Wednesday, March 30, 2011

New APEX Book - Expert Oracle Application Express

Soon a new Oracle Application Express (APEX) book will be available... and it will be one you definitely want to have!

John Scott came up with the idea to do a special APEX book in memory of our passed away friends Carl Backstrom and Scott Spadafore, two members of the APEX Development team. John gives more details on his blog, so definitely read that too.

Next to the emotional value of the book, the content is unique and is not found anywhere else!
Thirteen different chapters, written by thirteen of the worlds best known Oracle APEX experts! The names are: Dietmar Aust, Doug Gault, Dimitri Gielis (myself), Roel Hartman, Michael Hichwa, Sharon Kennedy, Denes Kubicek, Francis Mignault, Anton Nielsen, Raj Mattamal, Daniel McGhan, John Scott and Martin D’Souza.

We all had one mission: share our passion, pass on all our knowledge, give you content you don't find anywhere else and go that extra mile to make this book, *the* APEX book.

Personal Experience with Writing

Although I already wrote articles before and was a technical reviewer on other APEX books, it was the first time I actually wrote a complete chapter for a book. It was quite an experience to say the least... I did enjoy the writing and even more focussing on the technical side of things and doing the research and testing etc. but I didn't realise it would take up so much time. Therefor I would like to thank my wife, my kids and my family for their support and to give me that time during the weekends and evenings.
Also special thanks to Hilary Farrell from the APEX Development team to review my chapter, even with her own tight deadlines.

About My Chapter

There wasn't a real rule about which topic which author took, but it all kinda spook for itself. I guess if you look at the names, you probably know that Anton wrote about security, Dan about Plugins, Francis about Globalization, ... I don't want to give all topics away yet... I'm sure the other authors will tell you soon :-)
The title of my chapter is "APEX 4.0 Charts Inside Out"... and there is a lot to tell about these charts! Apress (the publisher) told me to stop when I hit 80 pages, otherwise I think I was still writing! When you are passionate about something...
I hope that after reading my chapter you really understand how charts work, what they can give you and how you can create any chart you like. And remember... start to include charts in your APEX application (if you are not already doing) as they might trigger your manager to give you a salary increase! Managers love visuals!

Here are the sections of the chapter:

Overview 2
HTML Charts 2
Using the HTML Charts Wizard 2
The Result 3
Debug and Performance 4
Behind the Scenes 4
Other Opportunities linked to HTML Charts 5
Flash Charts 8
Background Flash Charts 8
Creating a Flash Chart 8
The Result 14
Understanding the Chart Region 16
Understanding the Chart Attributes 19
Adding Multiple Series and Combined Charts 28
Different Flash Chart Types 33
Behind the Scenes 35
Debug and Performance 40
Upgrading Oracle APEX 3.x Flash and SVG Charts 44
Screen Reader Mode and Charts 46
Extending Flash Charts 48
Customizing Charts by using Custom XML 48
Customizing Charts by using Custom XML, Dynamic Actions and JavaScript 51
Creating Charts Manually 54
Drill-down Charts, Dashboards and Interactivity 60
Simple Dashboard with Submit 60
Simple Dashboard with JavaScript 63
Complex Dashboard with Actions 67
Most Common Issues 76
Specific feature 76
Invalid #HOST# with Reverse Proxy or HTTPS 76
Flash Security Error 77
Charts in the Future 77
Caution 78
Resources 79
Summary 80

Hope you like the above!

The topics that didn't make it into the chapter were some more examples of the most asked requests in the APEX Forum and all the information about Gantt charts and Maps.
The way of working of Gantts and Maps are very similar to the "normal" charts, they just use a different Flash file and XML. But normally by the time you finish this chapter, you'll be able to answer all your questions you have yourself.
It might be that I'll publish an ebook about Gantts and Maps later in the year if I see many people would benefit from it.

AND NOW... (PRE-)ORDER THE BOOK! :-)

2 comments:

  1. Dimitri,

    I think that I speak for everyone when I say that we'd love an ebook that shares your expertise on Gantts and maps some time soon.

    Thanks for your contributions to this impressive community project.

    (Hmm, is it a coincidence that the Word Verification I have to provide for this comment is "sainting"???)

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  2. Is there any chance that you will make this book available for the Kindle e-reader?

    Bob

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