Oracle APEX Blog

Oracle Forms Tabular Data-Blocks in APEX

Written by Matt Mulvaney | Dec 22, 2015 9:00:20 AM

I’ve worked with Oracle Forms for about 13 years and so when I first looked at learning APEX my thought process was “I used to do this in Oracle Forms, how do I do it in APEX?”. My early learning consisted of looking for concepts in which I was familiar with and then learning how to achieve it in APEX.

One of the most commonly used components I used in Oracle Forms were the multi-row tabular style data-blocks. This is often used for representing multiple rows of data in a “report style” layout. It’s a good choice for showing the results of a search filter or child records from a selected parent record.

The closest alternative in APEX is the Tabular Form. My ideas are illustrated in a video blog which shows the creation an APEX Tabular Form region and then using it to insert and modify table data.

APEX has several advantages over Forms.

  • Extremely modern user interface.
  • Highly configurable wizard supporting multiple primary keys, ROWIDs and supporting several ways of obtaining a primary key value.
  • Customisable using several templates and CSS.
  • Supports multi-row deletes.
  • Supports row pagination.
  • Supports Row Level Validation with “go to error” quick links.
  • Supports branching to other pages following change.
  • Uncluttered toolbar menu; only implementing the relevant features for the tabular form.

 

 

Author: Matt Mulvaney

Job Title: Senior Oracle APEX Development Consultant

Bio: Matt is an experienced APEX solution designer having designed numerous complex systems using a broad range of Oracle Technologies. Building on his previous experience of Oracle Forms & PL/SQL, he is entirely focused on providing functionally rich APEX solutions. Matt promotes APEX as a software platform and openly shares best practises, techniques & approaches. Matt has a passion for excellence and enjoys producing high quality software solutions which provide a real business benefit.