Apex « Warp11 .::. Oracle Apex Knowledge Group

I’ve discovered that if you use an item-plugin for the first item of a page and the property ‘Cursor Focus’ is set to ‘First item on a page’ the cursor will not be focused at the first item on the page but on the first item that is not an item-plugin.

It looks like that item-plugins are not taking into account when the cursor should be focused on the first item on the page. APEX will add first_field('<name of the first item that's not a item-plugin>'); to the code that will be executed when the page loads.

Workaround: set the property ‘Cursor focus’ to ‘Do not focus cursor’ and add first_field('<name first item>'); to the property ‘Execute when page loads’ of the page.

I’ve got a reaction from Patrick Wolf by e-mail that i want to share:

A better approach is to change the item-plugin: the item-plugin has to set is_navigable to true in the render result record to support the “First item on page” feature.

Inside APEX it’s possible to specify ‘Page Items to Submit’:

Within the action of the type ‘Execute PL/SQL-code’ of a dynamic action.
Within a region of the type ‘Interactive report’ or ‘Classic Report’.

The listed page items will be submitted to the server and thus available to use within your ‘PL/SQL-code’ or ‘Source’.
When you’re using a page item the ‘Session State Protection’ of this item must be ‘Unrestricted’. If you use another setting, par example ‘Checksum Required – Application Level’, the following Javascript-error will occur:

Firefox:
Error: JSON.parse: unexpected character
Source: http://localhost:8585/i/javascript/apex_4_1.min.js
Line: 16

Chrome:
Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected token < apex_4_1.min.js:16

Watching our visitors and how they arrive on warp11.com I cam across this page:

http://krisrice.blogspot.com/2010/12/listener-startupshutdown-script.html

definately worthwile caching… here we go:

Kris gives a script, which I altered a little bit.

#!/bin/sh
#
#
# chkconfig: 2345 80 05
# description: This is a program that is responsible for taking care of
# starting the apex-listener as a service. 
#
# processname: apxlistener
# Red Hat or SuSE config: /etc/sysconfig/apxlistener
# Debian or Ubuntu config: /etc/default/apxlistener
#
. /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions
NAME="Oracle Application Express Listener"
JAVA="/usr/java/jdk1.7.0_04/bin/java"
APEX_LISTENER_HOME="/u01/app/oracle/product/1.1.3/apex-listener"
APEX_IMAGES="/u01/app/oracle/product/4.1/apex/images/"
LOGFILE="$APEX_LISTENER_HOME/apex_listener.log"
PIDFILE="$APEX_LISTENER_HOME/apex_listener.pid"

start() {
        echo -n "Starting $NAME: "
        if [ -f $PIDFILE ]; then
                PID=`cat $PIDFILE`
                echo APEX Listener already running: $PID
                exit 2;
        else
            nohup $JAVA -Dapex.home="$APEX_LISTENER_HOME/tmp.apxlistener" -Dapex.images="$APEX_IMAGES" -Dapex.port=8080 -jar "$APEX_LISTENER_HOME/apex.war" 2>&1 > $LOGFILE  &
            RETVAL=$!
            echo Started PID: $RETVAL
            echo
            echo $RETVAL >>$PIDFILE
            return $RETVAL
        fi

}

status() {
        echo -n "Status $NAME: "
        if [ -f $PIDFILE ]; then
                PID=`cat $PIDFILE`
                echo APEX Listener already running: $PID
                ps -ef | grep $PID
        else
                echo APEX Listener not running
        fi
}

stop() {
        if [ -f $PIDFILE ]; then
                PID=`cat $PIDFILE`
                echo -n "Shutting down $NAME PID:$PID"
                echo
                kill $PID
                rm -f $PIDFILE
        else
                echo APEX Listener not running
        fi
        return 0
}

log() {
        tail -f $LOGFILE
}

info() {
    echo Before first use you must run the command below manually to initiate the service.
    echo 
    echo $JAVA -Dapex.home="$APEX_LISTENER_HOME/tmp.apxlistener" -Dapex.images="$APEX_IMAGES" -Dapex.port=8080 -jar "$APEX_LISTENER_HOME/apex.war"
    echo 
}

case "$1" in
    start)
        start
        ;;
    stop)
        stop
        ;;
    status)
        status
        ;;
    restart)
        stop
        start
        ;;
    log)
        log
        ;;
    info)
        info
        ;;
    *)
        echo
        echo "Usage:  {start|stop|status|restart|log|info}"
        echo
        info
        exit 1
        ;;
esac
exit $?

You should edit highlighted lines:
JAVA: the location of your JDK. be advised the minimum version your listener needs
APEX_LISTENER_HOME: the location the listener uses to store its config files
APEX_IMAGES: the location of the apex images directory

Create the file as /etc/init.d/apxlistener

Now set it as executable

chmod a+x /etc/init.d/apxlistener

add it to the startup-list:

chkcondig --add apxlistener
chkconfig apxlistener on

Now we’re allmost there. The listener needs a console to do the initial configuration. If you would start the service as is, it will not have a console.

I added an option “info” that echoes the commandline the service will use:

so.. execute:

/etc/init.d/apxlistener info

will give you something like this:

Before first use you must run the command below manually to initiate the service.

/usr/java/jdk1.7.0_04/bin/java -Dapex.home=/u01/app/oracle/product/1.1.3/apex-listener/tmp.apxlistener -Dapex.images=/u01/app/oracle/product/4.1/apex/images/ -Dapex.port=8080 -jar /u01/app/oracle/product/1.1.3/apex-listener/apex.war

execute that line in your console, it will ask for two usernames ( I used “admin” in both cases) and passwords.

Enter them as requested after which you can go to http://yourserver:8080/apex/listernerConfigure

Here you can enter your details as described in the apex listener.

after a reboot the listener should start automatically.

Warp11 .::. Oracle Apex Knowledge Group

Tag Archives: Apex

Item-plugins and focusing the cursor on the first item

Page items to submit & Session state protection: error ‘JSON.parse: unexpected character’ (Firefox) / ‘Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected token’ (Chrome)

APEX listener startup/shutdown script