François Briard GS-AIS-HR Database Developers Forum, APEX 6th May 2014 APEX Mobile Application Development 101

Disclaimer Even if widely used in the past and still in use for some applications, Oracle Application Express (APEX) is not the main GS-AIS Development Tool. This presentation is based mostly on personal experience made with the tool outside AIS main scope (i.e. Open Days tools)

Mobile Apps Native AppsWeb Apps Installed on the device Available from a « store » Running in a web browser Just need URL ProsCan run offline Better performance Better user experience Better at monetization No need to deploy Users always have latest version Runs on (nearly) all OS/Platform/Browser ConsApproval / Publication in Stores can be complex Need to develop/support multiple versions Permanent Internet Connection Access to local resources (GPS, camera etc) not guaranteed Security considered lower If you need a database intensive application available to a maximum number of mobile OS then APEX Mobile Web Apps is the right choice.

Tim Berner-Lees on Mobile Apps “If you don't give it a URL, people can't tweet about it. If people can't tweet or about it, then it's not part of the discourse.” cnet.com, March 2014

jQuery Mobile APEX integrates jQuery for improving Javascript use and support AJAX requests jQuery mobile is a framework built on top of jQuery Simplistic page structure Comes with bunch of predefined CSS styles Very constraintful but guarantees native-like look and feel

APEX Mobile Applications and Pages Applications are assigned one default User Interface In Application Properties, you can add an additional interface Pages can be assigned any of the application interfaces There is only one jQuery Mobile theme, but it can be customized through CSS generated by jQuery Mobile Theme Roller jQuery Mobile Theme Roller

APEX Mobile Regions and Items Mobile specific page types ListView ListView and Form HTML5 Charts HTML5 Calendars Mobile specific item types Text Field sub-types: , phone, URL Yes/No Slider

Simple Demo (

In a nutshell 1.Select « jQuery Mobile Smartphone » for User Interface when creating the application 2.Use mobile page types: ListView ListView and Form HTML5 Charts HTML5 Calendars 3.Check exsiting mobile region templates 4.Use mobile item types Text Field sub-types: , phone, URL Yes/No Slider

My experience Desktop and Mobile versions of a web application are 2 very different web applications! Don’t try to adapt existing screens from Desktop to Mobile. Desktop UI = many data / few clicks Mobile UI = few data / many clicks Tablets are somewhere in between Keep as much business logic in DB (this is true for all APEX applications) Reuse what jQuery mobile offers: When testing run app in new tab