APEX 4.0: Application Utilities

I tend to use the Grouping functionality to logically group my APEX pages.
E.g. I've a group called 'Admin' which hold all the Admin pages.

I find it easy to see the pages for that section of the application and I can verify if my security model is fine on these pages. E.g. the pages should be protected with the Admin Role.
It also helps me to separate the work between developers. If I tell my colleague, go and change the Admin section, it's easy to find for that person.

You can also use ranges of pages for the different sections of the application.
E.g. 10000-20000 is for Admin pages.

Before APEX 4.0, the Grouping of Pages was in the Task area on the right hand side of the page, but that got changed. Now you find a lot of the Goodies in "Application Utilities" (see red arrow in the quick pick icons).

Clicking on that link will give you access to the Application Dashboard, the Upgrade Application wizard and many other features. On that page on the right hand side you'll see Page Specific Utilities.

Clicking on the "Cross Page Utilities" link will give you the links for grouping pages or bulk editing them (a feature I use a lot too, to rename my pages for ex.).


So the grouping feature is a bit more tucked away in APEX 4.0, but then you get a more logical grouping of features you can do.