06 of 13 - Oracle APEX 5 - Define UI (user interface) defaults; modify a navigation menu item

This is one in a series of videos about creating an application using Oracle APEX 5. In this video we look at the user interface (UI) defaults for columns in tables and how to change these. Changing UI defaults to user-friendly text will help make APEX-generated reports and forms easier to read and use. We also look at how to change a navigation menu item so that it opens a different report page. This edit is done in the Shared Components section of APEX.

SQL scripts for this series are available to download at: http://web.nmsu.edu/~jkreie/oracle/DatabaseTopics.html
or by request at
http://db.kreie.net

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Closed Caption:

this is one video in a series of videos
that show how to use oracle apex five to
build a working web application a
prototype it will be fully featured but
it'll be a working application that uses
a database in oracle x e there are
earlier video series and youtube for
previous versions of apex you can work
along with the video by getting the
scripts that are available at the URL
shown here
be sure and make the URL case sensitive
so put a capital D not a lowercase D you
can also as an alternative request the
scripts the email by going to the second
link and using the contact page to
request the scripts
in this video we're going to look at you
I defaults user interface default i'm
logging in is Debbie one of the
designers in the design team for this
application because her one of her items
on the to-do list is to create the user
interface default so i'm going to go
into SQL workshop is actually let me
back out real quick and just remind you
that if i run this application you'll
need to log in when I look at my
projects report and form on getting
column headings based on the actual
field names and that's what we're
getting ready to modify so I'm gonna go
to the homepage for application Express
i'm going to go into the object browser
and i'm going to select projects and we
see here the names of the columns i'm
going to set the user defaults by
clicking on you I defaults and once
you've set these and whenever you create
a forum or report the labels defined in
the user interface defaults will be used
and they can be much more user friendly
than your abbreviated kind of vague or
hard to understand names for your field
the first time you come in you'll get
created fault
once you started setting you I default
you'll get an edit option so i'm going
to click create defaults
and launches a little dialog box and
then notice up here along the breadcrumb
that we have jumped away from the object
browser interface and we're now under
utilities user interface default stable
dictionary so you could have come here
directly if you wanted to but we started
from the object browser now what we see
our projects and students i'm going to
synchronize and synchronize defaults and
then I'll get a list of all my tables
and i'm going to go into projects to
start with
and I see the column name and the
corresponding label based on the column
name i'm going to click on the first
field and modify that time Jackie so i
changed the label I've added some help
text and we'll see how that comes into
play a little bit later if I want to I
can modify the display with and then I
know I want to change the other columns
in the table so rather than just hitting
apply changes i'm going to go over here
and click Next because I can make the
modifications for all of them and then
apply all the changes you want my fight
i won't change the wet and I think I
have one more field this is for a client
and I'm going to say
and eventually I might modify that it's
meant to display the client ID but later
on we'll see how we put the name of the
client in place of the actual primary
key value so i'm going to go ahead and
apply changes and I now see what my
labels will be and if in a few minutes
we'll see the difference because i'm
going to regenerate every form with
report that we did in a previous video
for projects and we'll see the
difference and we'll put that report and
four in place of the first ones that we
created I'm going to pause the video
though we go up to table dictionary and
see all of my tables i'm going to take
the time right now to go through and
create user friendly labels you I
default for all the fields in the tables
and once I've done that I'll come back
so i have gone through and i'll click on
a couple of these just to show you i
modified the label so that it's more
user-friendly and
now whenever i generated report or form
these labels will be used and it will
make the interface more user-friendly
i'm going to go back to the application
builder under student and teams and now
what I'll do is create a new set of 2
pages 14 the report on projects and one
for the foreman projects i'm gonna go
through this pretty quickly without
explaining things because we've done
that previously so I felt this out and
added breadcrumbs which you may or may
not see need for but i'll do it for this
particular one and then select my data
source which would be projects and in
this case I do not want to associate
this page with the navigation menu item
i could actually probably pick this
option but i want to show you how you
can go in and edit the menu item
manually to open a different page so for
the report columns by default we get all
the columns and it says use interface
default
oh go ahead and stay with the default
icon
I've modified
the page name in region title we have
our display column
forum i'll leave the default for insert
update delete capabilities and create
this page so when I created the page i
get at apex comes back in page designer
I'm going to step up a level to the
application itself so the original
reporting form our page number four and
five years will probably be different
that's fine my second one is list of
projects and project data so the next
thing I'm going to do is delete the old
report and form i'm going to select it
here and I see the page number you just
need to be careful if you're in doubt it
as to whether or not you're in the right
page you also see the title here you can
always run it and verify want to be sure
that you do not delete your homepage or
or the 101 the login page anything else
could be pretty easily regenerated so
i'm going to click the utilities and say
delete page and delete that page so i
wanted to leave the forum page and
that's not won by default we come back
to page one because we we have removed
page 4 i'm now going to go to five
and I could run that just to verify that
yes this is the form that uses the field
names then I could go back to editing
that page page five page 5 project data
go to utilities and delete this page so
when i get back to the application level
and I try to run I can run the
application but now I click on this
navigation link and i get an error
message and that's what we'll fix next
so i go back to the application and what
I want to do is because the navigation
bar is something used across multiple
pages it is a shared component so i'm
going to go to shared components want to
look under navigation and go to neck
navigation menu and i only have the
primary navigation menu and here's the
one that's not working properly so i'll
select projects list and i haven't
talked about this but just notice that
when you come into the properties of
some item you will have different
sections which are also represented as
tabs along the top so you can quickly
jump to a particular section if you want
or you can simply scroll down so if i
click entry it narrows it down to just
entry if i do conditions it gives me
just the condition section if i do show
all then i can simply scroll down and
see all of those properties i actually
want to be in target and I want to look
at my page number options and for no
longer exists
I wanted to open the report first so i
go to list of projects and then I go
ahead and apply the changes and I return
my application and run the application
and now when i click projects list i get
the report i just created which was
generated using the user interface
defaults the UI default when i click on
the Edit icon i see the form that uses
the user interface default one other
thing i wanted to point out is I did
take the time to type in help text so if
you click on a question work at to the
right of the field in the form what you
typed in will pop up in a help text box
so some things are obvious but other
things we need a little bit of help one
also keep in mind as i go through these
videos I'm going to make it a point to
talk about primary keys and foreign key
fields
I don't know that you would put this
foreign key field information in the
help text other than I use these videos
for teaching my class and I want to
emphasize the role of primary and
foreign key fields so returning to the
application we're off to a good start on
building our webpages for maintaining
the data in the database in the next and
that's what we'll talk about at the
beginning of the next video we'll make a
plan for what kind of forms we want to
create for the tables in the database