Whilst creating a new APEX theme recently I encountered an interesting problem whereby changes I had made to the CSS style sheet were causing the in-built Interactive Report header menus to drop down in the wrong place. The IR drop-down menus were consistently being rendered too far down and to the right of where they were supposed to be. After some investigation I discovered the cause of this problem and came up with a simple fix using jQuery.
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In my last post I wrote about a problem I had using a DOCTYPE in themes running on APEX 3.1.2. I also commented that the underlying cause of the problem had been fixed in the upcoming 3.2 release that was being previewed at apex.oracle.com. When 3.2 was released last week I hastily downloaded it and set about upgrading my 3.1.2 installation. A lot of my current work depends on the included fixes and I was anxious to get back to working on my new themes. Unfortunately I encountered an obscure error during the upgrade that proved hard to track down: “ORA -31110: Action failed as resource /i is locked by name”.  After some digging I finally found the cause of the error and, more importantly, the solution. Read the rest of this entry »

When I began creating new APEX themes one of the first things I did was replace all of the table layouts from the supplied templates with standards compliant XHTML and CSS. Naturally this involved declaring an XHTML DOCTYPE at the beginning of each page template. Unfortunately, adding a valid DOCTYPE had the adverse effect of breaking some of the core APEX Javascript relating to dynamic pull down menus and interactive reports. It seems this disappointing scenario has now been resolved with the forthcoming APEX 3.2. Yay!

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An APEX theme consists of HTML templates and CSS and image files. The HTML templates are imported into an APEX application when a theme is imported, but the external theme CSS and image files must be separately copied to the APEX images directory. Even on local APEX installations the APEX images directory must be accessed via the Embedded PL/SQL Gateway (EPG) or a HTTP web server. WebDAV is perfect for this.

WebDav is an extension to the HTTP protocol that allows users to access and manage files on web servers. Web folders are the Microsoft Windows implementation of WebDAV. A web folder is a very easy way to access the APEX images directory. Read the rest of this entry »

I recently announced the launch of APEX-Themes.com, my new joint business venture with my husband Steve. At APEX-Themes.com you can buy and instantly download high quality stock APEX themes. Our themes feature Interactive Report styling and unique designs very different to the dull themes that ship with APEX.

Following on from the website launch I’m very pleased to annouce that we have now launched the APEX-Themes.com affiliate program. Join our affiliate program and earn generous commission for promoting APEX-Themes.com on your website, blog, forum or anywhere else you like! Read the rest of this entry »

After a lot of hard work, pain and a few arguments I’m very glad to announce that my husband, Steve and I have finally launched a new website selling APEX themes called APEX-Themes.com. I’ve never been very inspired by the themes that are provided as standard; these are great for demo’ing but when you spend time and effort developing a fancy APEX application you want it to stand out from the crowd.

Steve is an experienced graphic artist, but he also has a strong technical background having been a games developer then web designer. I’ve now spent over two and a half years focusing on Oracle APEX development, so between us we’ve not only developed some nice looking new themes, but we like to think they come with some unique selling points.

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