Sunday, October 28, 2007

APEX + PL/SQL + HTML + JAVASCRIPT (Part 2)


OK, the second half of this problem....I am not sure if I have a bad Application Express program or something somewhere in the C drive of my computer......but, through all of the onMouseover tutorials and application downloads, I could not get any to work out correctly. For some reason the "BODY HEADER" section on my HTML regions would not put the javascript onMouseover graphic on the cursor...it would automatically go to the upper left corner of the application......I used the following tutorials and had the same result:
APEX Javascript Documentation:
http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B32472_01/doc/appdev.300/b32469/javascript.htm#CIHEBFFC
Aria Employee Look Up Application:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/database/application_express/packaged_apps/packaged_apps.html#PEOPLE

Neither of these would work, so I went to something more user friendly...Patrick Wolf's blog post for onMouseOver calls....a very simple and straight forward command to be used, and it worked:

http://inside-apex.blogspot.com/2007/08/using-tooltips-in-oracle-apex.html

Like I said, this worked, but I could not get it to work for dynamic PL/SQL content. So, after much nashing of teeth, searching of the Oracle Forum's and Googling like mad....one week later and a few Grimbergers later....I finally found a solution that would allow me to put:
DYNAMIC PL/SQL INFORMATION INTO A JAVASCRIPT TOOLTIP THAT SHOWS IN AN HTML TABLE CELL when the mouse moves over it.....here is the skinny:

First, link up your javascript in the HTML header output using this:
htp.p('<script language="javascript" src="#WORKSPACE_IMAGES#apexwonder_tooltip.js"></script>');

Second, put the call to the javascript and the dynamic data (capframe) into the table cell using this:

htp.tableData( ' ', cattributes => ' bgcolor=#990066 onmouseover="Tip('''||capframe||''')"');

CATTRIBUTES is something that I still need to get to know. It looks like it has some powerful HTML output functionality. "TIP" is the call to the javascript function. The term "capframe" is the variable holding the dynamic data to put in the tooltip itself. The three single quotes and the concatenation operators are very important to note! It is also hard to see the apostrophes on the right side at the end, but that is a double quote and a single quote, not three single quotes:)

So there we have it, a dynamic tooltip for use in a PL/SQL region.

Here is a picture...please forgive the lack of nice CSS formatting....

Saturday, October 27, 2007

APEX + PL/SQL + HTML + JAVASCRIPT = Mas Confusion (PART 1)

I don't know if I am the only one who has had this problem, but here it is:

How do you call a JAVASCRIPT through HTML using PLSQL in an APEX application? I have the answer......or another answer I should say......

HTP.P('')
did not work......

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Setting Up Oracle Business Intelligence (BI) Publisher

Well, it appears that if you want nice looking reports from APEX, you need a little dingy called Oracle BI (Business Intelligence). This program helps you to deal with building interfaces for report printing. To do this, you need to download the latest version of Oracle BI Publisher from the Oracle Website. After this, you will need to install it per the instructions. Next, you will need to log into APEX to set it up. This is an important point, you must log in with the ADMIN username in order to get to the right areas for setting up the program. So, you must be in the ADMIN configuration to set up BI within APEX. Spent 2 hours finding this one out tonight. You also must know that in order to log on in this configuration, you will need to go to the following page in your application express system:

http://localhost:8080/apex/apex_admin

Cheers
Jason

Thursday, October 11, 2007

So I have been having some problems installing APEX over the past few days. In addition to a unstable computer, the install was failing to correctly work out. The symptoms were that I could not import an application into APEX 3.0, and some of the ICONs were not showing on screen (the red x just appeared). So, after going over and over the application guide only to no avail, someone ( http://dgielis.blogspot.com/ ) gave me a link to some important information....I used this data on my first desktop install, but forgot about it on my subsequent laptop installation. After using these directions, all turned out perfectly. Here are the directions and a link to the page:

If you have reviewed the differences described above and want to proceed to install Application Express 3.0.1 in your Oracle Database XE, first follow step 3.2 of the Application Express Installation Guide. The command and arguments used to install APEX 3.0.1 via SQL*Plus should be: @apexins password SYSAUX SYSAUX TEMP /i/
Once you complete the standard install, you need to perform the following steps to complete the upgrade:
Connect to SQL*Plus as SYS
@APEX_HOME/apex/apxldimg.sql APEX_HOME
@APEX_HOME/apex/apxxepwd.sql password(where password is the password of the Application Express internal ADMIN account) For the steps above, APEX_HOME is the directory where the Application Express software was unzipped.

http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/database/application_express/html/3.0.1_and_xe.html

So, now that everything is installed fine, and I feel well practiced in conducting installs, on to application development.

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Transfer an application

So, the current question of the day is....how do you transfer a ready application from one system to another system?

Monday, October 8, 2007

Getting Started

Hello, I am brand new to Oracle Application Express. This blog is designed to keep a journal of the things I have learned, and the things I would like to learn. So, as with everythign, the first thing to learn is how to get started. You will need Oracle 10g Database, which comes bundled with APEX. But of course, then you will need to upgrade APEX to 3.0.1.

Step 1: Go Here to download and get more information on Oracle APEX. http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/database/application_express/html/doc.html

Step 2: Review these steps....if you are like me, it will take a couple of tries and a couple of hours before things start working.
http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B32472_01/doc/install.300/b32468.pdf
http://download-uk.oracle.com/docs/cd/B32472_01/doc/install.300/b32468/trouble.htm

The most important Gotcha: once you download Oracle APEX, it will need to be unzipped, when this is done, you will have one file folder titled APEX that contains all of your data. This file folder needs to be placed inside the OracleXE folder residing on your harddrive. From there, you can start your install.