Oracle Database Tips by Donald Burleson

Building a Form Using the APEX Form Wizards

To follow along with the exercises in this section, navigate the Conference RSVP application built in Chapter 4.  The Create Application from the Spreadsheet wizard in Chapter 4 actually built two forms in the application: one for INSERTs, and one for UPDATEs and DELETEs.  This exercise will cover building a single page that will perform INSERTs, UPDATEs, and DELETEs.

The exercise will build an application page with the following page components.

·         An HTML region to contain the Conference Attendee buttons and page items.

·         Buttons

·         Page Items

·         Page Rendering process:  For populating the form

·         Page Processing process:  For updating the database

·         Branch

1.       Navigate to the Application home page the Conference RSVP application and click the Create Page button.

2.       On the next page choose the Form option and click Next.

3.       On the next page, there will be several wizards that offer guidance through the building of various types of forms.  Select the Form on a Table or Viewoption and click Next.

4.       On the Table / View Owner page the EASYHDB schema will be selected.  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 Page and Region Attributes page:

·         Page: 12.

·         Page Name: Edit Conference RSVP.

·         Region Title: Conference Attendee.

·         Region Template: Leave the default of Form Region.

·         Click Next.

7.       No tabs and click Next.

8.       On the Primary Key page:

·         Primary Key: ID

Observe that there are only two selections.  The form wizards used Automatic Row processes that only support the use of two column primary keys, only two columns can be chosen here.  For tables with multiple columns in the primary key, this is not the choice to use.  For that, developers may find themselves creating forms with the Form on a SQL Query wizard and then creating their own buttons, processes, and branches.

·         Click Next.

9.       On the Primary Key page:

·         Choose the Existing trigger option.

When the create application wizard imported the conference_rsvp.csv file, it created a trigger on the table to populate the value of the primary key column.  This step reuses it.

·         Click Next.

10.    On the Columns page:

·         Select every column except for the COMPANY column, as shown in Figure

8.1.  The COMPANY column will be added later in another exercise.

The COMPANY column can be deselected by holding down the Control key and clicking on it. 

11.    On the Process Options page, leave all the defaults as shown in Figure 8.2 and click Next

This is where the text displayed on buttons can be changed.  It is also to time to decide whether or not to include a button.  For example, some of today's databases are FINO (First In, Never Out) systems, meaning data is never deleted.  The developer may therefore wish to select NO for the Show Delete Button option.

12.    On the Branching page:

·         After Page Submit and Processing Branch to Page: 11.

·         When Cancel Button Pressed Branch to this Page: 11.

For this page, the plan is to branch back to the report page created in Chapter 7.  That was page 11.  If your report page has a different page ID, enter that number here instead of 11.

·         Click Next.

13.    Finally, click the Finish button.

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