Oracle Apex Notebook

APEX4 Password Strength Meter Item Plugin

Written by Paulo Vale on Friday, July 16, 2010

Download Oracle Application Express 3.2

Written by Paulo Vale on Saturday, February 28, 2009

The new APEX release 3.2 is finally available for download. This new version covers essentially the Oracle Forms to APEX converter, but also has some extras regarding security.

Download Oracle Application Express 3.2

Oracle Application Express 3.2 Release Notes

Application Express Documentation and Tutorials

Oracle Forms convertion to Apex is here... almost!

Written by Paulo Vale on Thursday, February 12, 2009

Finnaly fresh news... the apex.oracle.com demo server was upgraded to Application Express 3.2.0.00.21. You can't download it yet, but you can test it online. Very soon we'll have a production release available.

You can read all about Oracle Application Express Release 3.2 new features details here.

Additional info on Joel Kallman's post about the new release.

jQuery: 3rd Birthday and new release 1.3

Written by Paulo Vale on Thursday, January 15, 2009

jQuery is the way of the future in what concerns JavaScript framework integration with Oracle Apex. In the last months, several Oracle Apex Bloggers have posted nice examples to take Apex applications interfaces to another level taking advantage of jQuery functionalities.

Today, on the project’s 3rd birthday, the jQuery development team has announced the release of jQuery v1.3, the latest and greatest release of jQuery which includes a lot changes and new features like:

• Sizzle Selector Engine
• Live Events
• jQuery Event Object Overhaul
• HTML Injection Rewrite
• Offset Rewrite
• No More Browser Sniffing

Aditional details on jQuery 1.3 new features can be found via the release notes document.

Build an image gallery using APEX

Written by Paulo Vale on Friday, December 19, 2008

This time, I'll show how to build a simple image gallery using Oracle Application Express (APEX) and taking advantage of Jquery framework capabilities. But first of all, follow the link to see the magic happening ;)

There are several slideshow or gallery plugins for Jquery. You can choose the one you like more and re-adapt the code to fit the plugin requirements. My choice was Pikachoose.

Pikachoose is a lightweight Jquery plugin that allows easy presentation of photos with options for slideshows, navigation buttons, and auto play.



Lets begin creating a simple database structure to store the images.

Create a sequence to be used by image id:

<br />CREATE SEQUENCE "GAL_IMAGES_SEQ"<br /> INCREMENT BY 1<br /> START WITH 1<br /> MINVALUE 1<br /> MAXVALUE 999999999999999999999999999<br /> NOCYCLE<br /> NOORDER<br /> CACHE 20<br />/<br />

Create a table to store the images:

<br />CREATE TABLE "GAL_IMAGES"<br /> ( "IMAGE_ID" NUMBER NOT NULL ENABLE,<br /> "IMAGE_NAME" VARCHAR2(4000),<br /> "MIME_TYPE" VARCHAR2(4000),<br /> "IMAGE" BLOB,<br /> CONSTRAINT "GAL_IMAGES_PK" PRIMARY KEY ("IMAGE_ID") ENABLE<br /> )<br />/<br /><br />CREATE OR REPLACE TRIGGER "BI_GAL_IMAGES"<br /> BEFORE INSERT<br /> ON "GAL_IMAGES"<br /> FOR EACH ROW<br />BEGIN<br /> IF :NEW."IMAGE_ID" IS NULL<br /> THEN<br /> SELECT "GAL_IMAGES_SEQ".NEXTVAL<br /> INTO :NEW."IMAGE_ID"<br /> FROM DUAL;<br /> END IF;<br />END;<br />/<br /><br />ALTER TRIGGER "BI_GAL_IMAGES" ENABLE<br />/<br />

Now on APEX, following the wizard, create a data entry form based on "GAL_IMAGES" table.


Go to Shared Components>Application Items and Create an Application Item. Ex: G_IMAGE_ID.

Create an Application Process to retrieve the image from the database. Identify the point at which this process will run as "On Demand". The point of "On Demand" is that it will only fire when requested by a page process.

<br />DECLARE<br /> l_mime VARCHAR2 (255);<br /> l_length NUMBER;<br /> l_file_name VARCHAR2 (2000);<br /> lob_loc BLOB;<br />BEGIN<br /><br /> SELECT "MIME_TYPE", "IMAGE", "IMAGE_NAME", DBMS_LOB.getlength ("IMAGE")<br /> INTO l_mime, lob_loc, l_file_name, l_length<br /> FROM "GAL_IMAGES"<br /> WHERE image_id = :G_IMAGE_ID;<br /><br /> OWA_UTIL.mime_header (NVL (l_mime, 'application/octet'), FALSE);<br /><br /> HTP.p ('Content-length: ' || l_length);<br /> HTP.p ('Content-Disposition: filename="' || l_file_name || '"');<br /> OWA_UTIL.http_header_close;<br />-- Download the BLOB<br /> WPG_DOCLOAD.download_file (lob_loc);<br />END;<br />

Now create the page where you want to put the image gallery and then, Edit Page > HTML Header:

<br /><link type="text/css" href="#WORKSPACE_IMAGES#pikabottom.css" rel="stylesheet"><br /><script type="text/javascript" src="#WORKSPACE_IMAGES#jquery-1.2.6.min.js"></script><br /><script language="javascript"><br /> <!-- $(document).ready( function (){ $("#pikame").PikaChoose(); }); --><br /></script><br /><script type="text/javascript" src="#WORKSPACE_IMAGES#pikachoose.js"></script><br />


On the same page, create a PL/SQL Dynamic Content region:

<br />DECLARE<br /> CURSOR c1<br /> IS<br /> SELECT "IMAGE_ID"<br /> FROM "GAL_IMAGES";<br />BEGIN<br /> HTP.p ('<ul id="pikame">');<br /><br /> FOR gallery_rec IN c1<br /> LOOP<br /> HTP.p<br /> ( '<li><br /> <img src="f?p=&APP_ID.:0:&SESSION.:APPLICATION_PROCESS=proc_show_image:::G_IMAGE_ID:' || gallery_rec.image_id || '" />/></li>'<br /> );<br /> END LOOP;<br /><br /> HTP.p ('</ul>');<br />END;<br />

And run...