APEX 5 - initial thoughts

How do things look and feel?

• Page Designer

   

From start I actually found it very confusing but the more I used it kind of became more intuitive than classic component or tree view IDE. So I am positive that after we get used to it it should allow us to be more efficient and productive.

I specifically liked Property editor 'region' as it reminded me of other IDEs on the market such as JDeveloper or Eclipse. With specific panels on each side and centered kind of WYSIWYG editor which gives sufficient information about specific page/ region attributes. 

Grid Layout may still need a bit of tweaking since it does feel a bit clumsy sometimes.

On top of it I noticed that (if I am not wrong here) new IDE uses EXT-JS components with its own typical framework specific viewport with collapsible east and west panels. This is particularly interested and I would definitely be a fan and support an idea to see more of this stuff being brought into real APEX pages and themes not just under a developer IDE.

This would give APEX another edge that has been missing so far or wasn't as good. 

• Other

Drag and drop functionality for creating regions and page items looks and feels great.  

Support for navigation lists as menus and sub menus finally is here and functions great. There will be no need for JavaScript tweaking scripts and menus anymore. :)

Had some minor problems generating modal windows so will assign this to still being in EA1 phase but definitely something to look forward to.

All in all I believe I will be pleasantly surprised once ORACLE announces that APEX 5 is available for download. 

Till then hope to have more posts for you and hope you had a nice Easter break.

Thanks,

SLino