Oracle Database Tips by Donald Burleson

Building Tabular Forms with APEX

A tabular form enables the editing of multiple records of a table or view all at once.  Submitting the form will then perform updates or deletes on all the modified rows in the tabular form.  Editing lookup tables is an excellent use for Tabular Forms.

This exercise will create a tabular form on the CONFERENCE_RSVP table.  The COMPANY column will purposely be left out again so it can be added in a different section.

1.       To create the tabular form, navigate to the Easy HTML DB Book application's home page and click the Create Page button.

2.       Choose the Form option and click Next.

3.       Choose the Tabular Form option and click Next.

4.       On the Table / View Owner page:

·         Table / View Owner: EASYHDB.

·         Allowed Operations: Allow all, UPDATE, INSERT and DELETE.

·         Click Next.

5.       On the Table/View Name page type in CONFERENCE_RSVP or select it using the popup from the  icon.  Then click Next.

6.       On the Displayed Columns page:

·         Select all columns except for the ID and COMPANY columns.  The COMPANY column will be added later in another exercise.  In this case, displaying the ID column is not desirable since it is the primary key column.

The ID and COMPANY columns can be deselected by holding down the Control key and clicking on them.

·         Click Next.

7.       On the Primary Key page:

·         Primary Key: ID

There are only two selections.  The form wizards used Automatic Row processes that only support the use of two column primary keys, so two columns can be chosen here.  Tables that have more that two column primary keys would require custom programming and advanced use of the APEX API.  That explanation is beyond the scope of the book.

·         Click Next.

8.       On the Primary Key Source page:

·         Choose the Existing trigger option.

·         Click Next.

9.       On the Updateable Columns page select all columns and click Next.

To keep a column from being editable in the Tabular Form, it would be de-selected here.

10.    On the Page and Region Attributes page:

·         Page: 1081.

·         Page Name: Tabular Form - CONFERENCE_RSVP.

·         Region Title: Conference Attendees.

·         Region Template: Leave the default of Report Region.

·         Report Template: Leave the default of template: Standard.

·         Click Next.

11.    No tabs and click Next.

12.    On the Button Labels page leave the defaults and click Next.

13.    On the Branching page leave the defaults and click Next.

14.    Finally, click Finish then Run the page.

Figure 8.13 shows the completed page as it is now.  Later, the COMPANY column will be added.

The above book excerpt is from:

Easy HTML-DB Oracle Application Express

Create Dynamic Web Pages with OAE

ISBN 0-9761573-1-4   

Michael Cunningham & Kent Crotty

http://www.rampant-books.com/book_2005_2_html_db.htm