Modifying Apex Tab behaviour

Today I was having a minor battle with tabs in Oracle Apex (3.2).

Sometimes you don't necessarily want it to submit the page when you click on a tab, so I was having a think about options to override the functionality.

I found an interesting discussion here on OTN, but I came up with something else involving On Demand processes. I'm still deciding whether it's an overkill for my situation, but I thought I'd post it as it may help someone else one day.

The solution involved :

1. Current tab page template
2. Script on page zero
3. On-demand page process

My original "Current Tab" in my page template looked like this:

<td class="t9tabCurrent">
<a href="#TAB_LINK#" class="t9tabCurrent">#TAB_LABEL#</a>
#TAB_INLINE_EDIT#
</td>

I modified it to:

<td class="t9tabCurrent">
<a href=javascript:tabNav("#TAB_LINK#") class="t9tabCurrent">#TAB_LABEL#</a>
#TAB_INLINE_EDIT#
</td>

This calls a script I defined on page zero, passing through the original #TAB_LINK# code.

<script language="JavaScript">
<!--
function tabNav(p_orig)
{
  var get = new htmldb_Get(null,$v('pFlowId'),'APPLICATION_PROCESS=tab_target',$v('pFlowStepId'));
    get.addParam('x01',p_orig);
    vReturn = get.get();
    window.location = vReturn;
}
-->
</script>

The script will catch any click on the tab set. It takes the #TAB_LINK# substitution value and sends it to the on-demand process for processing. Then it re-directs the page to the resulting vReturn value.

My on demand process just encapsulates the code, so it's a call to a package I have defined. The g_x01 variable is the value I added in the AJAX call :
htp.p(my_pkg.tab_target(apex_application.g_x01));
This function definition simply replicates existing behaviour, but without the page submit.

FUNCTION tab_target
  (p_source  VARCHAR2)
  RETURN VARCHAR2 IS
-- Replicate tab functionality, but not as a submit
  lc_target  VARCHAR2(200);
  lc_delim   VARCHAR2(1) := q'[']';
  ln_session NUMBER := nv('SESSION');
  ln_app_id  NUMBER := nv('APP_ID');
  lc_debug   VARCHAR2(5) := v('DEBUG');
BEGIN
  SELECT 'f?p='||ln_app_id||':'||tab_page||':'||ln_session_id||'::'||lc_debug||':' -- essentially existing behaviour
  INTO  lc_target
  FROM  apex_application_tabs
  WHERE application_id = ln_app_id
  AND   tab_name = SUBSTR(p_source -- obtains T_HOME from -- javascript:doSubmit('T_HOME')
                         ,INSTR(p_source,lc_delim)+1
                         ,INSTR(p_source,lc_delim,1,2)-1-INSTR(p_source,lc_delim));

  RETURN lc_target;
END tab_target;

You could extend this to do whatever you like, depending on which tab has been pressed. I know in the past I've considered wanting to pass parameters on tab press...

Hopefully all the code is displayed ok, I'm having trouble finding an easy way to paste html examples into blogspot. I'm happy for any suggestions on that matter...

So, is anyone still working or reading blogs right now, or am I one of few? ;-)