Monday, November 22, 2010

SQL Developer 3.0 Early Adopter now available

Early Adopter (EA) releases of SQL Developer and SQL Developer Data Modeler EA 2 are now available for download from OTN.

SQL Developer new features are described here. The marque SQL Developer 3.0 is improved migrations. You can see an enhanced migration wizard in our EA release, however you should see more improvements in our production release. Our objective is to make it much quicker and easier to analyze the scope of a migration effort, as well as to simplify and streamline the actual migration work. Additional new features exposed in the 3.0 EA release include an all new and much improved query builder, DBA functionality, and an alternative object tree navigator.

SQL Developer Data Modeler EA 2 features integrated svn source code control as well as user defined design rules and transformations. It is not a user exposed feature but the biggest change with this release is a much tighter integration with the core SQL Developer framework. Basically the components and behavior is now all uses the same underlying infrastructure.

APEX 4.0.2 is here, and its got two new themes!

Oracle Application Express (APEX) 4.0.2 patch is now available on MySupport and a re-release is available on OTN as of last Friday November 19th, 2010. You can read all about Oracle APEX 4.0.2 here. In addition to fixing 111 bugs (thanks to all who made the time and effort to report these), APEX 4.0.2 also introduces two new themes, theme 21 and theme 22.

I have been using theme 21 to build a number of internal applications here at Oracle. I am a big fan of the new theme, for me it feels modern, renders fast, and has lots of nice templates. I like the button templates, specifically the opportunity to choose a "hot" button to highlight one button over others. I also like the new horizontal progress train (list template), which works very well for wizards. Interactive reports have also been attractively styled. Theme 21 is red (red tabs in gray top bar, red and gray buttons), and for those who don't want a red theme, theme 22 is the same but in blue (blue tabs in gray top bar with yellow and gray buttons). These new themes are xhtml1-strict so don't use them if you want any IE 6 compatibility.

A large number of improvements have also been made to existing themes. To take advantage of the improvements to themes 1-20 you will need to recreate your themes. If you have significantly customized your version of theme 1-20 you will want to reintegrate your customizations, or simply not upgrade your theme. To switch a theme, navigate to share components, then themes, renumber your theme (see task on right side bar), create a new theme, then switch your theme.

I hope everyone enjoys the new themes as much as I do.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

MAOP Event in Reston Friday November 5th 2010

If your in the washington DC or northern Virginia area you may want to attend the 2010 MAOP Training Conference. MOAP has a number of great speakers lined up, and it's a great opportunity to meet leading Oracle experts and even Oracle development staff. The event starts at 7:30 am for registration and breakfast. You can view the full agenda here. I will be giving the keynote, I will cover both database 11g topics as well as database tools including Oracle Application Express.

http://www.maop.org/