Take a look at this functionality in action:

Key features

• Dragged data is highlighted and ordered at the start of the report for easy identification.
• Dragged data that amends original data is highlighted in blue and the old record is hidden.
• The user can edit and delete both dragged and original data from the same location, prior to saving dragged data to the database.
• Any errors that occur when saving dragged data are highlighted in red and all other records are successfully saved.
• The functionality has been tested successfully with FireFox, IE7 and IE8.
• There is no limit to the amount of data that can be dragged into the application, other than the inherent memory limitations of your browser and hardware.
• Drag and drop reports can be easily integrated into any Oracle APEX application by changing the report template and can be to be themed to requirements.
• The solution is highly customisable with the ability to add bespoke validation and error messages.

If you have any questions or are interested in this functionality please contact us.

Although the term’s been around for a while within web development, it’s relatively unheard of outside of the UK or within other IT markets. However, there are many benefits to using a freelance developer as opposed to a traditional contractor or the services of a larger company:

• Freelancers are highly skilled within their areas of expertise.
• Freelancers are flexible and can provide services to a succession or number of clients.
• Freelancers do not impose long-term contracts and are available for short-term projects.
• Freelancers represent themselves so clients can avoid dealing with agencies who can charge as much as 25% on top of a contractor’s day rate.
• Freelancer’s overheads are very low as they do not have employees, often work from home and therefore have no need to commute.
• Freelancers establish a direct relationship with their clients so communication is unhindered by bureaucracy and middlemen.

APEX is designed and marketed as a development environment where you can develop an application quickly and cost-effectively and this is why it makes sense to use a freelance Oracle APEX developer. Using a contractor is likely to involve a contract length of a minimum of three months, but that doesn’t help you if you can develop your application in just a few weeks. If you’re lucky, you’ll have a contract with a short notice period, but you’re not going to have a very productive contractor if you dismiss them so soon! On the other hand, large companies are not interested in short-term development projects because there isn’t enough money to cover their overheads. Besides, why pay the costs of a large company only to work with an anonymous developer or succession of developers whose skills have not been proven?

At Silvercore Solutions you know exactly who you are working with. My overheads are minimal and I have the flexibility and commitment to help you meet your deadlines. My quotes are highly competitive and I can often arrange my schedule to be available at short notice. No job is too big or too small. Whether you want half a day’s APEX consultancy, a quick proof of concept, require APEX training or have a long-term project in the pipeline, get in touch to find out what I can do for you.

The answer’s simple really. APEX is a brilliant tool for developing interactive applications endowed with all the functionality, reliability and security of an Oracle database, but this website consists of four simple pages, the most complex being the Contact page. To develop it using APEX would’ve been overkill. I believe it’s important to use the correct tools and technologies for the job. After all, you wouldn’t use a sledgehammer to crack a nut!

To have developed this website using APEX would have required specialist web hosting to run an Oracle database 24/7 for the sole purpose of serving basic HTML. This cost cannot be justified and as a freelance developer I pride myself on keeping my overheads as low as possible. I understand that developing a website in APEX proves that one can at least develop using APEX, but I hope that my APEX blog goes a long way to proving that already. However, I am in the process of developing an application to showcase some of the innovative functionality I’ve already developed and to demonstrate what is possible with APEX. Of course, this will be hosted for free at apex.oracle.com!

A superior application, developed in any technology, must be user-friendly and well designed. When you start to improve the User Interface, the APEX developer needs to know more than just SQL. Improving the UI might simply involve changing the look of the application to fit your styling, but it could also include adding tooltips, improved date pickers or interacting with another website such as Google maps. To achieve these aims the APEX developer needs to know HTML, CSS, JavaScript and XML at least, along with the web standards for these languages.

There have been a number of occasions recently where I’ve seen APEX developers that have added malformed HTML and CSS to their pages, wondering why something, seemingly unrelated, doesn’t work. With Oracle, if you have an IF statement and you don’t have an END IF then your code errors and won’t run, and this is what the developer is expecting to happen within their APEX application. However, with HTML and JavaScript it’s not as straightforward. If you open a tag and don’t close it, or close a tag that isn’t already open, your page will still be displayed and the browser will not error, but there may well be something on your page that doesn’t work and, if you’re lucky, doesn’t look right.

With APEX development it is important to understand all the technologies you are using. There is so much that is achievable with APEX. It’s possible to cost-effectively build a production quality, web 2.0 application that is feature rich and styled how you want it to look in a relatively short amount of time. But you need a developer that is competent with web languages and appreciates the W3C standards. At Silvercore Solutions I have worked with jQuery, jQuery UI, XML and JSON integration and have strong HTML, CSS and JavaScript skills. I understand the importance of a strong User Interface: it’s what the user sees every day, it sells your applications and it distinguishes between a good application and an excellent software solution. So if you want to develop an APEX application that really delivers, then get in touch to discuss the options available to you.