Exporting an APEX page plus Shared Components

Imagine, if you will, a really large application. Perhaps it's a reporting application, and you've just created a new page (report) and an associated breadcrumb. 

Now for migration. You have a choice between exporting the entire application, or you could just export the page. But what about the associated breadcrumb? What about the LOV?

This is where the Component Export can help.

You'll find it in the Tasks menu when you start to export your application.

Tip: Keep an eye out for these Task menus, they can 'hide' interesting features

From there you can find, then check the most recently modified components to your application, then press "Add to Export" to add them to what I would imagine would be an apex_collection.

Creating this type of page would be a good learning exercise

The final confirmation, with the additional option to export as of x minutes ago.

Upon export you'll receive a file that looks just like a normal export, just with your selected components.

f102_components.sql

There are advantages to exporting only selected components. For instance, during a full application install, existing users will remove existing user sessions for the application unless you use apex_application_install.set_keep_sessions on the command line.

Though are a few reasons to take care.

For example, when I exported/imported the List for my left sidebar menu, the menu disappeared from my runtime view.

I had to re-assign the list as the navigation menu.

Shared Components - User Interface - Nagivation Menu - Navigation Menu List.

Exporting without the list was ok, so for all good for data driven (dynamic) menus. In that case the page should only appear in the menu when the relevant security tables say so.

And the export may not be as granular as you need. Or perhaps you'll forget components. Or perhaps your changes overlap with others.

Component export is fit for some purposes, and has been around forever. Give it a go.

And wouldn't you know, turns out it was a year ago today that I also felt compelled to blog about this very topic.