Oracle APEX at KSCOPE17

APEX at KSCOPE17

Why is it so damn good! :)

Summary of thoughts  

Yet another great conference by APEX community - what else can you say when you have such a busy program and abundance of awesome speakers presenting.

 

 

I loved it yet again. Great people above all, location and content.

This was my third time and again I came back with loads of notes and things to try out when I get back. Not more can you wish for.

There were talks if this year was as good as previous one, but overall I think people from ODTUG hit the mark again (at least for me).

Overview and my takeaway

Lots of great ideas/features from the team for APEX 5.2 release.

Universal theme - Shakeeb

-       Inline help text for form customizations
-       Ability to adjust region dialog size
-       Declarative touch events like swap
-       Improve responsive styles
-       Improve loading performance
-       HD version of icons – Font APEX HD
-       Floating labels modernizing UI
-       New Card templates like header and media
-       Improvements on theme rolling with additional styles and options
-       APEX Spotlight
-       Effortless navigation

JET charts – Marc S.

-       Improvements in customization over 5.1.2 version
-       Ability to use select * from table as source of your queries
-       Zoom in zoom out functionality
-       Adjusting series colours either as query column or using advance JS configuration similar how IG is done now
-       Ability to change orientation using DA
-       New chart types like Gant charts, pyramid or box plot

Interactive Grid – John S.

-       Application available for download from John's blog IG Cookbook with John’s latest tips for IG
-       Resize advanced configure options; globally as well on each column to be declarative in 5.2
-       Context menu on click instead of action row menu
-       Demo on listening to modal changes and acting based on it
-       Ideas to double model same data to compare data or similar
-       Example of Split grid in form multi view demo
Normal form populated with DA by subscribing to changes on modal grid; extra option is multiple selections and editing
-       Awesome example of IG customization of detail view being a standard view and changing to use Card templates with changes to buttons
-       IG API documentation will be included
-       Select cell range copy down or copy to clipboard functionality to be added

Other features

-       New property panel search functionality that will search all fields and values
-       Exposing advanced calendar configurations (FullCalendar)
-       Blueprint and Features functionality to help you build your apps
-       Interesting was a mention of further improvements on APEX “talking” to external REST APIs.

Other speaker tips:

-       Great intro session by P. Raganitsch for all who want to dig deeper into Electron JS; installation and features like reading system files or access to printing engine

-       When building your apps make sure your CSS scripts are loaded before JavaScript as this puts importance on visual over functional part of your page first

-       If you are not using region caching, maybe time to consider learning about this great feature; great tip is to display date region last refreshed using apex_util.cache_get_date_of_region_cache

-       Ever had problem with LOV reloads when your page are loading – loadash.js library to the rescue. It can help you control number of reloads needed when cascading LOVs are involved

-       Using substitution strings in your query like &SESSION. Performance wise it is better to use concatenation. -> ‘f?p=……’|| :SESSION

-       apex_debug.log_debms_output outputs all dmbs_output in your session

-       Everyone is talking about Docker – great tips from Roel H. on how to setup one for your APEX environments and things you need to know

-       If you ever hit limitations with JSON size when working with images check out Dimitri’s presentation on Java from 12.2 database and all the tips here using Nashhorn

-       One of my favourite was Simon’s Hunt – Automated testing framework demonstration session; if you ever wanted to do testing right and simple definite worth checking. We still have to see how this will work out but thumbs up for making this available to the community 

-       I have to mention great APEX Nitro please check more details on OraOpenSource. Great way to speed up you development work

-       APEX Generator; awesome idea how to optimize your project work by rendering your apex pages directly from PL/SQL; another great work by friends from MT-AG; look forward when this will be publicly available to try it out

-       Good practice is to document your PL/SQL work so why not use https://github.com/OraOpenSource/plsql-md-doc

For last something we all need that was demoed by Joel Kallman from APEX team is Quick SQL sample application. It is now so easy to create dummy data or mock-up models for your applications. Please check sample packaged applications and you will never look back.

To summarize, I know I will see you next year in Orlando for KScope18. 

Thanks to all who made my stay in San Antonio so great. 

Happy Apexing,

SLino 

In case you missed it, you can join ODTUG and view all recorded sessions online otherwise join us for free AUSOUG 2017 webinar series with some of KScope17 presenters.