Transitioning from APEX 4 to 5: Time for a Huge Monitor

Scott Spendolini Practice Director

Welcome

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About Me

@sspendol

scott.w.spendolini@accenture.com

Agenda• Overview• Intro to Page Designer• Common Flows• Summary

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Overview

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Modern Database Web Application Development

Introducing APEX 5• APEX 5 will be a dramatic upgrade from APEX 4

– Current release date is CY2015 (31-DEC-2015)– Have a look at the Early Adopter (EA3) today:

• http://apexea.oracle.com

• 100% of the developer screens have been re-done with a clean, new UI– Functionality change ranges from subtle to extreme

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New Features in APEX 5• Universal Theme & Theme Roller• Multiple IRs per page• Modal Dialogs• Navigation Lists• Mobile Enhancements• Calendars• File Handling• Security• Page Designer

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Intro to the Page Designer

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Page Designer• The Page Designer is the key new feature of APEX 5

– Tree View has been retired; Component View lives on

• Much more traditional Desktop IDE layout– Component > Layout > Properties

• Fundamental improvements & changes include:– Saving Changes– Multi-Select– Drag & Drop– Running Your Application

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Saving Changes• The most disruptive change to the application

builder is that in APEX 5, changes need to be explicitly saved

• While disruptive, this change provides additional useful functionality:– Multiple changes can be made and saved at once - greatly

reducing development time– Uncommitted changes can be easily undone– Centralized Error Messages

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Multi-Select• Multiple components can be selected at once and

any change to their properties will be applied to all selected components– Shift or Cmd + Click to select

• Multiple properties can be changed for multiple components

• Unlike components (i.e. a button and a region) can also be selected– Only properties that are common to all components can be

changed in this case

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Drag and Drop• All rendering components (regions, items & buttons)

can be easily rearranged via drag & drop– Click and hold the mouse button while hovering over a

component and move the mouse– Next, drag the component to anyplace that is highlighted in

yellow and release the mouse button– Remember to save your changes!

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Running Your Application• Clicking the Run icon will open your application in a

new tab– Or change tabs to your application, if one is already open– No need to right-click and select “Open Window in New Tab”

• New Developer Toolbar has three configurable settings– Auto Hide– Show Icons Only– Display Position

• Top, Bottom, Right or Left

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Size Matters

1366 x 768 common resolution

2560 x 966 27” monitor

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Toggle/Expand/Contract Regions

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User Info

Help

Feedback (EA)

Administration

FindPackaged Apps

Tabs & Navigation Bar

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Shared Components

Comments

Team Development

Component View

Utilities

Undo/Redo

Create

Page LockRibbon

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Rendering

Dynamic Actions

Processes

Shared Components

Group by Component

Order by Exec

Tree

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Grid Layout Messages Page Search Help

OptionsExpand/Contract

Zoom In/Out

Content

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Regions Items Buttons

Show Unsupported

Components

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Show Common

Show All

Collapse All

Expand All

Go To Group

Inspector

Tips• Grid Layout

– Hide Empty Legacy Positions & Empty Positions– Hide Global Page Components (unless you need to see

them)

• Region– Use the Collapse All option– Expand SQL Source– Choose an appealing Theme

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Common Flows

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Common Flows• To illustrate the differences between APEX 4 & 5, we’ll

create a simple two-page application and compare the time of each step– Timings were pre-calculated for both APEX 4 & 5 at a

“proficient” user level– Results were averaged over three trials per step– Your results may vary depending on a number of factors

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Create an Application• Create a simple, one page application via the wizard

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00:24 00:30

Winner

Create a Page• Create a blank new page w/a navigational control

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00:23 00:16

Winner

Create an Interactive Report• Create a new Report based on the EMP table

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00:14 00:09

Winner

Create a Form• Create a new Form region based on the EMP table

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00:26 00:26

Tie

Link a Report to a Form• Link the IR on Page 1 to the Form on Page 2

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00:09 00:20

Winner

Link a Report to a Form• After our link is created, if we try to

edit a record with APEX 5, an error message is raised– This is because APEX 5 will create hidden

items with Session State Protection set to Checksum Required - Session Level

– New, blank pages are created with Page Access Protection set to Unrestricted

– Thus Page Access Protection on Page 2 needs to be set to Arguments Must Have Checksum

• APEX 4 by default does not enable SSP at neither the item or page level

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Modify a Form• Move the MGR field so that it appears on the same

line as the JOB field

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00:09 00:05

Winner

Modify a Form• Make all Labels Left Aligned

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00:16 00:08

Winner

Modify a Form• In APEX 4.2, it takes ~ 2 seconds to change each

Label template– Our example had 8 items, so ~16 seconds total– More complex forms with 30 items would take ~60 seconds

• In APEX 5, Label Alignment is a region setting– Takes the same time for 1 or 200 items

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Modify a Form• Convert JOB to a Select List

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00:18 00:18

Tie

Create a Dynamic Action• Create a Dynamic Action that toggles COMM based

on the value of JOB

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00:25 00:40

Winner

Change the Color Scheme• Change the general color scheme of the application

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02:00 00:36

Winner

Move Navigational Control• Move the navigational control in the sidebar to top-

level tabs (or vice versa)

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05:00 00:16

Winner

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TimingsAPEX 4.2 APEX 5.0

Create an Application 0:24 0:30Create a Page 0:23 0:16

Create a Report 0:14 0:09Create a Form 0:26 0:26

Link a Report to a Form 0:09 0:20Move a Field 0:09 0:05

Make Labels Left Aligned 0:16 0:08Convert Item to LOV 0:18 0:18

Create Dynamic Action 0:25 0:40Change Color Scheme 2:00 0:36

Move Navigational Control 5:00 0:16

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Total Development Time

APEX 4 APEX 5

9:44

3:44

Summary

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You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Monitor

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You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Monitor

Summary• Overall, APEX 5 is more efficient than APEX 4 in

most places– Standard wizard-based transactions are slightly

optimized or the same– Batch & Maintenance operations are greatly

optimized• Many are region-based, not item based, so the savings

increases as does the number of items

• Like anything new, there is a learning curve– Which is high in some places, but low in others

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Q & A

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