We are quite happy to announce the beginning of the Oracle Application Express 5.0 Early Adopter program, at https://apexea.oracle.com. This is our open-to-the-public beta program where we encourage our customers (new and old), and also those just interested in Oracle Application Express, to kick the tires of our forthcoming release. Click the big blue "Request a Workspace" button to get started.
You'll notice right away that the authentication for Oracle Application Express requires an Oracle account. This is the same account you would use for many Oracle sites, including the OTN Community discussion forums. If you don't have an account, then simply follow the instructions on the login page to "Sign up for a free Oracle Web account". However, ensure that you specify the same email address as your Oracle Web account when requesting a new workspace.
The list of new features in Oracle Application Express 5.0 Early Adopter 1 can be reviewed here. Not everything is ready for prime time, so these are the features we are specifically looking for feedback.
We plan on having an Oracle Application Express 5.0 Early Adopter 2 program. When that happens, the entire instance will be rebuilt, so don't get too married to any of the data or applications - they will be removed. Also, there is no guarantee that the applications you create can be imported into any future release of APEX.
The Known Issues will be populated soon, as well the application to review your submitted feedback. However, we encourage you to use this Early Adopter instance and provide your unvarnished comments. We still have some miles to travel for Oracle Application Express, but we believe that this will eventually become one of the watershed releases for APEX and the community.
Thank you for all of your support.
10 comments:
Looks great, can't wait to kick the tires.
Question: When 5.0 is publicly available, how backward compatible will it be? In other words, if we upgrade our Dev/QA environments to 5.0 to use the nifty Builder IDE enhancements, can we export from 5.0 and import into our 4.2 Production instance?
Thanks
Hi Vikas,
You could take a 4.2 application export file and import it into a 5.0 instance, but you could *not* do the reverse (you could not take a 5.0 application export file and import it into an earlier APEX instance).
Joel
Joel - Thanks. Much as I expected. So what is the recommended upgrade path? As you know, most IT shops have some combination of Dev, UAT/QA and Prod environments. If we upgrade Dev to 5.0 to do regression testing, we can't respond to Production patches or new apps because 5.0 won't install into 4.2.
How is this typically handled? Thanks
Vikas,
I would think that, perhaps, you would test on stage first. If that is successful, you could then carefully test and upgrade production. As long as development remained on 4.2, you would have the ability to propagate changes into production.
Joel
Hi,
interesting features mentioned in the roadmap 5.0 seem to be missing from EA1 (like the new multi-row edit region or multiple interactive reports on a page). Can we expect these in 5.0?
Hi Itornyi,
Great question. The primary purpose of our first Early Adopter of Oracle Application Express 5.0 is to allow our community to work with the biggest feature, the Page Designer, and other features that were ready for evaluation. Our goals for the second Early Adopter are to enhance the features (based upon customer feedback) and include other new functionality outlined in our Statement of Direction. We are striving to deliver on all of the goals for Oracle Application Express 5.0, but please understand that not all may make it into APEX 5.0. Those that don't would receive priority scheduling in the next release of Application Express.
Joel
Hi Joel
And thanks for you and the team for this new version.
Many features makes us great.
Do you have a provisional schedule of deliveries ? (roadmap)
regards
Jean Michel Plancade
Hi Jean Michel,
CY2014. ;)
Joel
I am deeply saddened by the again missing feature of a new multi row region edit feature as well as being able to have more then one multi row region edit on a page. I have been using and promoting Oracle HTMLDB and APEX since beta 1.0. For me it is the one feature missing to really get the more complex Forms applications migrated over to APEX. :-( :-(
Raymond,
For what it's worth, I'm disappointed as well. But don't give up on us yet. We will eventually get there.
Joel
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