Oracle APEX has been used as the go-to low-code development platform by companies for a long time now. The platform not only allows you to build scalable, secure enterprise apps but also enables world-class features that can be deployed on any platform you wish. Developers are able to develop and deploy complex solutions to solve practical problems easily with the integration of Oracle APEX. You only need to focus on the problem at hand and leave everything else for the platform to accomplish.
Recently APEX’s developers released a new patch i.e. 21.2 of the Oracle APEX. This patch is being considered the most revolutionary as of now. It includes features that every developer was suggesting it should have. If you are someone researching what’s new in this latest patch of Oracle APEX, then you are at the right place. We’ll be talking about all the new features while explaining why they will be useful. Here’s why Oracle APEX 21.2 is the peak of low-code development.
Progressive web apps
There are 2 types of applications that most users use: Web applications and platform-specific applications. Web applications are applications that can be accessed by anyone and with any device with a compatible browser. Platform-specific, also known as native, apps are applications that you might find on your device’s app store. These apps are able to leverage the hardware of the device much more fluently and give a much better experience.
Progressive web apps are a mixture of the two that we mentioned above. With Oracle APEX, you can easily turn applications into progressive web apps. Once you toggle the option for progressive web apps, your users will be able to see a new menu allowing them to install the application on their device. The application will then work the same as any other app installed from your app store.
User interface and universal theme enhancements
The user interface of an application decides whether the user experience will be good or not. There have been many features requested by developers, so that they can make the user interface of their application more useful.
Oracle APEX 21.2 has given the page designer of the platform a new look and new exciting features. This upgrade will allow developers to use new options and create a more interactive UI. The changes were made specifically to tackle the problem with the item, region, and button positioning. You are now able to do things like adding a search field in your navigation bar or after your logo, you can also add an item among different available regions, etc.
Smart filters
Faceted search, which has been out for some time now, is a technique used by companies to help users filter sets of products based on filters like size, color, price, and brand. Oracle APEX 21.2 uses the same code base and allows you to display filters, facets, or chips in a compact way. These are also known as smart filters.
Smart filters make users’ life easy by giving them information using filter suggestions. These filter suggestions that are based on your data are also known as chips. They provide context to your search and only show the most relevant products regarding your search. If you integrate this with your application, your users are sure to enjoy a smooth searching experience.
Upgraded alert and confirm dialog boxes
Alert and confirm dialog boxes are used in various places in an application. Any feature that requires confirmation like a delete operation requires you to prompt a user for the confirmation of the action. Although they might not be something that needs to be good-looking, it will surely be a good deal if you can have it that way.
Oracle APEX 21.2 has updated the look and feel of titles, icons, and even button labels on your prompt boxes. If you compare the new confirmation dialogs with the old ones, you will be able to see the differences easily. You can now install confirmation boxes with any button that you want. You just need to toggle the required confirmation setting in the button settings.
Environment banners
There are mainly 4 types of environment in between designing and deployment of an application: development, testing, acceptance, and production. You can replicate these environments in your Oracle APEX platform. However, before, users were not able to distinguish these environments from each other which led to many risks. These risks included committing to a change in the production environment when you think you are just making changes in development.
However, with the advent of Oracle APEX 21.2, you will now be able to configure these environments with the new features called environment banners. Environment banners are basically visual reminders to let you know which environment you’re in. Once you choose a color for an environment, it will depict itself in the developer toolbar of the application.
Data packager
Many times developers need to migrate data between different applications. This has always proven to be a challenge as there is not a straight way or application that helps. Dealing with migrating data between environments has always been a headache for developers. If you also add bringing along lookup data to the mix, it becomes a nightmare.
You won’t have to worry about anything like that as the new data packager feature of Oracle APEX 21.2 has come to save the day. Data packager in your application’s supporting objects will aid developers in bridging the gap between applications in a simple way. You will be able to select the data that you want to migrate.
Conclusion
The 2.12 update for the Oracle APEX might be the most relevant update yet. It comes with a lot of awesome features improving the quality of life of the platform. Apart from the features that we mentioned there are a lot of other additions to the platform like new PL/SQL APIS, new JavaScript APIs, new event triggers, etc. Make sure to read the patch notes if you want to know each and every detail.