Native Web based

APEX, in all its previous forms, was always designed to operate in the Web environment. The final product of the APEX Application Builder is HTML code that can be run directly on any Web browser that supports the HTML 4.0 and above standard. APEX Application Builder also incorporates special features into generated applications, as a direct result of operating in the Web environment. Further on, we will discuss APEX architecture and its main features, but for now we will mention session state and Optimistic Locking, as distinguished Web environment features which help us overcome the stateless nature of this environment.

The APEX Application Builder fully supports CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and JavaScript, as integrated components of APEX applications. That includes built-in CSS files as part of a wider page layout and format mechanism, which we'll address later in the book, and a JavaScript library. The JavaScript library also includes, among a variety of general and APEX related functions, an AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) framework. This allows even novice developers to utilize this advanced technology, and produce high quality applications, compatible with the latest trends in the market like Web 2.0, etc.