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Release 3.1 New Features Sample Application
Click on the screenshot below to run the sample application with some of our new features.
3.1 New Features Sample Application

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Release 3.1 New Feature Details
Below is a summary of the new features in Oracle Application Express 3.1.

Interactive Reports

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Interactive Reporting Regions enable end users to customize reports. Users can alter the layout of report data by choosing the columns they are interested in, applying filters, highlighting, and sorting. They can also define breaks, aggregations, different charts, and their own computations. Users can create multiple variations of the report and save them as named reports and download to various file formats including comma-delimited file (CSV) format, Microsoft Excel (XLS) format, Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF), and Microsoft Word Rich Text Format (RTF).

To learn more about Interactive Reports please examine these Oracle By Examples Using Interactive Report Regions with Oracle Application Express 3.1 and Building and Customizing an Interactive Report in Oracle Application Express 3.1. You can also view Interactive Reporting, in Application Express 3.1.

Declarative BLOB Support

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Declarative BLOB support enable files to be declaratively uploaded in forms, and downloaded or displayed using reports. BLOB display and download can also be authored procedurally using PL/SQL.

To learn more about declarative BLOB support please review this Oracle By Example Defining and Viewing BLOB Data in Oracle Application Express 3.1

Enhanced Report Printing

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Report Queries now support multiple SQL statements, which allows for including multiple reports in a single document or combining reports and charts based on different result sets. The output format of a print document can now be set at runtime using a page or application item. In addition to PDF, Word, Excel and HTML, documents can now also be downloaded in XML format. Both report queries and report regions now allow specifying the method of how the print document is downloaded to the client, either as an attachment, displaying a file download / save dialog or showing the document inline within the browser window. The column sizing for print documents based on report regions has also been improved, now supporting sizing based on points in additional to percentage.

Adding to the Theme Repository

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In addition to the default themes provided with Oracle Application Express, you can now add to the theme repository This enables you to design a very specific look and feel to meet your corporate requirements and then publish this as a theme for all other applications to use. This can be done at the workspace level (Workspace Themes) or at the instance level (Public Themes). Two new standard themes have also been added.

Optional Runtime-Only Installation

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For testing and production instances, Oracle Application Express, release 3.1 supports the ability to install just a runtime version of Oracle Application Express. This minimizes the installed footprint and privileges. Scripts are also provided to remove or add the developer interface from an existing instance. This new feature improves application security since in a runtime instance developers cannot advertently update a production application.

Improved Security

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There is a new 'Hidden and Protected' item type. Items of this type, after having been emitted in HTML and sent to the browser, cannot be altered in the page's HTML source and then POSTed to the application using that page. This, together with other minor improvements, makes the default security functionality more robust within Oracle Application Express.

Documented JavaScript libraries

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You now have the ability to suppress standard JavaScript and CSS files. All included JavaScript files have been compressed to improve page load time. The framework has also been improved to allow advanced Oracle Application Express developers to build and leverage custom Web 2.0 capabilities. This increases performance and enables developers to create more dynamic application widgets.

Application Date Format

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You can define a date format that will be used throughout your application. This date format will be used to alter the NLS_DATE_FORMAT database session setting prior to showing or submitting any page within the application. This format is used by all reports showing dates and is also picked up by form items of type "Date Picker (use Application Date Format)". This can be set using:
  1. Application Builder > Application Builder Defaults (under Tasks): These are specific to a Workspace, not a developer, and will be used as the default when using the create application wizard.
  2. Application Builder > Create Application Wizard > Attributes page
  3. Application Builder > Your Application > Shared Components > Edit Globalization Attributes


Application Builder refinements introduced with this release include:

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  • The ability to add a search region when creating a report
  • Report Partial Page Refresh (PPR) is now an option, rather than a special template
  • You can now include attachments with emails sent using the Application Express mail APIs
  • The previous 32K limit on data when creating an application on a spreadsheet has been removed
  • You can now create master detail reports in the create application wizard
  • Master detail report implementation has been improved and refined
  • CSS and Javascript can now be suppressed for a Page definition - especially useful for mobile applications
  • Support for declarative Media Type enables generation of pages of type other than 'text/html'
For those interested in viewing the new features from our previous release, read Oracle Application Express 3.0 New Features.