ba6.us - Dave's Database Related Stuff

I have a love/hate relationship with frameworks. Once you get proficient with a framework (like Application Express) you can get a lot done quickly. The framework can also stand in your way if you encounter a bug or maybe a gray area where the Framework wasn't fully fleshed out. Sometimes it takes some digging to find a workaround.

In this case I have a simple reporting application that I built in Application Express. I wanted the user to select a report, then continue to a Criteria screen, enter some date ranges and then hit 'Submit' to render the report. Read more »

Here is some code to update the previous widget to show data in a green/yellow/red bar graph like an audio meter: The code is here:

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION GetGraph (p_value IN NUMBER, p_total IN NUMBER DEFAULT 100) 
RETURN VARCHAR2
IS 

  -- David Mann
  -- 05/26/2009
  -- Create HTML bar graph widget for use in Application Express reports. 
  -- Has thresholds for yellow and red. 
  -- Parameters: p_value - Top of ratio fraction or percentage as whole number (0-100)
 Read more »

I'm trying not to scare my users off with endless rows and columns of numbers. I have an app that analyzes memory usage and swap space usage of some of our servers. Instead of throwing all kinds of computer sciency '65535' and '32767' numbers at my user I decided to create a small function to return a bar graph widget. Here is an example of the graph in use: Here is a function that will return the HTML for the widget:

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION GetGraph (p_value IN NUMBER, p_total IN NUMBER) 
 Read more »

I'm still an Application Express beginner -- I'm used to web development that is closer to the HTML. While I am getting used to Apex's Regions and Templates sometimes you just need to build some HTML on your own. I have found some Apex helper functions that can help you whip up an anonymous PL/SQL block that can generate this. In Apex, add a "PL/SQL" region. You will get a blank textbox where you can enter some PL/SQL code. If you have the Demo application installed you can try this out:

So the new place I work has some small applications built in Apex. I'm getting ready to build some monitoring tools and wanted to integrate their functionality into the apps that are already available. Read more »