequest.GetAsync(f_AsyncReturn);

4. The application process can do two things, UPDATE an existing order when it is dropped in another truck, or UPDATE an existing order when it had no truck (open action) and was dropped in another truck. Here’s the code:

DECLARE
type_action varchar2(10);

BEGIN
type_action := ”||:P_ADDACTION||”;

IF type_action= ‘false’ THEN

UPDATE orders SET truck_id = :P_PARENT WHERE order_id = :P_TARGET AND to_date(load_date, ‘dd-mm-yyyy’) = to_date(”||:P_LOADDATE||”, ‘dd-mm-yyyy’);

ELSIF type_action = ‘true’ THEN

UPDATE orders SET truck_id = :P_PARENT WHERE order_id = :P_TARGET;

INSERT INTO orders (ORDER_ID, DESTINATION, LOAD_DATE, TRUCK_ID) VALUES (ODERS_SEQ.nextval, NULL, to_date(”||:P_LOADDATE||”, ‘dd-mm-yyyy’), NULL);

END IF;
COMMIT;
EXCEPTION WHEN OTHERS THEN
htp.p(SQLERRM);
END;

After some CSS tricks and custom theming, you get the result you see in the browser. Needless to say, the client was quite impressed with the result, and I think it is another example of the flexibility APEX has to offer being in a web browser!

If you’d like to know more on this application and you’re at the Oracle Open World this year, vote for this presentation on Oracle Mix by clicking HERE

As an example I use the ‘My Favorite Tasks’ region I described in the previous post. First we set the page alias to ‘MYFAV’, to circumvent a static reference to a page number. In the region header of ‘My Favorite Tasks’ we set a HTML tag ‘<snap>’ and ‘</snap>’ in the footer (this <snap> is just an example, it can be anything, as long as it isn’t a regular HTML tag). Now define a new HTML region on the page where you need to ‘reference’ this ‘My Favorite Tasks’ region and set the region source to <div id=’Favorites’></div>. Now we created a placeholder for future use…

Now let’s fill this placeholder with the contents of the ‘My Favorite Tasks’ region.
Set the Page HMTL Body Attribute to : onload=”ShowFavs();”. This will fire a javascript function when the page is loaded. You probably have to set the value of ‘Cursor Focus’ to ‘Do not focus cursor’ otherwise you’ll get a ‘You may not declaratively set cursor focus’ error. Next define the javascript function in the HTML Header section.

<script type="text/javascript">
function ShowFavs(){
var get = new htmldb_Get(null,$v('pFlowId'),null,'MYFAV');
gReturn = get.get(null,'<snap>','</snap>');
get = null;
$s('Favorites',gReturn);
return;
}
</script>

This function will request the ‘MYFAV’ page. Then the page is ’stripped’ so only the HTML between the tags is returned. And this HTML is rendered in the placeholder…

So with this simple and elegant solution you can define ‘region building blocks’ (even more meaningful than ‘My Favorite Tasks’) and assemble pages using this building blocks! So re usability increases and your maintenance effort decreases.

In a next post I will show how you even can put regions anywhere on a page without defining a placeholder at all…

1. Enable logging on Application Level. Enabling the logging will result in records in the view apex_workspace_activity_log.
2. Create a Report Page with a region based on a SQL Query.
3. Enter the query to show the links for the three most visited pages:

select htf.anchor( ‘f?p=’||:APP_ID||’:'||page_id||’:'||:APP_SESSION
, page_name ) Task
from
(
select page_name
, page_id
, count(*)
from apex_workspace_activity_log
where application_id = :APP_ID
and apex_user = :APP_USER
and page_id <> :APP_PAGE_ID
group by page_name, page_id
order by 3 desc
)
where rownum <= 3

In a next post I will show how you can embed this report page in any other page in your application.

It mainly effects items with a Post Element Text or where a ColSpan > 1 is defined.

This unwanted effect is easily repaired by creating a new CSS file containing:

fieldset{display:inline;vertical-align:middle;}

and referencing this CSS file in your template. The result then looks like it was before:

First off I gave a presentation about APEX. My focus was especially set on “seeing the point” about what APEX is, does and what it’s intended to do. This combined with a healthy summary of features and architectures made the presentation quite long (about 50 min) but it was the minimal version, because I wanted to put so much fun stuff in that APEX has to offer. I just couldn’t decide what to scrap!
I must say the presentation went as expected, and the reaction afterwards were very positive, so thanks for the compliments.

Next up was the workshop. We created a beginners workshop, for people who had never worked with the magic of APEX before. There was little or no experience with HTML_DB or APEX in the room among the attendees, so I was a bit nervous about the complexity of the workshop.

Apparently I forgot how easy it was to start working with APEX, because people were flying through the workshop! Luckily, somewhere in the middle they reached some more complex material, which provided the attendees with some more challenges.
The feedback we received on the workshop was again, very positive.

Finally after 2 hours of quick&clean application building, Roel gave his presentation about the ODTUG’08 Kaleidoscope where he attended earlier this month. A lot of cool new features / directions came to light, creating a bit of a buzz followed by a good discussion among the attendees.

Yes it was happening, the healthy addiction with APEX found some more hosts once more!!

This workshop created a lot of enthousiasm among the attendees, and I think almost everyone wanted a follow up workshop with more details. This is (again) a clear case of how low the threshold is that APEX has when people are just starting to create some application with it.

In case you haven’t noticed yet, APEX rocks!

Click here to see the viewlet.

If you like to see this feature live at OOW - and on a somewhat bigger size screen - , or other nice things we created during our project, please vote for my session on Oracle Mix : (Re)developing-a-logistic-application-in-apex-in-the-real-world. You can register using your OTN account.

Lucas and Dimitri both built an application using their favorite tool and demo’ed it to the audience. Both failed on one part - as live demo’s tend to do - so it was 1-1 at mid time. After the break the match continued with some nice features shown on both sides. Both presenters where dared to say something positive on the other tools. For Dimitri this was the most difficult part: “I can’t come up with anything nice to say about JDeveloper”.

After a complete comparison, there was one clear winner: The audience!

Thanks to both of you guys for this joint effort!

So to wrap up: ODTUG is a great event. Not great in the sense that you’re overwhelmed with 1,000’s of people (there were about 700 attendees), but exactly the opposite. Due to the fact that it is rather small, you’ll find yourself having a beer (or two) with all kind of guru’s, experts, co-bloggers etc. Especially that relaxed, cool atmosphere is what makes ODTUG such an excellent event.

One more note about ‘atmosphere’: New Orleans in June is so hot and humid, that you barely can stand the outside temperature for more than 10 minutes - on the opposite : inside (in particular inside the Sheraton) the air conditioning is turned to the max. So every time you get from the outside to the inside, or the other way round, you have to deal with a temperature difference that feels like a 20 C.

Also the Sheraton is a good place to stay and from the 43th floor I had a great view on the river. Could have been better if somebody had cleaned the window - but who cleans windows at that height?

I hope to see everybody again next year - in Monterey (?).