PostSecret

Be warned, that's something non Oracle APEX related. :-)

Some weeks ago I read a posting about a project called PostSecret: A Lifetime of Secrets on the Blogspot - Blogger Buzz blog.

Since then I have subscribed to it in my RSS reader. I catch myself looking forward to Sunday, because that's the day when they release a new posting. Some of the postings make you really think.

Have a look by yourself!

Probably everybody has a little bit of a voyeur of someone else secrets... :-)

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Oracle APEX Builder Plugin v1.8 release!

Oracle APEX Builder Plugin version 1.8 is now available!

Not heard about this plugin yet? It's a Firefox/Internet Explorer extension to enhance the usability/productivity of the Oracle APEX Builder IDE. It adds

• Resizeable Textareas
• Keyboard shortcuts
• "Set" operations
• Seamless integration of the ApexLib Framework
• and much more!
  

So what's new?

Rodney Barnett posted on the OTN Forum a useful suggestion to highlight the "Comment Shortcut" at the top of the page if a comment text has been entered. Most time nothing is entered in the comment, but in the cases someone enters something, nobody will notice. So I thought, until that gets added to the APEX Builder, I'm a little bit quicker than the Oracle guys and here you go! :-) BTW, it automatically filters generated code by wizards.

I also fixed some bugs on some pages (like Link Edit) where the textareas didn't show up probably anymore after installing v1.7.

What else? I finally was also able to fix the nasty "Problems with "Headings Type" in the Report Attributes" bug which was a wired one. Had to move the "Set" select list on the page, because otherwise this strange bug showed up all the time when the user hit the browser "Back" button.

I also added a "Version check" feature, which will check once a week if a newer plugin version is available. It will send the current plugin version, APEX version and your browser name to an update server which returns the link to the "What's new page", if a new version is available. If you want to check the code because of security reasons, have a look at line 1134 (ApexBuilderPlugin.checkNewVersion). Nothing else is sent.

Have fun!

PS: I thought I create this release before the one with the syntax highlighting, because the above bugs where sometimes really show stoppers in my opinion.

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DOAG conference and my presentation

On Wednesday and Thursday I have been at the DOAG conference (by German Oracle User Group) in Nürnberg. It was my first time visiting this conference. With more than 2.000 participants, 16 tracks and more than 200 sessions it's not quite as big as Oracle Open world last week in San Francisco. But the food was much better! For me it makes a difference if you get your lunch on a real plate with metal cutlery and not a box with a sandwich and plastic cutlery :-) But that's America... even if it was a green event ;-)

The DOAG conference was a great opportunity to get together with some friends like Denes Kubicek, Dietmar Aust and Carsten Czarski which have the same passion for Oracle APEX then I have. It's always nicer to talk face-to-face with them then just chatting online. But it was also really nice that "totally unknown" persons where walking by and thank me for the help I provided them on the forum, via e-mail or with my blog postings. Once again, sorry for my horrible name memory, but at least most time I remember the problem :-) But I have to do something with my picture on my blog, because most say I look different on the picture...

So how was the conference? I think DOAG has put together a really high quality session program which I can only recommend. I'm sure I will come again next year.

I almost forgot, I did a presentation too ;-)

It's great to see how much interest Oracle APEX has in the German speaking Oracle user base. I had a room with more than 200 seats. It was packed, some people even had to stand! Remember there where 2.000 people, so APEX attracted more than 10% of them... I did a quick survey, all of them where APEX developers and a lot of them had an Oracle Forms Background. So Oracle, go for the Oracle Forms developers! They are an "easy target" or they might switch to .Net, ... if they really going to migrate there Forms applications. Too bad that I didn't have a camera with me to take a picture of the crowd.

I did ok with my presentation "Oracle APEX under the hood", at least the people didn't leave the room in masses :-) Maybe it was a little bit too much information, I think I will have a look on that they next time. I talked a "little bit" longer than the 45 minutes and time was running out. So I was not able to show the ApexLib Framework and my APEX Builder Plugin. But at least I showed the syntax highlighting and the code indent editor I'm currently working on. I think another nice enhancement for the Oracle APEX development environment.

The presentation can be downloaded with my other presentations from "Misc / Presentations". I don't know how much sense it makes without having seen the presentations, because there was much more information between the lines. BTW, it's currently only available in German.

Before taking my flight back home to Vienna on Friday evening, I was walking around in the old city center of Nürnberg. A really beautiful city you should have a look if you have the chance!

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Oracle APEX 3.1 evaluation version ready for public beta testing!

Just read the e-mail that the Oracle APEX team has released the Oracle Application Express (APEX) 3.1 evaluation version for public beta testing. As with 3.0, you can do the testing on a hosted environment. So get ready, register for a workspace and start testing the new release. The new "Interactive Report Regions" are really great! So give them a lot of feedback about the new/changed features so that we get a really stable production version as usual!

All the details can be found in the original mail below:

To access our hosted instance, please register.
If you have participated in a previous evaluation, you will bypass the short survey.
After registering, you will be provided with access to the evaluation instance from which new accounts can be requested.

You will need to request a workspace and then wait on the email notification.

The new feature that we would really like feedback on is our new region type - Interactive Report. This is a new SQL query based region type that lets end-users customize which columns they see as well as column order. End users can also, sort, filter, break, sum, highlight, and add computed columns using simple pull down menus.

The full list of 3.1 features available with this Early Adopters release is:

• Application Builder
  
  • Interactive Report Regions *
    
  • Templates
    
    • Improve Searching of templates
      
    • Replace Templates
      
    • Publish Templates
      
    • Bulk Unsubscribe of templates
      
    • 2 New Themes
  • Wizards
    
    • Allow for early exit when creating HTML region
      
    • Create Interactive Report Wizard
      
    • Remove 32k limit on Create Application on a Spreadsheet
  • Addition of Application Groups
    
  • Simplification of Page Group pages
    
  • Addition of Application Date Format
    
  • Support for Declarative Media Type
    
  • Can view existence of run-only application (but cannot edit them)
    
  • Display Application Name in App Builder footer
    
• Workspace Administration
  
  • Workspace-specific Builder Notifications
• Runtime Installation
  
• APIs
  
  • Augment APEX_MAIL API to support adding attachments to e-mails

Please remember, the success of this Application Express 3.1 evaluation depends on user feedback. All participants are strongly encouraged to provide feedback using the feedback application. The link is also available from within the hosted Application Express 3.1 evaluation instance Home page.

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OOW: Advanced Oracle APEX: Building Web 2.0 - second chance!

Carl Backstrom is doing again his "Advanced Oracle APEX: Building Web 2.0" presentation tomorrow (Wed, Nov 14) as part of the Unconference track. He had problems with his notebook today and couldn't show any of the demos he prepared during his scheduled presentation. But he really wants to show that stuff, so that's your chance to see the presentation again!

Come to Moscone West, 3rd floor, Overlook 2 (next to the OTN lounge) at 02:00 PM.

See you there!

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APEX: Are you going to Oracle Open World?

And you are interested in Oracle Application Express (APEX)?

Then check out the paper FOCUS ON Database Application Development – Oracle Application Express put together by David Peake the Oracle Product Manager for Oracle APEX. He wants to ensure that nobody is miss any of the great APEX sessions and labs. Very good idea David!

If you are already there on Sunday, don't forget to attend the OOW APEX Roundtable where you can ask your Oracle APEX related questions to an expert panel.

Want to meet other Oracle APEX enthusiasts and some of the APEX developers from Oracle in a more relaxed environment? Then register for the OOW 2007 APEX Meetup!

See you there!

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Have updated my overview page

I noticed that I haven't updated my quick overview page since March!! So it was really time to add all the new postings and add some new categories and remove some outdated postings.

I promise to keep it more up to date. It's only in my own interested, because adding so many new postings is a lot of work.

Too bad that Blogger doesn't offer an API to query and group the postings of a blog. Tagging isn't really an usable alternate solution, because I just want to show the headlines for quick browsing. I WANT DATABASE ACCESS!!! :-)

So check out the updated overview of my postings.

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