Oracle & APEX Geekery

A while ago, at KScope 14 in New Orleans, I presented on Responsive Web Design with APEX Theme 25. One of the topics of my presentation was the lack of responsiveness of standard reports in Oracle Application Express. Meanwhile there were several attempts/solutions to make Theme 25 reports more responsive. One approach is to add custom CSS code for those columns to hide on specific device sizes, using @media queries: Major disadvantage of this approach is, that the user is getting less information on smaller devices. Instead of just hiding the data, it would be much nicer to present the data in a different, appropriate way, like rearranging the data in a fashion it fit on the small screen and/or displaying it optionally (on user demand). One technique to realize this is called “ Reflow Tables ”. A reflow table works by collapsing the table columns into a stacked presentation that looks like blocks of label/data pairs for each row. One particular nice implementation of t...

Theme 25 seems to be popular. I see a lot projects starting development with this theme. Not always because there is a need for enabling the application to be accessed on multiple different devices/screen resolutions, but because of the way you have more control of your region placement on the undelaying grid. Apart from the grid, APEX/Theme 25 offers more responsive functionality, like form element/label adaption and the the responsive Interactive Report toolbar. But there are components that are implemented less responsive, like the tab’s. Apart from the discussion, whether or not to use tabs, if you are using this (in my eyes convenient) feature, one would expect a user friendly responsive implementation of the tab’s. A Little Bit Responsive The way tab’s in Theme 25 currently react on smaller screens is: you have to scroll through the entries that are hidden outside your viewport. Tab More Responsive I wanted a different, more intuitive, yet still responsive implementa...