Forms Reloaded APEX 19.2 | Part 1

What are the upgrades in APEX Forms as of APEX 19.2?

Oracle APEX form is being great component for interacting with database. These are basically require very low code to build and seem less functionality.

There are significant upgrades in APEX forms from APEX 18 to APEX 19. let's walk through them.

APEX 18.2

There is no Form Region, a "form" is the package/bundle of

One or more Regions
Page Items
Buttons
Form Fetch and DML Process

The Data Source defined in the process attributes

Only table and view are supported
Duplicate meta data: Fetch and DML Process

APEX 19.1

Data Source

Table or View, SQL Query,PL/SQL returning SQL Query
Local database, REST enabled SQL, REST SERVICES
Multiple Form per page

A Page Item can be reference two(!) regions

Layout Region
Source Region

Form process (init, DML) references the form region

As the upgrades are also includes the source definition changes, now we have more flexibility on data source side. We can create forms on SQL, PL/SQL returning SQL Query, REST Enabled SQL, REST Services and of course on Table/ views.

Source Selection

First thing in new forms can be visualize when try to create.

New Form Region: New Form Region instead of Static Region.

SQL Query Support

New form region supports simple and Complex SQL queries.

1. Simple Query

SELECT e.empno, e.ename,
e.job,
e.mgr,
e.hiredate,
e.sal,
e.comm,
e.deptno
FROM emp e

2. Complex Query

SELECT e.empno,
e.ename,
e.job,
e.mgr,
e.hiredate,
e.sal,
e.comm,
e.deptno
FROM emp e
INNER JOIN dept d
ON e.deptno = e.deptno
WHERE d.deptno = 20;

Item References to Regions:

Form Initialize process

Auto validation:

Lost Update Detection: If row is being modified already before you pushed it to database.
DML Process options

Region Source
Table/ View
Custom Pl/SQL Code

Locking Row: Locking Row does not mean form will lock the row after load, Locking means when user hits the request/ click the save button it takes pretty short time to update to the database. For that tiny time it locks the row so that nobody else cannot change it.
Session State Maintenance: Available options include:

Per Request (Memory Only)

Do not save state in the database. State is only available when processing the current request. When AJAX requests need to use an item, make sure to pass the item name via "Page Items To Submit".

Per requests session maintenance is really helpful in reducing load on database when number of concurrent users increases.