Announcing Oracle APEX 20.1

Oracle Application Express (APEX) 20.1 is now generally available.  Oracle APEX is the world's most popular low-code platform for enterprise apps and enables you to build scalable, secure enterprise apps, with world-class features, that can be deployed anywhere.  This release of Oracle APEX introduces a number of exciting new features and enhancements to help deliver a functionally rich and modern user experience.

Some of the major improvements in Oracle APEX 20.1 include:

APEX + Redwood

The user interface of APEX and the App Builder has been refreshed to align with Redwood, Oracle's new user experience design system. The new design and color scheme extends across the full developer experience and provides refreshing new visuals.

The appearance of APEX can now automatically switch between the dark and light appearance modes based on your OS or platform setting, enabling APEX to seamlessly integrate with your workflow.

Faceted Search Enhancements

Faceted Search has been enhanced to allow for cascading list of values, conditional facets and compact count display, among other enhancements.

• Cascading List of Values
  A facet can have a Cascading List of Values allowing data dependency on another parent facet
• Conditional Facets
  Hide non-wanted facets based on the value of another facet
• Compact count display
  Show compact count such as 1K instead of 1,000 to simplify the display of total count
• Total row count display
  Automatically include a separate row for total row count
• Sort by top counts of the facets
  Sort facets based on the total count of entries in each facet, in descending order

Friendly URLs

The URL syntax for APEX apps has been simplified to allow for friendlier URLs at runtime. The new syntax provides a Search Engine Optimization (SEO)-friendly URL structure which is far easier to understand and provides immediate context as to where you are within an app.

The URL no longer features application or page numbers, and instead, uses the workspace path prefix, application and page aliases, and standard web parameter syntax for its URL structure.

• Friendly URLs with a single click
  Turn on friendly URLs for your existing apps by editing your application properties and turning on the switch for Friendly URLs.
• Bye Bye Page Numbers
  Friendly URLs will use the application and page alias in the URL and you can customize these easily from the App Builder. You can also customize the path prefix.
• Custom Path Prefix
  The friendly URL will include the workspace path prefix. You can change this by going to Workspace Administration, Manage Service, then Set Workspace Preferences.

Improved Application Lifecycle Management

There have been numerous improvements in application lifecycle management including one-click app deployments, automated backups, zip exports, and more. These features make it easy to deploy APEX apps and integrate it into your existing workflow.

• Automatic Backups
  Your APEX apps will be automatically backed up on a rolling basis as part of daily maintenance. Apps are only backed up if there are changes, and you can have up to 30 backups per app that you can lock, download, or restore at any time.
• Export App as Zip
  You can now export your APEX apps as a single zip file, which can facilitate integration with GIT / SVN and simplify incremental deployment. The zip file mirrors the directory structure of the APEXExport -split utility and splits your application, pages, and shared components into separate files for easy management.
• One-Click Remote App Deployment
  Deploy directly to Oracle Autonomous Database (ADB) from on-prem or elsewhere (available once Autonomous Database is upgraded to APEX 20.1 or later).

Native PDF Printing

You can now print PDF files directly from Interactive Grids. This feature produces a PDF file which includes formatting options such as highlighting, column grouping, and column breaks. To make use of this feature, simply enable PDF as an additional download format in your region attributes.

• Native PDF Support in Interactive Grids
  To enable this feature, simply enable PDF as an additional download format in your Interactive Grid's region attributes.
• Retain Grid Formatting
  Highlighting, control breaks, and column groups are preserved in the PDF file.
• Customize PDF Settings
  Change the default page size, orientations and different font settings

Mega Menus

Universal Theme now includes Mega Menus for your application's navigation. Mega Menus render the navigation menu as a collapsible floating panel that displays all navigation items at once. It is especially useful for displaying the various aspects of your application and enables direct access to sections of your app.

• Customization
  There are a number of template options you can use to customize the layout and appearance so it uniquely works for your app.
• Icons, Descriptions, and Badges
  Items in your mega menus can be extended with icons, descriptions, and even badges using custom list attributes.
• Responsive
  No matter the layout for larger screens, the mega menu will gracefully adjust its appearance so it fits on a small screen device.
• Accessible and Keyboard Friendly
  Navigation items within the menu can be accessed and navigated using the arrow keys on the keyboard.

As in every APEX release, a number of enhancements and bugs fixes have been made to the productivity and sample applications.  Additionally, numerous bugs have been fixed in APEX 20.1, resulting in even higher quality and stability for APEX environments.

For more information about many of the other exciting new features in APEX 20.1, please see the Release Notes or visit the What's New page.

Additional Information

Application Express (APEX) is the low-code application development platform which is included with every Oracle Database and is also provided with every Oracle Database Cloud Service, including Oracle Autonomous Database and the Oracle Cloud Free Tier.  APEX, combined with the Oracle Database, provides a fully integrated environment to build, deploy, maintain and monitor data-driven business applications that look great on mobile and desktop devices.  To learn more about Oracle Application Express, visit apex.oracle.com.  To learn more about Oracle Autonomous Database, visit oracle.com/autonomous.