Snippets and Thoughts of One Oracle Developer

I I had to plan a trip to Iceland. Previously I was drawing timelines on paper to make sure I can get there in time, to utilize my time on the location and to avoid any overlaps. But with this trip I knew it will be too much redo, so I thought about doing it in APEX... The Plan I need a grid to input the data and I need a Gantt chart to render it as timeline. Thats it. I had a fully functional prototype in 2 hours (I was stuck for a while on the chart). Since that I added some small features, like: daily overview so I can check (and eventually print) just specific days customizable colors, per event/stop category with event/stop level override added costs and flags so I can keep track of things I need to pay or do clickable chart (thanks to Hari), so I can click on event on chart to adjust it dynamic chart height (thanks to Hari) based on the number of categories used on trip I am planning to add maps thanks to suggestion from Jayson . Finally, this is t

I It is the time of the year when ACEs for next season are announced. It was hard to get into this program, it is a bit easier to stay in it. I had to collect 100 points and I did managed 360, most of them through my blog. Hopefully next year I will reach to ACE Pro and get the few things I miss. So far I am contributing through my blog for over 2 years (and I have just reached the 100k views), and on GitHub a bit longer through my several open source projects. Being an ACE motivates me to write a better content, to not get satisfied with quick articles and don't go for easy topics. Basically I have to produce something I can be proud of. And that is great. ACE benefits You can explore the official list of benefits under Why join section. What I got from the ACE program? I can't say it was life changing, at least not yet, but: I can brag about being ACE I am part of the great community, I can reach out to these people more easily and I did connected

Y You have a lot of valuable insights in APEX logs and you most likely don't realize that. And that is because you don't have a tool to display this data in a meaningful way. Some things you can extract from the apex_workspace_activity_log table: average or maximum times for each page for several actions (rendering, processing, AJAX calls...) number of requests, so you can identify highly used pages (or not used pages) number of users and sessions as a complementary metrics you could also extract browsers, IP addresses, buttons clicked, errors... There are other things you can track. I love heat maps. So I created this mini app, which will allow you to explore the data from apex_workspace_activity_log as a heat maps. I use whole month data and the T1..T30 columns represents dates in past, T1 as yesterday, T2 as day before yesterday... You just have to set the colors and thresholds to suits your needs. What I created: simple page with IG to

A As part of the Race to Certification Challenge you can get OCI Foundation(s) certifications for free. Why you should bother? I think many people missed the opportunity you have here. The obvious one is that you learn a lot about Oracle Cloud in a short time. The courses are free and actually great, certifications are free and kind of easy, exams are not proctored and you have 15 free attempts per each. It is basically impossible to fail. I am interviewing a lot and I would certainly appreciate a candidate even with these type of certifications. It is still better then nothing. (free) Foundation courses: OCI Foundations , 5h course Oracle Cloud Data Management Foundations , 6h course You don't need to do the labs (although I would recommend that), so you can see the time needed to prep is very low. You can do each exam in just one day. Hidden benefit The not so obvious benefit is, that when you pass these 2 exams, you will actually get vouchers for a

A After two years there is finally a brand new APEX certification going to be released tomorrow (on June 1st), the Oracle APEX Cloud Developer Professional , exam number 1Z0-770. Update June 1st From today, you have 3 month to get this certification for free , check the rules . I did pass the exam today, I like to pass exams when they are fresh. I have faced just few weird questions and I disagree with answers just on 2 questions. Be aware that some questions are asking for a statement (not statements) but they show answers as checkboxes, so don't be lured to select more then one. Compared to previous APEX exams this one is focusing on recent features, questions and answers are more clear. I have enjoyed the exam. Certification There is already available learning path on Oracle MyLearn as a recommended study material. It has 13 hours and 19 interesting skill checks (short quizzes) to verify your knowledge and prep you for the real test. Usually there is also a sh

I I have touched the component discovery topic in the One authorization scheme article . I did created a table tsk_auth_components which store application components and as they are discovered (requested for the first time) they are added to this table. This might not be enough. Today I will show you how to discover all components at once. In a tsk_auth_components_list_v view I have compiled a list of APEX views containing authorization_scheme for current application (the component name is missing, but that is not the important at this time): SELECT 'APEX_APPLICATION_BC_ENTRIES', breadcrumb_entry_id, NULL, component_signature FROM apex_application_bc_entries WHERE application_id = &&APP_ID UNION ALL SELECT 'APEX_APPLICATION_COMPUTATIONS', application_computation_id, NULL, component_signature FROM apex_application_computations WHERE application_id = &&APP_ID UNION ALL SELECT 'APEX_APPLICATION_LIST_ENTRIES',

O On my projects I usually use a lot of grids to customize the app - handle the users, roles, navigation, LOVs, settings... so I create a page, which lists all IG regions and performs some checks, to make sure grids are setup in a way I like it. If you hover on the orange warning icon it will actually show you the message describing what is wrong. You can see the list of grids, source, target (procedure handling the grid changes and table behind) and some other checks. Things I check: region source type (T) - I prefer to use the view, so I check for that and for the name, if the view contains same page id grid process/handler (T) - Invoke API is my new best friend, PL/SQL code is fine... I also check if the process name match the procedure name and if the package name contains same page id passed/submitted page items (P) - I also check if I pass every page item which I use in the view, to make sure that I have proper grid refresh authorizations - check authoriz

I Invoke API is available since APEX 22.2, since all my projects upgraded recently I can finally start using it. For me it was one of the greatest news introduced in APEX 22.2, not much invisible, but allowing me to shrink down Embedded Code report significantly. If you are into classic passing of arguments, checkout this Invoke API article from Jon Dixon . I will be talking about a more minimalistic approach. I am a huge fan of storing logic in PL/SQL packages and views. This Invoke API feature allows me to just reference the procedure same way as I can reference view in grid, as a reference, not as a written code which need to be parsed and maintained. And this is not limited just for grids. What I did in the past created view and assigned it to the grid, preferably via object reference (region source type = table/view) created procedure to handle the changes created caller to pass arguments from grid to the handler hoped that arguments wont change - I wou

I In previous article I have showed you a way how you can manage the whole application security through user defined roles (and I mean defined by business users not by developers). Today I will show you how you can achieve the same with interactive grids. How you can use the same IS_USER role to manage which DML actions will be allowed on the grid for specific application role. I will be using the Tasks application and demonstrating it there. The security for grids is assured on multiple levels: AUTH_PAGES - protects access to the pages and page visibility in navigation (protecting access to the whole page with grid) AUTH_COMPONENTS - protects access to the individual page components (protecting access to the grid region, grid handler, specific columns, related DAs...) AUTH_TABLES - protects against unauthorized DML actions inside of the TAPI procedures, but also on a grid through dedicated IS_USER_C|U|D autorization schemes AUTH_PROCEDURES - protects access