Oracle and the Cloud - Oracle Essentials - page 365

APEX application development
APEX applications are a set of pages, with navigation capabilities bringing them together
into an integrated unit. There is a broad set of wizards you can use to create APEX pages.
Figure 15-2 shows the top level of page wizards in the APEX development environment.
Figure 15-2. Oracle Application Express page types
A page can contain more than one of the types shown in Figure 15-2 , with different
regions in the page containing different components. Also, each of the categories of
pages shown in Figure 15-2 can have multiple types. For instance, you can create a form
based on SQL, PL/SQL, or a web service, or a master detail form, or a report with an
associated form, or a form with multiple editable rows, to name just some of the form
options.
One type of component merits specific mention: the interactive report. An interactive
report includes a wide range of customization capabilities, including the ability to define
filters, sort data, create new columns from data in the report, format the report with
control breaks and groupings, highlight data based on logical conditions, and create
charts based on the data in the report. You can even look at data in the past with Flash‐
back, download data in spreadsheet format, or allow subscriptions to a report so that
the report will be sent to subscribers according to a schedule. Each individual user can
customize their own versions of reports and save these versions for exclusive access or
public use. As a developer, you can disable any of these options, depending on your
requirements. Interactive reports enable users to shape reports to get answers on their
own, which can remove a significant development overhead.