Introduction

In APEX 4.0, Oracle introduced the plug-in feature. A plug-in is an extension to the existing functionality of APEX. The idea behind plug-ins is to make life easier for developers. Plug-ins are reusable, and can be exported and imported. In this way it is possible to create a functionality which is available to all APEX developers. And installing and using them without the need of having a knowledge of what's inside the plug-in.

APEX translates settings from the APEX builder to HTML and JavaScript. For example, if you created a text item in the APEX builder, APEX converts this to the following code (simplified):

<input type="text" id="P12_NAME" name="P12_NAME" value="your name">

When you create an item type plug-in, you actually take over this conversion task of APEX, and you generate the HTML and JavaScript code yourself by using PL/SQL procedures. That offers a lot of flexibility because now you can make this code generic, so that it can be used for more items.

The same...