APEX Programmatic Spectrum

I listened to a session by Joel Kallman, and found myself thinking hard about this slide on the programmatic spectrum, diving into the concept of “low code” vs “high control”.

(From around 14 minute mark https://youtu.be/PZBXFjycoIo?t=14m26s)

Such a good representation of the spectrum of APEX components

I guess you might say tasks in the yellow end take longer to configure, and are difficult to maintain, particularly for someone new coming in, for instance:
At the green end, defining Authentication is very click-click-click, done. No code required.
Around the middle, using Authorisation schemes can also be declarative, but with a little tweaking, can give a decent level of control.
And to the right, for Custom authentication, while a typical package may look similar to the next, it’s driven with raw PL/SQL, but gives the developer high level of control.

Some other interesting claims in the seminar include APEX meeting the NIST needs of cloud computing from 2002. Remember, we didn’t even have Google Suggest until 2005.

And an application exported from 2008 still runs in 2017, many APEX versions later, looking and behaving the same.
As a developer familiar with the aims of the APEX upgrade process, this does not surprise me at all. What I didn’t consider was how much of a feat this is in the world of development.

Pretty impressive when considering version difficulties I've heard with products like JDev.
I realise that's comparing apples to toaster ovens, but it's a high bar that's set. Onya APEX team.

And the IDE is delivered via a browser :)

Data driven APEX icons

We have an application written with a heavily customised Theme 25 built for 10" tablets, and we feel the Universal Theme justifies the move, in part because of the surrounding ecosystem. Check out this forum discussion on the topic.

We've been looking through the packaged applications for applied ideas, and using the Universal Theme sample application as a component reference.

I came across a requirement where we had a list of items that indicated completion level out of 100.
Then I thought about a group of pie icons I saw in Dick Dral's Font APEX icon reference, and knew what I wanted to do.

All I needed to do was round a bunch of numbers to the nearest 5.

To solve such as problem, I usually start by giving myself a bunch of numbers to play with
select rownum rn from dual connect by level <= 100

Then defining that as a WITH statement, so I can refer to the derived column as often as I like.

with nbrs as (
  select rownum rn from dual connect by level <= 100
)
select rn
 , floor(rn/100 * 20) / 20*100 rnd
 ,'fa fa-pie-chart-'||floor(rn/100 * 20) / 20*100 icon
from nbrs
where mod(rn,5)=0

And I used a divide/multiply by 20 math trick to do the rounding.

We can then feed the result as the relevant icon into whatever region template we need.

I like pie.

Simple, yet effective.

Modify OracleJET Property at Runtime in APEX

OracleJET has attributes galore, but some are are (not yet) available to change at design time, so JavaScript code can be added to the chart attributes to set relevant attributes.

function(options) {
options.styleDefaults.threeDEffect = "on";

return options;
}

See my previous post about modifying these attributes on render.
We can also do this at runtime, perhaps as response to a button click, such as the 2D/3D button in the cookbook.

First, set a static ID on the chart, possibly one of the most common "advanced" properties I use.

Static ID property available on many components

Use this ID in the browser console at runtime to see what JSON was generated for the chart definition.
Any missing properties will use the default specified in the documentation.
apex.widget.jet.getChartJSON('p95_skew')

Browser Console results

The documentation on these attributes is thorough, but I'd love some examples to help keep me moving.
http://www.oracle.com/webfolder/technetwork/jet/jsdocs/oj.ojChart.html#styleDefaults.threeDEffect

We can modify the orientation property by supplying a name/value pair as a JSON string.

$("#p95_skew_jet").ojChart({'orientation': 'horizontal'});

Note the selector has is the static ID with a suffix: $("the_static_id"+"_jet")

It took a little while to find the correct punctuation for the nested properties, so this is really one of those blog posts I created so I don't forget. You've seen Alex's blog by-line, right?

$("#p95_skew_jet").ojChart({'styleDefaults':{'threeDEffect': 'off'}});

Not all runtime tweaks behaved as expected, however. The following property behaves as expected when setting on render, but at runtime it squishes the width of the entire chart.
$("#jet1").ojChart({'styleDefaults':{'barGapRatio': 0.2}});

Refreshing the chart region afterwards did not help in this case.
While looking for answers, I came across this post from Riaz describing similar customisations.

OracleJET JavaScript Customisation in APEX

I've finally got some regular hands on a 5.1 instance, and the shiniest tool in the box for me is OracleJET.

Some months ago I spent a few days learning about OracleJET and the knockout framework with Chris Muir. I doubt I'd ever get to that nitty gritty, but it sure is handy to know some of the finer details now that I'm using them in APEX.

I wanted to have a play with the funnel chart. I took an existing query, and quickly busted out a working chart.

Upon playing with the sample chart in the OracleJET Cookbook, I decided I wanted the 3D option.
In the case of this chart style, I think the subtle effect made a big difference.

The Cookbook is a great guide to what you can play with

I couldn't find the relevant attribute defined declaratively in APEX, but that's fine - I know all of them aren't mapped, and we have a special JavaScript section in the chart attributes to help us customise the content. This expands upon attribute selections, not replacing them like the custom XML did for AnyCharts.

The attribute help in the Page Designer is a good start, and always worth checking when playing with a new field.

Page Designer Attribute Help

I noticed the Sample Charts application did the same thing, but I figured I could take this sample from the help, combined with information from the impressive JET documentation, and try work out the JavaScript myself.

Not all properties are mapped to APEX attributes

This is what I came up with.

function(options) {
  options.styleDefaults.threeDEffect = "on";
  
  return options;
}

Only to find the customisation from the sample application looked same same, but different.

function( options ){
    options.styleDefaults = {
        threeDEffect: "on" 
    };
    return options;
}

Turns out both are effective, once again demonstrating there's always a few different ways of doing the same thing in JavaScript.
I suspect the first option honours the object notation mentioned in the documentation, while the second assigns the value as a JSON name/value pair. I've seen similar behaviour in jQuery:

$('#item').css('color','blue')
vs
$('#item').css({'color':'blue'})

You can find other examples in your workspace with this query on the dictionary view.

select application_id, page_id, page_name, region_name, chart_type
 ,javascript_code
from apex_application_page_charts 
where javascript_code is not null;

You may also enjoy changing series colours with similar treatment by Colin Archer of Explorer UK.
http://www.explorer.uk.com/customising-chart-colours-apex-5-1/
The German APEX community also has a thorough rundown of JET charting in 5.1
https://apex.oracle.com/pls/apex/germancommunities/apexcommunity/tipp/5841/index-en.html

In my next post I'll explore how to play with these attributes at runtime, not just on render.