Updated Statement of Direction

Just in time for Oracle OpenWorld we updated our Oracle Application Express 4.0 Statement of Direction. The biggest new additional is the new 'Team Development" feature, which will make development of APEX applications as a team even easier and more productive. We already adopted "Team Development" for our own work on APEX 4.0, and it’s been really useful, thanks to its tight integration with the Application Builder and the ability to provide direct feedback for any APEX page. Stop by at the demo grounds new week at Oracle Open World to see this new feature in action.

Using SQL Developer and the Data Modeler to aid your Oracle APEX development.

After using the recently introduced Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler for a number of projects, I thought it would be fun to talk about how all these wonderful tools we develop in the Database Tools group can be used together to improve our productivity as Software Developers and explore some of numerous integration points of Oracle Application Express, Oracle SQL Developer and the new Data Modeler.

So on Wednesday, September 9th, I will actually have to opportunity to demonstrate these tools as the speaker at the NYOUG Web SIG meeting, which happens to take place here in my New York office, at 520 Madison Avenue. We’ll look at how to create new and enhance existing database models with the Data Modeler, then build an APEX application on top of these data structures and use SQL Developer to browse APEX information and to remotely debug your APEX application's PL/SQL code. If you happen to be in there area, please stop by, additional information can be found here:

NYOUG WebSIG meeting, Wednesday, September 9th

Additional presentations about Advanced Printing with APEX

Due to the high interest in the topic of Advanced Printing with Oracle Application Express, I signed up to present this topic at some additional upcoming conferences. The actual presentations will have different focus areas, but they all will cover the basics of configuring printing in Application Express, using BI Publisher and Apache FOP and showcase some of the advanced features such as Web Services based integration with BI Publisher, the APEX print API, report rescheduling and emailing, etc. Please see below for the current conference schedule, and please check the conference websites for updated information.


New York Oracle Users Group - General Meeting
Date: December 10, 2008
Location:
St. John's University
101 Murray Street
New York, NY 10007
http://nyoug.org/upcoming_events.htm#General_Meeting

My presentation is scheduled for Session 6 in the Developer Track from 4:00-5:00pm EST, please check the NYOUG website for updated information.


Oracle BIWA Summit 2008
Date: December 2-3, 2008
Location:
Oracle World Headquarters
Conference Center
350 Oracle Parkway
Redwood Shores, CA 94065
http://ioug.itconvergence.com/pls/htmldb/f?p=219:25

My presentation is scheduled for Tuesday, December 2, 2008, 11:00am PST, Room 106, please check the BIWA Summit website for updated information.


Desktop Conference - Fall 2008 virtual conference
Date: November 11-13, 2008
Location: your desk
http://desktopconference.org/

My presentation is scheduled for Thursday, November 13, 2008, 11am EST, Session 32, please check the DesktopConference for updated information.

Advanced Printing in Application Express

For everyone using the printing features of Application Express, or whoever is struggling with the BI Publisher or Apache FOP configuration, you might be interested in the BIWA SIG Summit 08, taking place at Oracle’s World HQ December 2nd and 3rd. There are a number of presentations scheduled covering BI Publisher, and I’ll be doing a presentation there on advanced printing in Application Express. I’m going to cover the integration of APEX with BI Publisher, and also the configuration of APEX using Apache FOP for printing. Furthermore I’ll demonstrate how to use Web Services in APEX to call out to BI Publisher directly, to initiate and schedule the generation of reports. I’ll also go through some actual samples on how to use the PL/SQL print API to store reports inside the database and how to email them out to lists of recipients.

Visit the BIWA SIG's website for the full schedule and registration information:

BIWA Summit 2008 - December 2-3, 2008 - Oracle World HQ, Redwood Shores, California

Oracle APEX Forms Converter at NYOUG

As stated in out Statement of Direction, Oracle Application Express 3.2 will introduce an Oracle Forms Converter tool. This tool will capture the design of existing Oracle Forms applications and automatically translate many of the main components. Other components, such as complex triggers, will need to be manually converted from client-side PL/SQL to server-side PL/SQL.

On September 10th, I'll give a live preview of this tool at the 6th Annual New York City Metro Area Oracle Users Group Day. Registration is open to members and non-members, so please stop by if you’re in the area:

http://www.oracle.com/dm/09q1field/18983_ev_metro_day_new_york_sep08.html

APEX 3.1.2 Patch Released

Oracle Application Express 3.1.2 has been released to. The full installation is available here, the patchset is available on MetaLink - patch number 7313609. Please read the Patch Set Notes for details on the bugs fixed in this release.

Oracle Application Express with Oracle eBusiness Suite

In case you haven't read about this already on other APEX Blog sites, we're currently conducting a short survey to determine how customers integrate Oracle Application Express with the Oracle eBusiness Suite. As Joel Kallman was explaining on his blog, the purpose of this is to gather evidence with the eventual goal of formally legitimizing the use of Oracle Application Express with the Oracle eBusiness Suite. So if you are using Oracle Application Express to integrate with the Oracle eBusiness Suite, please visit David's blog here, and take this one page survey.