Oracle Application Express 5.1 Early Adopter 1 now available!

We are very excited to announce the beginning of the Oracle Application Express 5.1 Early Adopter program, at https://apexea.oracle.com. The Early Adopter is an open-to-the-public hosted beta program. And we’re inviting everyone interested in Oracle Application Express - existing customers and new customers alike - to sign up for a free workspace and take our forthcoming release for a spin.

To get started, click the "Request a Workspace" button from the https://apexea.oracle.com home page, sign-in with your Oracle account (i.e. the same account you use for other Oracle sites, like OTN) and complete the sign-up wizard.

There are numerous new features to explore, including the Interactive Grid and Oracle JET charts. As this is an Early Adopters release, not everything is complete just yet, you can review a list of known issues here:

https://apex.oracle.com/pls/apex/f?p=510051:1

We’re looking for your feedback and input, which you can submit via the feedback button (see App Builder nav bar in the upper right-hand corner).

Thank you for your interest and your support!

Oracle Application Express 5.0 now available

The result of a two and half year engineering effort, Oracle Application Express 5.0 represents the greatest advancement of Oracle Application Express in its 10-year history.  Oracle Application Express 5.0 enables customers to develop, design and deploy beautiful, responsive, database-driven desktop and mobile applications using only a browser.  

Download APEX 5.0 Today!

Now that APEX 5.0 is finally available, it’s time to spread the word and to get everyone up to speed on what’s new in 5.0, how to make best use of the beautiful, new Universal Theme and how to get the most out of the incredibly powerful new Page Designer. 

So here are some of the events coming up in the near future, where you can learn all about APEX 5.0 and meet many of the APEX development team members in person:

APEXposed 2015
Montreal, Canada - May 6, 2015

• Keynote: Oracle Application Express 5.0 (Marc Sewtz - 8:30 - 9:30am)
• Oracle Application Express 5.0 Plug-In Enhancements (Patrick Maniraho - 1:00 - 2:00pm)
• Transitioning to Oracle Application Express 5.0 (Marc Sewtz - 2:15 - 3:15pm)

UKOUG Application Express SIG

Solihull, UK - May 14, 2015

• Oracle Application Express 5.0 (Anthony Rayner - 2:25-3:35pm)

APEX Connect 2015

Düsseldorf, Germany - June 9 - 10, 2015

• Keynote: Oracle Application Express 5.0 (Marc Sewtz - Jun-09 - 9:30 - 10:30am)
• Beautiful UI with APEX 5 (Shakeeb Rahman - Jun-09 11:00 - 11:45am)
• Der Oracle Application Express Entwicklungsprozess (Marc Sewtz - Jun-10 - 11:00 - 11:45am)

BGOUG

Plovdiv, Bulgaria - June 12 - 14, 2015

• Oracle Application Express 5.0 New Features (Marc Sewtz)
• Transitioning to Oracle Application Express 5.0 (Marc Sewtz)

ODTUG KScope 2015

Hollywood, FL, USA - June 21 - 25, 2015

June 21

• APEX Episode 5:  A New Frontier (Joel Kallman, 8:30 - 9:30am)
• Need for Speed: Page Designer (Patrick Wolf, 9:30 - 10:30am)
• Interstellar: The Universal Theme (Shakeeb Rahman, 11:00am - 12:00pm)
• The Fifth Element: HMTL5 + APEX5 Mobile (Marc Sewtz, 1:00 - 2:00pm)
• The Matrix Reloaded: Interactive Report (Anthony Rayner, 2:00 - 3:00pm)
• The Prestige: Converting to APEX 5.0 Universal Theme (David Peake, 3:15 – 4:15pm)

June 22

• Transitioning to Oracle Application Express 5.0 (David Peake, 08:30am - 09:30pm)
• Introduction to Oracle Application Express (David Peake, 09:45 -10:45am)
• You Don't Lack APEX Skills; You Lack Oracle Skills (Joel Kallman, 2:00 - 3:00pm)

June 23

• Self-Service Application Deployment in a Runtime Instance: This Is How We (Oracle) Do It... (Jason Straub, 4:45 - 5:45pm)

June 24

• Oracle Application Express 5.0 New Features (Hilary Farrell, 9:45 - 10:45am)
• Application Express 5.0: Features Nobody Else Will Tell You About (David Peake, 1:45 - 2:45pm)

... and be sure to join one of the numerous APEX Meetup groups world wide - and if there isn't one close to where you live, then consider starting your own local APEX Meetup group - don't know how to do that? Check out the APEX Meetup site for helpful information:

http://apexmeetups.com/

APEX Tabular Forms Deep Dive at #ORCLAPEX NYC Meetup

Ever heard of APEX$ROW_NUM, APEX$ROW_SELECTOR and APEX$ROW_STATUS? Did you know you can reference tabular form columns using bind variable syntax in your page processes? Are you familiar with the execution scope of tabular form processes for modified vs submitted rows? Ever struggled using apex_application.g_fxx arrays with checkboxes? And do you really need to use the apex_item APIs? In APEX 4.0, 4.1 and 4.2 we've introduced lots of new tabular form features, including declarative tabular form validations and page processes, yet there are still PL/SQL processes being written that loop through the apex_application.g_fxx arrays or tabular form regions that mix apex_item API calls with using built-in form elements.

So when planning our next #ORCLAPEX NYC Meetup, we've figured this would be a great topic to cover. And since we don't want to talk you to death during a single meetup - we decided that we'll do a three part series, starting slow and covering the basics during our next meetup on 11/06, then dig a little deeper in part two and then conclude this series with a grand finale during the third meetup in this series.

Join us on Thurday, November 6th at the Oracle office in Manhattan, at 120 Park Ave. We're starting at 6pm and we'll serve pizza this time - thanks to everyone's generous donations last time.

RSVP today:  #ORCLAPEX NYC Meetup

Oracle APEX 5.0 UI techniques at NYOUG on June 3rd

Are you ready to give your apps a fresh new look & feel? APEX 5.0 will bring you the Universal Theme and Template Options – a modern, responsive HTML5 theme that takes the guesswork out of choosing the right HTML templates and CSS classes. Thanks to easy-to-use declarative template options, you no longer have to be a HTML/CSS guru in order to create modern and beautiful web applications. 

Want to learn more? Then join us for an APEX 5.0 preview this Friday, May 23 at our first ORCLAPEX NYC Meetup:

http://www.meetup.com/ORCLAPEX-NYC/events/178852652/

And on Tuesday, June 3^rd , head over to the NYOUG Summer Meeting at the BMCC on Chambers Street and get an in-depth look at the new UI techniques that will be introduced with APEX 5.0:

http://nyoug.org/ai1ec_event/nyoug-2014-summer-general-meeting-save-date/?instance_id=180

First ORCLAPEX New York City Meetup

We’re excited to announce the first ever Oracle Application Express Meetup in New York City. Join us on May 23^rd at the Oracle office at 120 Park Ave – right across from Grand Central. Meet other APEX developers working in the area and see what’s coming in APEX 5.0. New to APEX? Don’t worry, we’ll get you up to speed and show you what this product is all about.

As a special guest speaker, we’ll have Peter Raganitsch, from Click Click IT Solution in Vienna, Austria - known in the community for the APEXlib framework and the FOEX plug-in - show us how to use friendly URLs with your APEX applications

Lean more about our upcoming ORCLAPEX NYC meetup and sign up to join us!

Developing Mobile Web Applications with Oracle Application Express 4.2

If you’re interested in developing Mobile Web Apps on the Oracle Database – and if you’re following my Blog, chances are that you are – then here’s a great opportunity to get up to speed on the latest trends and learn how you can quickly and easily develop your own mobile web apps and extend your existing APEX apps for mobile use: attend my upcoming free ODTUG Webinar on February 20th:

Developing Mobile Web Applications with Oracle Application Express 4.2 
Thursday, February 20th at 3:00pm - 04:00pm EST

Here’s what I will be covering: 

Smartphones and tablets are now commonly used throughout the enterprise. Thanks to easy to use mobile apps, ready access to the Internet, and widespread use of web- and cloud-based applications, mobile devices are a logical choice for many employees. Businesses need to respond to these trends by modernizing their public facing websites for mobile use and providing employees with access to in-house applications that support a variety of different devices and screen sizes. Solely building for desktop use and standardizing on IE only won’t cut it anymore. 



Oracle Application Express (APEX) provides you with powerful tools to quickly and efficiently build mobile web apps and to easily extend your existing desktop applications for mobile use. Regardless of whether these applications were built with APEX originally or use other technologies—as long as they’re running on top of an Oracle Database, APEX will enable you to quickly build mobile apps that provide access to your data and interact with your business processes. 



During this session, we’ll discuss mobile development trends and responsive web design, walk you through the basics of the jQuery Mobile framework, and provide you with an overview of the mobile development capabilities built into the current release of Oracle Application Express 4.2. We will include several live demos to get you started, so have your phone or tablet ready to try out our sample apps live while they are being built.

Additional information on ODTUG Webinars and a list of other upcoming Webinars can be found here:

http://www.odtug.com/online-education

See APEX at the Bulgarian Oracle User Group Conference this November

Are you interested in developing Mobile web applications with Oracle Application Express? Do you want to see some of the features that are going to be introduced with Oracle Application Express 5.0? Then join us at the Bulgarian Oracle User Group Conference, taking place in Plovdiv, Bulgaria from November 22nd to November 24th. Roel Hartman and I will be doing four sessions on Oracle Application Express, covering everything from what’s new in APEX 5.0, starting mobile development with APEX, taking a sneak peek at the new mobile development capabilities coming in 5.0 to building hybrid apps with APEX and PhoneGap / Cordova. Additionally I’ll also cover some SQL Developer tips and tricks and best practices:

• 11/22 14:15 - Top 10 Oracle SQL Developer Tips and Tricks (Marc Sewtz)
• 11/23 10:00 - Oracle Application Express 5.0 (Marc Sewtz)
• 11/23 11:15 - My First Mobi : Starting Mobile Development with APEX (Roel Hartman)
• 11/23 12:30 -  Mobile Development with Oracle Application Express 5.0 (Marc Sewtz)
• 11/23 14:30 -  The best of both worlds : Going hybrid with Oracle Application Express (Roel Hartman)

You can register for the conference and review the full agenda here:

http://www.bgoug.org/en/events/details/90.html

White Paper on Custom PDF Reports in APEX

As I’ve previously blogged about and outlined in my video tutorials, it is now possible to create custom PDF reports with APEX 4.2.2 using the APEX Listener 2.0.2 and third-party tools like Altova Stylevision or Stylus Studio. To help our customers getting started with this, we’ve just released a white paper that outlines the system requirements, explains the configuration steps and options and then walks you through the creation of PDF reports using custom layouts step by step. The white paper is available on out Oracle Application Express OTN page:

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/apex/application-express/apex-white-papers-1866964.html

PDF Reports with APEX at NYOUG

The New York Oracle User Group Summer Meeting takes place on June 5^th at St. John's University, right next to the World Trade Center in Downtown Manhattan. This looks like it’s going to be a very interesting meeting for Oracle DBAs and Oracle Developers. There are two session scheduled covering the Oracle Database 12c and also two APEX sessions. There’s going to be a session on building mobile apps with APEX, which looks to be very hands-on. And I’ll be showing how to build custom PDF reports with APEX. I’ll walk you step by step through creating the report in APEX, downloading the XML, creating a report layout with tools like Stylevision, loading the layout back into APEX and associating the layout with your report. If you have a laptop running APEX 4.2.2 and the APEX Listener 2.0.2, you’re welcome to bring it and follow along – you will need at least a trial version of either Altova Stylevision or Stylus Studio.

Details about this event can be found on the NYOUG website:

http://nyoug.org/upcoming_events.htm#General_Meeting

APEX-Community meets Development - Munich, May 16th

Mark your calendars for May 16^th. Following the Cloud World events in London and Munich on May 14^th and 15^th, we’re organizing an APEX Community day at the Oracle office in Munich, Germany on Thursday, May 16th. I’ll be showing the just-release APEX 4.2.2, talk about what’s new, what to consider when upgrading and we'll do a demonstration of some of the PDF printing enhancements in this release. Then we’re going to take a look at our upgraded packaged applications and sample applications, including a demonstration of our newly added Survey Builder. And with APEX 5.0 development on the way, we’re also going to take a look at some of the features we’re currently working on and of course I’d be happy to discuss your questions, suggestions and feature requests during our meeting.

A detailed agenda and information on how to sign up for this free event can be found here:

APEX-Community meets Development: Munich, May 16th, 2013

Oracle OTN Developer Day in New York on May 7th

Are you interested in developing and running your Oracle Application Express applications on the Cloud? And do you want to learn more about Oracle’s Database Cloud Service? Then join us on May 7 at the Oracle OTN Developer Day in New York. At this event, you will be able to network with peers and Oracle experts while learning about Oracle Cloud's Platform as a Service (PaaS) offerings and the speed, flexibility, and productivity they offer.

I’ll be doing an Oracle Cloud overview presentation in the morning and then we'll do a Database Cloud Hands-On lab with you in the afternoon. You’ll get hands-on experience with the Oracle Database Cloud and learn about our suite of packaged productivity applications. You’ll learn how to load bulk data to the Oracle Database Cloud, build applications on this data, add reports and charts, setup RESTful webservices and  build and deploy mobile web apps – all as part of this free workshop.

Register today!