Blog Archive

  • Simplify Sharing Region Data

    I’ve frequently found it useful to share one region’s data in another. For example, as a user narrows her results with a faceted search or smart filter, a chart, map or dynamic content region shows the same results in a different way. My colleague Carsten explains the technique in his Add a Chart to your Faceted Search Page blog post, and it has come in handy for me many times. But after the fifth pipelined table function and object types I authored to enable the data sharing, I set out to automate the process to save myself time in the future. As…

  • Refitting Filtered Map Points

    Using a public dataset of New York City high schools, I built a page that lets students or parents filter the list based on various criteria. As they narrow their options, a map region reflects where the remaining schools are located, and a stacked bar chart lets them compare the contenders on a few important metrics. While the map initially centered and zoomed itself to fit the unfiltered set of schools, to give users the sense of “homing in” on their perfect school I wanted to refit the map around the narrowed search results. To reflect the filtered results from…

  • Declarative Data-Driven Downloads

    While developing APEX apps, on multiple occasions I’ve needed to generate data-driven artifacts for external use. My app lets staff manage the data that drives their organization, but for historical reasons a related public-facing website can’t be replaced in the near term. The site is usually static files or was built years before on a different tech stack like LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP). This article walks through a simple example of generating all the HTML files for a static website based on database data. It uses a declarative “transform group” capability I wrote for myself to combine the declarative…

  • Data-Driven Diagrams

    I often want to visualize my Oracle APEX app’s data model as an Entity/Relationship diagram to remind myself how tables are related and exactly how columns are named. After recently stumbling on the open source Mermaid JS project, I had a lightbulb moment and set out to build my own data model visualizer app with APEX itself. Mermaid Diagram Syntax The Mermaid JS open source project aims to improve software documentation quality with an easy-to-maintain diagram syntax for Markdown files. The typical README.md file of a software project can include an Entity/Relationship diagram by simply including text like this: Including…

  • Oracle APEX Grand Tour

    I joined the APEX dev team in 2021 after falling in love with its low-code app-building productivity and ability to fully embrace the Oracle database. But when I looked for a unified demo and presentation showcasing all its low-code features, I came up empty-handed. Over the following months, I learned everything I could and created the one hour webinar I wished had existed when I was starting out with the product. The goal? Educate the viewer on what is possible with APEX by seeing it in action. If you’re reading this blog, you probably have already employed most of APEX’s…