Presentation slides for my presentation at DOAG 2015 - Apache - ORDS Setup for Production Environments

Hi guys,

here you can find the slide, the config files and installation steps for my presentation at the DOAG conference in Nürnberg on 18.11.2015:

http://www.opal-consulting.de/downloads/presentations/2015-11-DOAG-ORDS-Setup/

Enjoy!

Cheers,
~Dietmar.

DOAG Conference Presentation Summary Finished

Hi guys,

today was the deadline for uploading the four-page abstract / summary of my presentation at the German Oracle conference in Nürnberg:

If you still have to upload yours, hurry up ... only a few hours left ;).

You can have a look here (it is German though ;). 

See you in Nürnberg in November.

Cheers,
~Dietmar.

My Nomination for the Oracle Database Developer Choice Awards

Actually this came as a wonderful surprise ... I have been nominated for the Oracle Database Developer Choice Awards:

https://community.oracle.com/community/database/awards/ords-voting .

I have basically devoted my entire work life to build solutions based on Oracle technology ... and you can build some pretty cool stuff with it. I have always enjoyed building software that makes a difference ... and even more so share to what I have learned and support and inspire others to do the same. The people in the Oracle community are simply amazing and I have made a lot of friends there. If you have an account for the Oracle Technology Network (OTN) I would appreciate your vote ! And if you don't feel like voting for me ... vote anyway in all the different categories ... because the Oracle community deserves the attention. Thanks, ~Dietmar.

Presentation slides for my ORDS talk at KScope 2015

Hi guys,

in June I gave a talk at the ODTUG KScope conference regarding the optimal setup of Oracle ORDS for Oracle Application Express: Setting Up the Oracle APEX Listener (Now ORDS) for Production Environments

You can access the slides certainly through the ODTUG site. They have even recorded the presentation and made it available to their members.

This seems to be a good investment for $99 per year for a paid membership, because now you also have access to the other content from the ODTUG conferences. I am not affiliated with ODTUG but all I can say is that the KScope conference is the best place for an Oracle developer to learn and connect with the best folks in the industry.

For everybody else who is not (yet) an ODTUG member you can download my slides and the config file here: http://www.opal-consulting.de/downloads/presentations/2015-06-ODTUG-KScope-ORDS-in-production/

Cheers and all the best,
~Dietmar.

P.S.: The configuration is based on the version 3.0.0 of ORDS. You should definitely move to 3.0.1 which is currently available.

But on the other hand I was once again thrown of by another problem with version 3.0.1 running the schema creation scripts for the ORDS schema users (ords_metadata and ords_public_user) .

Thus I have come to the conclusion it is best to do it step by step, the database users have to be created first. You can extract the installation scripts from the ords.war just as well:
- http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E56351_01/doc.30/e56293/install.htm#CHDDIFEC
- http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E56351_01/doc.30/e56293/install.htm#CHDFJHEA

APEX Connect Presentation and Download of the sample application

Hi guys,

I have just finished my presentation on the smaller new features of Oracle Application Express 5.0 here at the APEX Connect conference in Düsseldorf ... it was a blast :).

You can download the slides and the sample application here:

• APEX 5 New Features - auch die Kleinen verdienen Beachtung!
• Sample Application

Cheers, 

~Dietmar. 

APEX Summer School 2015 - Online Webinare

Im Rahmen der APEX Summer School 2015 ( Twitter Handle: #apexsummer2015 ) werden wir 9 kostenlose Webinare zum Thema APEX 5 mit den Experten aus dem deutschsprachigen Raum durchführen:

Vielen Dank an Carsten Czarski für die Einladung und Organisation! Nicht zuletzt auch vielen Dank für die klasse Homepage des Webinars, alles 100% APEX 5 out-of-the-box! Ein einfaches und dennoch wirkungsvolles Beispiel dafür, was standardmäßig mit APEX 5 möglich ist:

APEX 5 ist seit letzter Woche produktiv verfügbar und kann hier zum heruntergeladen werden.

Es gibt noch weitere APEX Veranstaltungen, schaut doch mal rein.

Es wird ein heißer APEX - Sommer ;).

Viel Vergnügen,
~Dietmar.

Slides from my presentation at APEX World 2015 in Rotterdam

Hi guys,

I had a great time at APEX World in Rotterdam, it was a wonderful event. I could meet up with my friends and learn a few new tricks, too :).

Here are the slides from my presentation about the many smaller new features of Oracle APEX 5.0. And I could only cram like half of the good stuff that I found into this 45 min. session.

About 70 people attended the session and I sure hope they will use some of the features I presented.

Once I clean up my demo application, I will make it available, too.

Cheers,
~Dietmar.

Professional support offering for the JasperReportsIntegration toolkit officially announced

You are using the free tool JasperReportsIntegration from Opal Consulting and you might be struggling with setting it up and integrating it into you own APEX applications?

Now you have somebody to talk to!

Already several years ago I have built this software for my own reporting needs in a project for a client of mine.

Then I wrapped it up, documented it and gave it to the incredible and wonderful Oracle APEX community to help them with their reporting needs as well.

As time went by it would become more difficult for me to make the free time to answer the different questions, keep developing the software and adding new features.

In order to move the free tool forward but also because some people requested a professional support offering, I have finally created one.

 

You will get:

• Priority email support,
• can schedule support calls via Skype
• and can participate in the monthly (1 hour) conference call to ask all kinds of questions

If you are interested, you will find more details here: http://www.opal-consulting.de/site/products/

So, this is your chance to contribute back and help me to further support the APEX community.

Also, when enough people have signed up for this support offering, I will create a professional version with thrilling advanced features, so that it will be able to use the same APEX integration as the BI Publisher, i.e. using report queries and report templates (not based on RTF but on JRXML).

Hope you find it interesting.

Let me know what you think.

Regards,
~Dietmar.

APEX 4.2 Best Practices Training am 26.05-28.05.2014

Wußten Sie schon, daß in APEX 4.2 alleine 130 neue Features implementiert wurden, die uns Entwickler SOFORT produktiver werden lassen und das Leben erleichern? Auch wird jedes Release von APEX immer sicherer, es kommen immer wieder neue Security Features hinzu. Das alles hilft uns jedoch nur, wenn wir diese Features überhaupt kennen und optimal einsetzen! Seit 2006 bauen wir jeden Tag Applikationen mit APEX für unsere Kunden, ja genau - an jedem Tag! Na ja, vielleicht nicht am Wochende für unsere Kunden ... dann aber für die APEX Community ;). Mobile Endgeräte, HTML 5, mehr Dynamik mit JQuery und Dynamic Actions, einbruchssichere Applikationen und REST Webservices werden immer wichtigere Themen, die man als Entwickler einfach kennen sollte. In unseren Kursen haben wir schon über 200 APEX-Fans die besten Herangehensweisen, Tipps und Tricks beigebracht. Durch die Hands-On Übungen vertiefen wir diese und Sie können diese sofort einsetzen ... oder Sie schlagen sie nach ... wenn Sie sie später brauchen ;). Aber auf jeden Fall wissen Sie nach dem Kurs, was möglich ist! Wir beide (Denes und Dietmar) haben schon alles mit APEX ausprobiert und auch schon alle Fehler gemacht! Nehmen Sie die Abkürzung und lernen Sie gleich, was sich immer wieder bewährt hat ... weil es funktioniert! Mit jedem Release gibt es neue Features und auch wir passen unser Vorgehen immer wieder an - weil es sich einfach lohnt! Wenn Sie Ihre Kenntnisse in der APEX Entwicklung auf das nächste Niveau bringen wollen, dann melden Sie sich am besten gleich an: Klicken Sie auf den Link "Anmeldung zum Kurs". Tragen Sie Ihre Anmeldedaten ein und klicken Sie auf den Button "Anmelden". Sie bekommen sofort eine Bestätigungs-Email zugeschickt. Sobald Sie in der Email auf den Link zur Bestätigung klicken, haben Sie Ihren Platz gesichert und sind auf jeden Fall dabei! Anmeldung zum Kurs P.S.: Wir haben es sogar, geschafft, Carsten Czarski für unseren Kurs zu gewinnen! Wir werden mit ihm mobile Applikationen bauen und er wird uns seinen Geolocation Showcase im Detail zeigen, die Packaged Application, die er für das APEX Team entwickelt hat und die mit APEX 4.2.5 weltweit ausgeliefert wird, sehr cool! P.P.S.: Die vollständige Agenda und weitere Infos zum Kurs gibt es online in der Kursbeschreibung.

JasperReportsIntegration - Full path requirement and workaround

I have just posted an answer to a question that seems like a bug in the JasperReportsIntegration toolkit, that you have to use absolute paths for referencing images or subreports, which is typically a bad thing.

Don't know exactly why it doesn't work, but there is a workaround for that: http://www.opal-consulting.de/site/jasperreportsintegration-full-path-requirement-and-workaround/

Hope that helps,
~Dietmar.

First blogpost at my own hosted wordpress instance

I have been blogging at daust.blogspot.com for quite some years now ... and many people have rather preferred wordpress to blogspot, I can now understand why :).

It is quite flexible and easy to use and there are tons of themes available ... really cool ones.

The main decision to host my own wordpress instance was in the end motivated by different means. I have created two products and they needed a platform to be presented:

• OPAL:XP
• OPAL:XE

First I wanted to buy a new theme from themeforest and build an APEX theme for that ... but this is a lot of work.

I then decided to host my content using wordpress since I have already bought a new theme: http://www.kriesi.at/themedemo/?theme=enfold

And this one has a really easy setup procedure for wordpress and comes with a ton of effects and wizards, cool page designer, etc.

Hopefully this will get mit motivated to post more frequently ... we will see ;).

Cheers,
~Dietmar.

Oracle APEX Listener - support for Apache Tomcat

The Oracle APEX listener is one possible gateway to run Oracle Application Express besides the Oracle http server (OHS), the embedded pl/sql gateway (which is the http server included in the Oracle database as part of the XML DB) and other open source alternatives.

Being implemented as a J2EE application it needs a servlet container to be deployed in. Finally, due to popular customer demands, the Apache Tomcat servlet container is (again) supported. Many customers are using it already for quite a while and I personally had hardly any issues with that.

When you look at the APEX listener 2.0 installation guide you will find a section on deploying to tomcat. There they talk about Apache Tomcat 7 but it seems like version 6 is also supported, I have found the information on Kris Rices blog, he is the development manager of the APEX listener.

This is not really NEW news ;), but I personally had not seen this information before.

Cheers and enjoy,
~Dietmar.

Upgrading the JasperReports libraries to 5.2.0

Would you like to upgrade your existing JasperReportsIntegration with the 5.2.0 libraries of JasperReports?

As of now this already seems to be not the most current version, JasperReports has already moved on to 5.5.0. But since I have already created the 5.2.0 package a while ago, I might just post the instructions here. The 5.5.0 version will follow.

Here you go ...

This is an updated version of the original instructions found here: http://daust.blogspot.de/2013/01/upgrading-jasperreports-libraries-to-501.html

Step 1: Download the libary files for 5.2.0

You can download the files here:

 

Step 2: Shutdown the Apache Tomcat J2EE server

 

Step 3:  Remove the existing JasperReportsLibraries from your existing installation

Typically, after you have installed your previous version of the JasperReportsIntegration toolkit on your Apache Tomcat J2EE server, the files will be located in the directory $CATALINA_HOME/webapps/JasperReportsIntegration/WEB-INF/lib, for example version 4.7.0 of JasperReports, where $CATALINA_HOME represents the path to your installation of Tomcat.

Then you would have to remove these libraries first. In this directory you should find two files for removal: _jasper-reports-delete-libs-4.7.0.sh and _jasper-reports-delete-libs-4.7.0.cmd, for *nix or Windows respectively. For *nix systems you would have to make it executable, though, e.g.: chmod u+x _jasper-reports-delete-libs-4.7.0.sh . Then you can call it and it will remove all files for version 4.7.0. But it will NOT remove the file for the JasperReportsIntegration and all other libraries which YOU might have placed there deliberately.

You can always find the required removal scripts here: http://www.opal-consulting.de/downloads/free_tools/JasperReportsLibraries/ .

Whenever I release another package, the removal scripts for that package will be shipped as well.

Step 4: Install the new 5.2.0 libraries

Now you can just copy the new libraries from JasperReportsLibraries-5.2.0.zip into $CATALINA_HOME/webapps/JasperReportsIntegration/WEB-INF/lib.

 

Step 5: Start the Apache Tomcat J2EE server again

Now you system should be upgraded to the most current JasperReports 5.2.0 !

Just drop me a note when you need updated libraries for a later JasperReports version, etc. I have scripts in place to create a new package of the libraries.

Here you can find the notes from my upgrade (4.5.0 => 4.8.0) on Linux to illustrate the process, I hope it makes sense:

**
** download the libraries from:
**  http://www.opal-consulting.de/downloads/free_tools/JasperReportsLibraries/4.8.0/JasperReportsLibraries-4.8.0.zip
** to /home/jasper/JasperReportsLibraries

cd /home/jasper
mkdir JasperReportsLibraries

** unzip them
cd JasperReportsLibraries
unzip JasperReportsLibraries-4.8.0.zip -d JasperReportsLibraries-4.8.0

** stop tomcat server
/home/jasper/tomcat/bin/shutdown.sh

** remove libraries of current jasper reports release
cd /home/jasper/tomcat/webapps/JasperReportsIntegration/WEB-INF/lib
chmod +x _jasper-reports-delete-libs-4.5.0.sh
dos2unix _jasper-reports-delete-libs-4.5.0.sh

./_jasper-reports-delete-libs-4.5.0.sh

** copy libraries of the new release to the WEB-INF/lib directory
cp /home/jasper/JasperReportsLibraries/JasperReportsLibraries-4.8.0/* /home/jasper/tomcat/webapps/JasperReportsIntegration/WEB-INF/lib

** restart tomcat
/home/jasper/tomcat/bin/startup.sh

Cheers,
~Dietmar.

Oracle APEX 4.2 New Features und Tipps aus der Praxis - Neuer Kurs am 11.11.2013

In diesem November werden Denes Kubicek und ich wieder einen Kurs zu Oracle APEX in Bensheim abhalten:

Oracle APEX 4.2 New Features und Tipps aus der Praxis

Wir werden diesmal viel über den APEX Listener, Einsatz von jQuery und über Restful Web Services reden und natürlich, praktisch üben.

Darüber hinaus gehen wir auch das Thema Mobile Development an und geben einen Überlick über die 100+ neuen Features, die sich auch in diesem Release wieder geändert haben. Mir gefällt besonders, dass durch diese vielen kleinen Verbesserungen die Transparenz in der Applikationsentwicklung nochmals erhöht wurde.

Gerade die Packaged Applications liefern viele gute Beispiele, wie häufig verwendete Design Patterns in der Praxis moderner umgesetzt werden können.

Dieser Link informiert Sie über alle weiteren Details zum Kurs.

Viele Grüße,
~Dietmar.

DOAG 2013 Development in Bonn am 19. Juni

Am 19.Juni 2013 findet die nächste DOAG Development Konferenz in Bonn statt, diesmal mit dem Thema:

„Agile and Beyond – Projektmanagement in der Oracle-Softwareentwicklung“

Das Motto der zweiten Auflage der Community Konferenz steht fest: Die effektive Durchführung von Softwareprojekten steht thematisch im Zentrum der Konferenz für Entwickler, Softwarearchitekten und Projektleiter.

Gerade Oracle APEX eignet sich hervorragend für die agile Durchführung von Softwareprojekten, ich habe damit seit Jahren hervorragende Ergebnisse erzielt. Mit Oracle APEX kann man in extrem kurzen Iterationszyklen von 1-4 Wochen sehr beachtliche Funktionalitäten implementieren. Gerade die Lieferung von Funktionalitäten in kurzen Abständen hilft, das Vertrauen der Fachseiten zu gewinnen. Dennoch gibt es einige Fallstricke zu beachten, damit auch alles rund läuft ;).

Weitere Informationen zur Konferenz finden Sie hier.

Bitte beachten: der Frühbucher-Rabatt endet heute!

Viele Grüße,
~Dietmar. 

How to locate all interactive reports in my application?

Today my client decided to remove the email functionality from all interactive reports in their APEX application.

I could step through all the pages of my application and check whether there are any interactive reports used. This very manual approach can take some time and I can make mistakes by overlooking some of the interactive reports to modify.

A different approach would be to use the (officially supported) data dictionary views in APEX. Using this simple sql query I can find all interactive reports in all pages of my application (having the id 20120618):

select   workspace
       , application_id
       , application_name
       , page_id
       , region_name
       , download_formats
  from apex_application_page_ir
 where application_id=20120618
 order by page_id;

This will show all interactive reports which are used in my application:

We can even look for all interactive reports that need to be fixed by specifically looking for all reports where the download format email is enabled:

select   workspace
       , application_id
       , application_name
       , page_id
       , region_name
       , download_formats
  from apex_application_page_ir
 where application_id=20120618
   and instr(download_formats, 'EMAIL') > 0
 order by page_id;

These data dictionary views contain a wealth of information about your application. This is a real strength of Oracle Application Express, due to its nature being driven by a metadata repository.

Thus from a quality management perspective you could use the following query to make sure, all interactive reports are configured the same way, i.e. having flashback disabled, using the same display position for pagination (Top and Bottom-Left) and showing the dropdown list for selecting the rows per page:

select   workspace
       , application_id
       , application_name
       , page_id
       , region_name
       , pagination_display_position
       , show_rows_per_page
       , show_flashback
  from apex_application_page_ir
 where application_id=20120618
   and (   pagination_display_position <> 'Top and Bottom - Left'
        or show_rows_per_page = 'No'
        or show_flashback = 'Yes' )
 order by page_id;

Here is the result:

But how do we find the appropriate views? The APEX data dictionary contains information about all available data dictionary views and all of their columns.

Typicall I use the following query to find all information about interactive reports, all related views contain _IR_ in the view name:

select *
  from apex_dictionary
 where apex_view_name like '%IR%'

This will show us all view including their respective columns:

If we want to display the view only without their columns we can add the filter for the column_id 0, in there the APEX team added the overall description of the view itself:

select *
  from apex_dictionary
 where apex_view_name like '%IR%'
   and column_id=0; 

Now, we get only the view names including their description:

Regards,
~Dietmar.

Oracle Application Express 4.2.2 Patch released

Just yesterday, the most recent APEX patch set has been released. It is Release 4.2.2.00.11. The full version just as well as the patch set to apply to a 4.2.0 or 4.2.1 instance can be downloaded from here.

The full details can be found on Joel's Blog. 

Nevertheless I will have a good look at the release notes, because they contain quite some important notes, which you should be aware of before upgrading. Especially, there were some changes made to the templates. So it is wise to upgrade your existing 4.2.0 / 4.2.1 instance with the patch set directly. If you export/import a 4.2.1 APEX application into a 4.2.2 instance, you cannot leverage the changes immediately, you would have to install the new theme and switch it then. 

I will try to look at these issues in more detail ...

Cheers, 
~Dietmar.

Join me at ODTUG's Expert Panel - Oracle Application Express

In May, I will take part in one of ODTUG's webinars:

Tuesday, May 14, 2013 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM EDT

ODTUG's Expert Panel - Oracle Application Express
 
Panelists: Dietmar Aust (Opal Consulting), Roel Hartman (APEX Evangelists ), Dan McGhan (Enkitec)
Moderator: Patrick Cimolini (Patrick International APEX Consulting) 

This is a live interactive panel similar to the ACE Lunch and Learn panels held at Kscope. This innovative webinar is modeled after a call-in radio talk show. You will be able to chat a question to our organizer and if it is accepted you will have the option to verbally ask the question to our panel. Please be sure to have the proper equipment (headset and a quiet office) so that our panelists can clearly understand your question. You’ll also be able to participate in the discussion with the panel while they answer your question. 

The following are some potential topics, but audience participation will shape the scope of the panel: 

• What skill sets does an APEX team need? 
• What options are available for producing printed reports from APEX?
• Moving away from Forms/Reports to APEX 
• Interactive Reports - THE killer feature of APEX 
• Developer Productivity - negotiate and tweak the requirements with the customers in order to use standard APEX components to implement them = unparalleled productivity
• Real-world showcases (APEX can handle application complexity just as well as a high load serving many users)

Personally, I like ODTUG a lot, it is a friendly and very competent place to be, I always enjoy the conference.

The panel will be held for 90minutes, so there will be a lot of time asking questions :).

You can register for the webinar here. 

Cheers, 
~Dietmar. 

How to make your browser save your password

Typically and for good security reasons the password manager from either Firefox or any other browser will not prompt you to save the password for the login screen of the APEX workspace or any of your own APEX applications.

Why? The APEX team implemented the login page with the HTML attribute autocomplete=off:

For a development environment I find this behaviour kind of annoying, especially when the APEX builder session times out frequently and you have to login to your workspace multiple times during the day.

Thus I have looked around and found a javascript routine which removes the autocomplete=off attribute from the form.

Just right-click on this link and save it as a bookmark: Force browser to save the password
I have found it here, but it is explained on many other websites as well.

Once you click on your bookmark you will see the following message:

If you continue to log into APEX you will get the typical message where you can save the password now:

It is good practice to use a password for your password manager in Firefox, too. Here are the steps to enable it.

Cheers and enjoy,
~Dietmar.


 

APEX Training 15.04. - 17.04.2013

Wie jedes Jahr in den letzten sechs Jahren, veranstalten wir (Denes Kubicek und ich) unser

Oracle APEX: Knowhow aus der Praxis

Training in Bensheim an der Bergstrasse. Wir werden unsere bisherigen Themen überarbeiten und einige neue Themen hinzufügen. So werde ich auch folgende neue Themen in das Programm der Schulung aufnehmen:

- jQuery (Beispiele und Übungen)
- APEX Collections
- Erstellung von komplexen Forms
- APEX und Mehrsprachigkeit

Wir haben dieses Mal einen ganz speziellen Gast zu der Schulung eingeladen - Christian Rokitta aus den Niederlanden. Er ist ein Experte in Sachen Layoutgestalltung und Mobile Applikationen. Die Teilnehmer der Schulung werden sich gemeinsam für eins dieser Themen entscheiden und Christian wird es vortragen.

Unser Highlight sind auf jeden Fall die abendlichen  Q & A Session, in denen die Teilnehmer die Gelegenheit bekommen ihre eigenen Projekte vorzustellen und ihre konkrete Probleme mit uns zu diskutieren.

Die Anmeldung zur Schulung finden Sie hier.


Viele Grüße,
~Dietmar.