APEX 21.1 Packaged Application Plugins

Having recently joined the DSP-Explorer team, when writing my first APEX Blog post I decided to revisit the archives and take inspiration from what my new colleagues had written about in years gone by.

I found a post by Matt Mulvaney from back in 2015 about APEX 5.0 Packaged Application Plugins. As you know APEX 21.1 landed recently and with it came a revamp of how Productivity and Sampled Applications are accessed. So, this felt like a fitting topic to revisit!

Productivity and Sampled Applications are no longer distributed with APEX; instead, sample and starter applications are available from GitHub. From there, they can be downloaded as zip files and drag and dropped into the Import page of App Builder (APEX now supports the export and import of applications as zip files).

To use a plugin from one of these applications, install the application, go into it in App Builder and export the plugin. Then, simply import it into your own application.

Many of the plugins mentioned in the 2015 blog are still present in 2021, although there have been some changes to what is bundled, and where.

The plugins fall into three categories: regions, items and dynamic actions.

N.B. While the applications in which plugins can be found are listed, not all applications actually utilise the plugins. For instance, the Gantt Chart plugin can be found within the sample calendar, but it is not used anywhere within the application.

Regions

ACL Status

Version 5.0.1

For applications that use Access Control List (ACL) for authorisations, this region gives a summary of ACL’s status and a breakdown of how many users have which levels of access.

Found in

starter-apps / customers, opportunities, team-calendar

ACL Warning

Version 5.0.1

For applications that use Access Control List (ACL) for authorisations, this region warns if ACL has been disabled.

Found in:

starter-apps / customers, opportunities, poll, team-calendar

Authorization Administration

Version 5.0.1

This region shows what type of authentication an application uses, along with a breakdown of how many pages are public, how many require a login and how many are protected by authorisation.

Found in:

starter-apps / customers, opportunities, poll, team-calendar

Badge List

Version 5.0.2

Used to display summaries of a number of different statistics, indicators or measures in one place. The values can all link to individual targets.

Found in:

sample-apps / sample-charts

starter-apps / customers, opportunities

Completeness

Version 5.1.0

This can be used to show how complete the data on a page is, using a query to score against various metrics defined by the developer.

Clicking the completeness indicator opens a modal window that shows a breakdown of the metrics that produced the overall completeness rating.

Found in:

starter-apps / customers, opportunities

Display Template Options

Version 1

In the region’s attributes, select the Template Type (Button, Report, Field, Region, List or Page) and then select the specific type of that Type (e.g. for buttons: Text with icon, Icon only, Text only) and then the region will show all template options for the selection.

Found in:

sample-apps / universal-theme-sample-application

Gantt Chart

Version 5.0.1

Represents hierarchies of tasks as a Gantt chart.

Found in:

sample-apps / sample-calendar

How To Instructions

Version 1

Used to show how to achieve the look of the region preceding it.

Found in:

sample-apps / universal-theme-sample-application

HTML5 Bar Chart

Version 20.2

Used to display horizontal bar charts. Both the label and the value are linkable to different targets.

Found in:

sample-apps / sample-charts, sample-trees

starter-apps / customers, opportunities

JET Legend

Version 5.1.2

This plugin is used to demonstrate how plugins can be made to integrate JET components into applications. In this case, the one legend is shared by three charts and clicking a series on the legend toggles a bar, a line and a segment.

Found in:

sample-apps / sample-charts

Mini Calendar

Version 5.0.1

Displays a mini calendar with a particular date highlighted.

Found in:

sample-apps / sample-calendar

starter-apps / customers, opportunities

Preview Template Options

Version: 1

Link to another region by entering its static ID in the attributes of this region, and it will show all the template options that have been used in that region.

Found in:

sample-apps / universal-theme-sample-application

Sample Apps Footer

Version 5.0.1

Used to put a footer at the bottom of a page, where you might link, for example, to your corporate social media presence.

Found in:

sample-apps / sample-calendar, sample-charts, sample-collections, sample-dynamic-actions, sample-file-upload-download, sample-interactive-grids, sample-master-detail, sample-reporting, sample-rest-services, sample-trees

Source Display

Version 5.0.1

Used to show the SQL source of a neighbouring region.

Found in:

sample-apps / sample-calendar, sample-charts, sample-collections, sample-dynamic-actions, sample-file-upload-download, sample-interactive-grids, sample-master-detail, sample-reporting, sample-rest-services, sample-trees

Tag Cloud

Version 5.0.1

Shows a tag cloud based on a query that selects words and counts.

Found in:

starter-apps / customers, opportunities, team-calendar

Timeline and Status List

Version 5.1

This shows tasks as a sequence of events, along with a status for each.

Found in:

sample-apps / sample-calendar

starter-apps / team-calendar

Translated Message

Version 5.0.1

Enables translation of Text Messages defined in the Globalization section of Shared Components by use of up to nine substitution columns selected by an SQL query.

Found in:

sample-apps / sample-charts

starter-apps / customers, opportunities, poll, team-calendar

Validate Content

Version 5.0.1

Used to show when data was last validated and by whom.

Found in:

starter-apps / customers, opportunities

Items

Modern Star Rating

Version 1.1

Used to give ratings. Traditionally stars have been used, but this plugin lets you pick any icon from Font APEX.

Found in:

sample-apps / sample-interactive-grids

Slider

Version 5.0.1

Used to select a value with a min/max range of values.

Found in:

sample-apps / sample-dynamic-actions

Dynamic Actions

Highlight

This dynamic action can be used to draw attention to a part of a page by changing its colour briefly (options: slow, normal or fast)

Select the type of element, and then the particular element of that type.

In the example, when the salary slider is changed, the commission is recalculated and highlighted.

Found in:

sample-apps / sample-dynamic-actions

Stripe Report

Version 2

This dynamic action adds coloured background stripes to alternating rows of a report. The colour can be set using name (e.g. LemonChiffon), hex code (e.g. #FFFACD) or RGB code (e.g. rgb(255, 250, 205))

Found in:

sample-apps / sample-dynamic-actions

Timer

Version 1

This dynamic action causes a timer (defined in milliseconds) to start and then perform some sort of action, such as the refresh of a region, at the end of the timer. It can be set to run just once or repeat infinitely.

Found in:

sample-apps / sample-dynamic-actions

Author: Simon Ranson

Job Title: Development Consultant

Bio: Simon is the most recent APEX development consultant to join DSP-Explorer. He has a computing degree and an MBA. He’s worked in local government in the UK and various financial organisations around the world, with a spell of teaching English in Hong Kong.