2. Oracle APEX 19.1 New Features
This release brings a suite of new features including REST-enabled Forms, an all new Data Loading wizard with support for native Excel, upgraded Oracle JET version, a new dark mode user interface, and a whole lot more!
<Name>
<Organization>
< Address>
March 2019

3. Safe Harbor Statement
The following is intended to outline our general product direction. It is intended for information purposes only, and may not be incorporated into any contract. It is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described for Oracle’s products remains at the sole discretion of Oracle.

4. Forms Regions and REST Read / Write

5. New Form Region New Page Region Type: Form Region
Data Source defined within the region (not Pre-Rendering)
Source = Table, SQL based, or PL/SQL returning SQL Query
Starting with Oracle APEX 19.1, not just reports, charts or calendars can be created on external data sources, but forms support this as well.
Forms can now also operate on the same query types as report, charts or calendars. Thus we can not only create a form on a table, but also on a SQL query and ... on a PL/SQL function returning a SQL Query (in the latter case, the column list of the SQL query generated by the PL/SQL code must be stable and not change at runtime). 
As all other region types, Forms now also store their data source information once at the region level. And the data source can be the local database, a REST Enabled SQL service or a Web Source Module.
Since the data source is now available at the region level, APEX now also supports multiple form regions on a page. The new form region provides way more flexibility and power to the APEX developer.
Both the processes (Form - Initialization in the Pre-Rendering section and Form - Automatic Row Processing (DML) in the Processes section) reference the form region.
When a form region is on the page, a page item has two region references.
The Region attribute in the Layout section determines, where the item is displayed. (This is unchanged in 19.1)
The Form Region attribute in the Source section determines where the data for this form region comes from. When this item is set, the form region and its processes control how the item is initialized on page load and processed on page submit. If this attribute can be empty, the item works as in previous APEX versions.
Additional Region Attributes for Editing
DML Processes reference Form Region (not Table)

6. New Form Region …

7. New Form Region – Changes to Items
Page Item Source references Form Region (not Table)
Page Item Column references Form Query columns
The items associated with Form pages has also been updated to reference the Form Region
The Item references are also updated to be based on the region not the database column
Update the SQL Query and items in the Form Region are automagically added / removed
Page Designer synchronizes Page Items with Form Query

8. APEX 18.x REST Capabilities
Read data using REST Enabled SQL - Defined once and used across the Workspace
Read data from REST Web Source - Defined within each Application
Fully Declarative with Data Discovery and Parameters
In APEX 18.1 the ability to define REST Enabled SQL and Web Sources was added and allowed developers to use these as the basis for reports, calendars, and more.
Utilize both in Reports, Calendars, Charts, and Trees

9. APEX 19.1 REST Capabilities
Write data using REST Enabled SQL - Defined once and used across the Workspace
Write data to REST Web Source - Defined within each Application
Fully Declarative using Data Discovery with Parameters
Application Express 19.1 takes its support for REST Services to the next level - while the previous release focused on REST support for read only visualization components, APEX 19.1 adds data manipulation support and allows to create forms on a REST service. 
Forms now support REST services and REST Enabled SQL declaratively.
Using Oracle APEX, working with REST Services becomes as easy as with a table. You can create Report and Form pages on REST services with a few mouse clicks completely declaratively without any manual coding.
Create Form Regions on REST Services declaratively
Available CRUD Operations based on operations defined

10. APEX Data Sources External APIs [REST, SOAP] Local Data Source
[SQL, PL/SQL]
HTTP(s)
JDBC
Database Links
Oracle APEX is best suited to being co-located with the data it is maintaining / reporting on – Local Data Source.
Oracle APEX provides the ability to execute SQL not only in the "local" Oracle database (where APEX runs in), but also on a remote Oracle instance. This is based on the REST Enabled SQL feature introduced with ORDS When the REST Enabled SQL feature is active on an ORDS instance, SQL statements can be passed in JSON format using HTTP POST requests. Execution results are being passed back as a self-describing JSON response. Clients thus can communicate with the Oracle database using open protocols and without SQL*Net. A prerequisite for using REST Enabled SQL is to have at least ORDS 17.4 installed. Older ORDS versions (3.0.x) do not support REST Enabled SQL.
Oracle APEX provides declarative support for REST Services in Application Express components - that means, developers can create a component, for example, an interactive report, directly on an external REST service.  You can register an external REST Service as a Web Source Module in Shared Components and then use it as the data source for a report and form.
You can also integrate into a SOA environment by consuming Web Services (both REST and SOAP) or utilize DB Links to other databases.
Remote
Databases
REST
Enabled SQL
External Databases

11. REST Enabling Database Objects1
REST Enable Schema - REST Workshop or SQL Commands
To use REST enabled forms, you need to perform the following tasks:
Register your schema with ORDS
REST enable the database object
You can register a schema with ORDS by navigating to SQL Workshop > RESTful Services and then click "Register Schema with ORDS".
Or enter ords.enable_schema into SQL Commands

12. REST Enabling Database Objects2
REST Enable Table / View - Object Browser > REST or SQL Commands
To use REST enabled forms, you need to perform the following tasks:
Register your schema with ORDS
REST enable the database object
To REST Enable a database object, navigate to SQL Workshop > Object Browser and click the REST tab.
Or enter ords.enable_object into SQL Commands

13. New Data Upload

14. Data Loading
A new, improved Data Loading facility is one of the new features in Application Express This new feature greatly simplifies the process of loading data into the Oracle Database by introducing Drag and Drop functionality.

15. Data Loading
Use within Create Application from a File and SQL Workshop > Utilities > Data Workshop
Drag and Drop files – CSV, XLSX, TXT, XML, or JSON
Automatic detection of file settings, data types, format masks
The wizard has been mordernized with a new drag and drop interface. On top of supporting CSV file uploads like it used to, you can now upload XLSX, XML, and JSON files. You can either upload a file or copy and paste the data. Copy and paste option currently supports only tab or comma separated data, but File upload supports more file types.
The parser automatically detects Column delimiter and samples the first 200 rows to detect column types
If the preview does not look correct, you can adjust the settings.
When you click Configure, you can get more insights about the columns under Columns to Load tab. The data types are detected based on sampling rows. For larger data sets, it might make sense to increase this number to get more accurate column types. You can uncheck certain columns if you don't want to include in the load. APEX detects almost everything automatically - there is no need to manually select data types, provide format masks or decimal characters. The format masks for NUMBER, DATE or TIMESTAMP are detected automatically. Decimal and group characters are detected individually for each NUMBER columns.
The Error Table Name will be used to create a second table: This error table will be used to store rows, which cannot be inserted into the target table. That can happen, if APEX e.g. only samples the first 200 rows and detects a column as NUMBER. But later on, the file contains non-numeric values for that column - those rows will be stored in the error table (APEX leverages the DML Error Logging database feature here).
The error table is a normal Oracle table with the same columns as the target table, but all defined as  VARCHAR2(4000). You can review the error table in SQL Workshop after load and manually process these rows. If APEX is able to load all rows to the target table successfully, it will drop the (empty) error table automatically.
When the Use Column Data Types checkbox is unchecked, APEX will not use the detected column data types - instead the target table columns will all be created as VARCHAR2(4000).
On Database 12c or higher, you can choose whether the Primary Key column will be generated using the Identity Column feature or whether a globally unique identifier (SYS_GUID) shall be used. The difference is values and space requirements. Identity Column values are like sequences - they start with 1 and increase. SYS_GUID values are globally unique, hard to predict, but require more space than the compact Identity Column numbers.
If the uploaded XLSX file contains multiple worksheets, APEX will pick the first sheet by default. To load another sheet, pick it from the Select Sheet select list. 
Can load any size file (background processing)
Includes preview, error table, and ability to select sheet when XLSX has multiple worksheets

16. APEX_DATA_PARSER Public API
Implement your own data loading process (CSV, XLSX, XML, JSON)
Parse implemented as a table function, detects headers, and displays as columns within a report
The new APEX_DATA_PARSER PL/SQL package provides a nice and easy developer interface to parse files. 
The APEX_DATA_PARSER package supports all file types which are supported by SQL Workshop data loading, that includes delimited files (CSV, Tab-Delimited), JSON, XML or XLSX). The parser is implemented as a table function - so the developer accesses parser results like a table. And the parser can thus be used like a table: With an INSERT ... SELECT statement, rows can be directly inserted into a table, existing tables can be joined in order to look up values or SQL and PL/SQL functions can be applied in order to process and refine the raw parsed data.
The function also discovers information on columns and data types, which can be retrieved from a collection or directly using APEX_DATA_PARSER.DISCOVER and APEX_DATA_PARSER.GET_COLUMNS functions. 
APEX_DATA_PARSER expects the file contents simply as a BLOB - it does not matter where this BLOB comes from. While we used a file upload in this example, the BLOB can also come from an existing table or from the web using the APEX_WEB_SERVICE or UTL_HTTP packages.
Use with INSERT … SELECT, join to look up tables, or use SQL and PL/SQL functions to process and refine data
Updated Sample Data Loading Packaged App

17. Oracle JET Upgrade

18. Updated Oracle JET Oracle JET 6.1.0 jQuery 3.3.1 jQuery UI 1.12.1
The latest available version of Oracle JET (at time of APEX 19.1 release) has been included.
The supporting jQuery and jQuery UI libraries have also been updated
Updated Sample Charts Packaged App –

19. New Chart Features
New Chart Type – Status Meter Gauge (Replaces Dial Gauges)
Declarative Font Formatting
Stack Labels and Grouping
Status Meter Gauge: New JET chart type which supports 3 rendering options: Circular, Horizontal, and Vertical.
Automatically replaces desupported JET Dial Gauge chart.
Gantt Chart Enhancements:
New declarative Tooltip options, for better control over the information displayed in tooltips.
Stack Chart Enhancements:
New declarative Stack Label option, to render stack value totals on top of each stack.
New declarative Stack Category option, to easily render stack charts with multiple stacks.
Text Formatting Enhancements:
New declarative options to set the font family, style, size and color for axes titles and values, series values, and legend values.
Sample Charts app includes New in 19.1 section added to Reference page, to highlight new features and functionality introduced in 19.1.
Declarative Tooltips for Gantt Charts

20. New Chart Features
Example of the new Status Meter Gauge (left), declarative font formatting (top right), and stack labels (bottom right)

21. Dark Mode and Universal Theme

22. Dark Mode Provide a dark, inverted color scheme Reduces eye strain
Designed for developers working at night
Growing trend in the industry
The development environment of APEX can now be rendered with a darker color scheme, which reduces eye strain and is especially helpful for those who are developing late into the night.

23. Universal Theme Refinement
Accessibility Improvements - New Tab Stops - Additional Theme Roller attributes
Mobile Improvements - Breadcrumbs only show previous page
Collapsible region and Navigation Bar improvements
Universal Theme has been refreshed with UI refinements, accessibility improvements, new template options and deeper control via Theme Roller to help your applications look better than ever.
User defined attributes in Lists now labelled
Updated Sample APP –

24. Other Improvements

25. Interactive Grids New Declarative Options: Select First Row
Toolbar Controls
Actions Menu options
Column options
Tasks, which required adding Javascript code in earlier versions, are now done with a simple mouse click. That makes Interactive Grid easier to use and more maintainable. 
Whether to automatically select First Row: This is located in the Appearance section of Interactive Grid Attributes in Page Designer. Once disabled, APEX will not automatically select the first row on page load any more.
Configuring the Toolbar: The earlier APEX versions allowed to turn on or off the Save and Reset buttons. Starting with APEX 19.1, the Search Fields, the Search Columns Selection and the Actions menu can be hidden. That allows more flexible configurations of the tool bar - again without having to use Javascript code. Of course, toolbar features depend on the actual Interactive Grid configuration - for a non-editable Interactive Grid, there will never be a Save button.
Turning on / off Actions menu options: Available operations in the Actions menu can be configured as well. A simple switch in page designer turns the ability to use Flashback or to define a Chart View on or off. Note that APEX enables or disables the Interactive Grid feature, instead of only hiding the menu option (which could be made visible with some Javascript again).
Turning on / off Column options: New declarative options are also available at the column level: we now can separately enable or disable the Sort option ( which was formerly a part of Sort / Control Break / Aggregate ). In addition to that, the ability of end users to hide a column can be turned off in Page Designer.
Minor IG improvements: - The icon and detail views can be sorted - Changing views when the grid view has edits no longer warns about unsaved changes and the changes are not lost. - The icon and detail views will be updated if the underlying model data changes due to programmatic updates. - The Filter and Highlights now have the correct max length for the value field. - The chart view now obeys the Lazy Loading attribute and uses the Messages: When No Data Found attribute. - The icon, detail and chart views will not fetch data or render if the view is not visible for example when used in a collapsible region. The grid view already worked this way.
IG related JavaScript widget API changes: - Added toolbarRemove and toolbarInsertAfter methods to the interactiveGrid toolbarData to make it easier to customize the Interactive Grid toolbar. - Added model option makeLoadingIndicator and interactiveGrid options saveLoadingIndicatorPosition and saveLoadingIndicator to allow more control over showing progress for advanced use cases. - Added trackParentSelection config option and setMasterRecord method to interactiveGrid widget to allow advanced master detail use cases. - Added grid widget column option cellCssClassesColumn to provide an easier way to style cells.

26. Other Enhancements
Dynamic Actions – Addition of actions to open/close regions
App Builder Authentication – Can now use Social Login
APEX Upgrade will automatically copy ACLs
Improved Translation Editing
Additions to JavaScript API Documentation

27. https://blogs.oracle.com/apex/
Learn More …
New Form Region
REST Enabled Form
SQL Workshop Data Loading
APEX_DATA_PARSER
New IG Attributes
There are a number of blog posts expanding on many of the new features in APEX 19.1

28. …