APEX 4.1 Statement of Direction Published

Want to learn more about what we are planning for APEX 4.1?

Then read our new Statement of Direction.
APEX 4.1 is scheduled for release in calendar year 2011.

Regards,
David

APEX 4.0 Known Issues

Since releasing APEX 4.0 we have identified a number of issues.
Many are directly related to upgrading applications from previous releases.
The known issues are outlined on OTN here: http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/database/application_express/html/4.0_known_issues.html
As with any upgrade we strongly recommend you test your applications in a development environment before applying to production.

Our development team is working very hard on these issues.
Many issues have workarounds provided.
Where appropriate we are also releasing patch set exceptions which can be downloaded from Oracle Support and installed in your environment.

We intend to roll all of these fixes into an APEX 4.0.1 release.
Before you ask - I can't provide dates for APEX 4.0.1 release!

Regards,
David

Updating apex.oracle.com Side-effects

As Joel Kallman posted apex.oracle.com upgraded to APEX 4.0, version 4.0.0.00.46. To do this we ran a one-off patch on apex.oracle.com.

This patch caused the Websheet Data Grids and Reports to be lost.
Therefore, if you had defined a Data Grid or SQL Report previously, you will need to recreate them. This information can't be recovered.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Rest assured that this was caused by the one-off patch and will have no impact on the APEX 4.0 Production Release once available, or any future patches or releases.

Cheers,
David

New APEX Listener Forum Now Available

We have created a new OTN Forum just for the APEX Listener: http://forums.oracle.com/forums/forum.jspa?forumID=858&start=0

We thought it best to separate this forum from the regular APEX Forum as the APEX Listener will have unique posts and to make it easier for all to review.

David

APEX 4.0 Oracle-By-Examples now available

Our curriculum development team have been very busy of late developing new Oracle-By-Examples (OBEs) for Oracle Application Express 4.0.

These include:

• Getting Started with Application Express {Updated from previous versions to include APEX 4.0 content}


• Interactive Reports (x 3) {Updated from previous versions to include APEX 4.0 content}


• Building a Websheet in Application Express 4.0 {New}


• Building Dynamic Actions in Oracle Application Express 4.0 {New}


• Extending your Application Using Plug-Ins in Oracle Application Express 4.0 {New}


• Building Charts, Gantts and Maps with Oracle Application Express 4.0 {New}

Please go the Oracle Learning Library to teach yourself how to use many of the new features in Oracle Application Express 4.0: Oracle Learning Library
{If you look at the URL you may have noticed this site is written in APEX :)}

Happy learning!

APEX 4.0 Sample Applications

Included within the pre-production APEX 4.0 build on http://apex.oracle.com is a revised Sample Database Application and a brand new Sample Websheet Application. Simply go to Application Builder and then Create > Sample Applications and install or re-install.

The Sample Database Application has new (less dated) clothing products and new features such as dynamic actions, plug-ins, maps, etc. Download the application and see working examples of many of the new features.

The Sample Websheet Application is all about big cats and shows how multiple pages can be constructed incorporating information from data grids.

FREE event in Reston, Virginia - June 15

The OTN Develop Day is coming back to Reston: See details here.

The event we ran last time in Reston led us to completely change the way we organize and run these days. Since then we have created a new VM for running on Oracle Virtual Box: Download from here. These days are designed as BYOL (Bring Your Own Laptop) days so we can run the events more frequently and at the end you have a fully configured laptop. This also alleviates the issue we had last time in Reston where we didn't have enough machines for the participants.

Hope to see you in Reston!

APEX 4.0 comes to http://apex.oracle.com

Our free "development only" hosted site has been upgraded to the latest build of APEX 4.0. This is a pre-production build and is not available for download.

Upgrading apex.oracle.com is one of our big milestones with any new release. We always do this before releasing the software to production for various reasons. This service gets over 3 million page views a week, contains over 30,000 applications of which at least 2,500 are active in any week, and we have a broader range of applications being used and abused. This all helps to ensure the software is ready for production.

The existing Early Adopter III will still be available for the time being. A special thanks to all the participants in our Early Adopter program. Your feedback and support has been outstanding and immensely useful to our development efforts.

Enjoy and please let us know if you find major issues.

Regards,
David

APEX 4.0 Early Adopter III (EA3) now live!

As we speed down our development path towards production release (in Calendar Year 2010) we have reached yet another milestone - Roll-out of Early Adopter III.
Simply go to tryapexnow.com

This is our last planned version of the Early Adopter and includes many new features, numerous bug fixes, and a more refined user interface.

As with when we rolled out EA2, everyone will need to request a new workspace.
The old EA2 (http://184.73.244.154/apex) will be available for a few weeks to allow people to recover what they need from the old environment. You may experience issues with exporting from EA2 and importing into EA3. We have found some issues with applications including charts. This is primarily due to changes in the chart export parameters and will not impact applications exported from earlier releases (APEX 3.2 etc).

Enjoy our latest offering and please keep the feedback coming.
We do read them and try to respond when we can.

Regards,
David

Indiana Oracle User Group Tech Day

For anyone who lives / works close to Indianapolis I will be presenting at the April Technology Day.

You can find details of the event here. This is at a different venue from last year.

I have four sessions:

• APEX 101 – Overview of Oracle Application Express


• Oracle Application Express Interactive Reports, Charts, and Printing


• Oracle Application Express 4.0 New Features


• Developing Applications with APEX 4.0

The last one should be particularly interesting as I will have no slides just 100% demo.

Hope to see you there.

David

Things you have in common with Larry

Larry and I have something in common -- We both like sailing!
I prefer catamarans to trimarans, but hey all those design experts were proven right - the BMW ORACLE Racing Trimaran [BOR90]is arguably the fastest sailing boat ever built. I did a lot of sailing back in Australia where I owned a small cat. In fact a good mate of mine Kevin Crowley of Pacific DBMS (free plug least I could do ... and they offer APEX Consulting services as well) still has it in his back yard.

Now something else Larry and I have in common - We both like Application Express.
Larry has been a big supporter of Application Express since the beginning.
Sergio Leunissen, former APEX PM and now in the Linux group, developed an APEX application for the BMW ORACLE Racing team when they first started out years ago.
Again with the 33rd America's Cup challenge the team used APEX together with Data Mining to support the team.

Listen to this podcast from Ian "Fresh" Burns, design coordinator for the team on how Oracle technology helped the team to win the America's Cup: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OracleDatabaseInsider/~5/nussC-gxZFQ/8576609_Ian_Burns_030810.mp3

Cheers,
David

WANTED -- Oracle APEX Customer References

I need customer references for Oracle APEX. You must be allowed (have legal approval) to provide me with information on your APEX application(s) and a company image. I'm also interested in hearing from Consulting Companies providing their clients are prepared to share information with Oracle. {References from anywhere not just the US graciously accepted}

Very highly regarded (and loved by Marketing) if APEX is running on Oracle Database 11g. HUGE bonus points if you are also using other Database options (RAC, BI Publisher, etc).

I use references for the following:

• Quotes on APEX OTN Home Page


• Podcasts


• Customer referral - Potential customers wishing to speak to others


• Presentations


• Publications (articles, white papers, etc.)


• Other marketing such as convincing Sales that APEX can make them $$$

I always check with references before using them and where possible provide drafts before publication, so you can always elect not to be included in any of the above.


So if you want to tell the world of your wonderful achievements using Oracle APEX and get your name in lights send me an email (david.peake@oracle.com).

Thanks,
David

New Content on APEX Home Page

It has been a while since I updated the content on the APEX OTN Home page.

Finally got some time to refresh the content including two books, three podcasts, some great customer case studies, and reshuffled the section up top to make it easier to find OBE's etc. Take a few minutes to review this excellent new content.

I also added all of the outstanding requests from consulting companies, blogs, internet applications and commercial applications - Apologies to those who had to wait so long to be added.

We now have listed:
101 Consulting Companies
63 Blogs
28 Commercial Applications
27 Internet Applications
12 Hosting Companies

An impressive list. If you're not listed and want to be it is as easy as sending me an email with details and images.

Regards,
David

New York Oracle DB Developer Day - BYOL

Join Mike Hichwa, Marc Sewtz, Christina Cho and myself in New York for the Oracle Database Developer Day on Wednesday, January 13.

Unlike previous events this is a Bring Your Own Laptop (BYOL) event.
You can choose to install XE, APEX, etc directly on your laptop or install Sun VirtualBox and we will provide you with a pre-configured image with Oracle DB11gR2, APEX, SQL Developer, etc. already installed. If you want to use Sun VirtualBox it is important to download the software and accept the End-User Agreement (http://www.virtualbox.org/)