If you didn't know already, APEX is a fantastic platform for both end users and developers. We should know. We have been using APEX for years developing all kinds of solutions for every type of industry out there: healthcare, financial, energy, customer service... we've done it all! Most of the time, the functionality that APEX provides out-of-the-box is more than enough to meet the needs. Sometimes the available building blocks don't fit, and we need to build our own. That is what APEX plug-ins are for. It gives us the ability to extend the functionality, always on top of the APEX foundation, with custom-built JavaScript and PL/SQL. This allows you to connect to public APIs, modify the user interface, adapt existing libraries, and much more.
When it comes to manipulating the front-end (user interface, calculations, and processes happening inside the browser), you may need good JavaScript skills. If you do possess such skill, you have unlimited possibilities when it comes to building custom components. If you don't, there is no need to panic. There are loads of plug-ins, built by excellent people in the APEX community, free to download and use. Have a look at the collection in apex.world (https://apex.world/ords/f?p=100:700).
Now, if you're looking for a more complete and reliable solution, there are also commercial plug-ins built by great companies such as FOEX. They give excellent support and have a fantastic team of brilliant minds regularly coming out with new stuff to solve problems you haven't even thought of.
Viscosity has been a FOEX Gold Partner (https://viscosityna.com/partners) for a while, and we have seen firsthand how skilled they are and how committed they can be to providing value to their customers. They are so good that Oracle recently acquired them (https://www.oracle.com/corporate/acquisitions/foex/). This means more FOEX for years to come.
The best thing about FOEX is that they are kind enough to share their knowledge by creating a collection of Open Source plug-ins for APEX. These plug-ins have been released under the MIT license, so not only are they free of charge, but you also get the source code (https://github.com/foex-open-source). You can find them individually on GitHub and the apex.world website. You can also head out to their website and download a sample application containing all the plug-in definitions and examples of using them.
Notice the minimum requirements (APEX 19.2 at the time of writing) and modern browsers such as Firefox, Chrome, and MS Edge.
To get started, head out to the download site (https://fos.world/ords/f?p=FOSDL:HOME) and get your sample app. This app has everything you need bundled, meaning it includes all the plug-in definitions. If you need to use the plug-in on different apps, you can copy the plug-ins or subscribe to them using the standard APEX functionality. Import the app and run it.
When you run the app, you get the following home page. There are some links to the support site and other helpful supporting websites. To look at the plug-ins in action, click the "Getting Started" link.
Some plug-ins are relatively simple. They have small things that make your life easier one bit at a time. Have you ever had to clear a date field? You have to focus on it and hit delete several times. There must be a better way, you think. There absolutely is; check it out:
What about drag and drop? There's a plugin for that.
Tooltips? You got it.
Ok. I know what you're thinking. That's cool but not very useful. First of all, excuse me, but it's quite useful. If you have to manually implement this every time you want it, you will spend quite some time on these simple things, and it distracts you from the important stuff. The collection has more complex plug-ins, such as an Interactive Grid process. It's a common use case to process the rows the user has selected and/or filtered out. You can easily achieve that with one of the FOEX plug-ins.
Pretty cool, huh? If you liked this, you're going to love the commercial plug-ins. Head to their website (https://www.foex.at/commercial-apex-plug-ins/) and look at their work. We are partners for a reason, and I promise you will not be disappointed.