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Feature Request FR-3924
Product Area Application Builder
Status CLOSED

2 Voters

LOV Column Mapping Viewer/Editor

cwu Public · Jul 23 2024

Idea Summary
The "LOV Column Mapping Viewer/Editor" suggested (See attached Picture) is for "Creation/Updating/Viewing" of the text string pf "Additional Outputs" for a "Popup LOV" APEX page item, in case the LOV will be associated with more than one APEX page items. Currently, the developer must manually enter the string, which is time consuming, tedious, and easy to make mistakes. Most importantly, the readability of the string within the APEX designer is very poor, which makes code reviewing difficult (one would copy the contents and put it in a text editor for viewing/editing). The proposed "LOV Column Mapping Viewer/Editor" would make the complicated LOV composing rapidly at a much higher accuracy! 

Use Case
The "LOV Column Mapping Viewer/Editor" would be used for developer to compose the text string of "Additional Outputs" for a "Popup LOV" APEX page item. It is only needed if a LOV contains/populates more than one data element. It is also used in code viewing to enhance the readability on the string of "Additional Outputs".

The same ideal could be easily applied into following 2 situations: (1) The Viewer/Editor for "Affected Elements" for Dynamic Action of "Set Value". In this case, the tabular contains only one column. (2) The Viewer/Editor for "Affected Elements" for Dynamic Action of "Disable" or "Enable". Again, in this case, the tabular contains only one column.

Preferred Solution (Optional)
To implement this function, a small button would be implemented at the end of the field of "Additional Outputs" for a "Popup LOV" APEX page item (or at the end of "Affected Elements" for Dynamic Actions of "Set Value", "Disable" or "Enable"). Upon pressing the column, the system would populate the "Viewer/Editor" with the comma delimited string value (if there is any). If the current value does not exist, the system would populate the "LOV Column Name" (for "LOV Column Mapping Viewer/Editor") based on the SQL for the LOV. The developer could either enter the "Return Item Name" manually or select the page item from a list.

Certainly, implementation of the suggested function would not eliminate the current manual entry capability.

We reviewed this idea carefully, and while it was interesting, we concluded that it is unlikely to make its way into APEX in the foreseeable future.

Comments

Comments

  • fac586 OP 1.7 years ago

    The simple solution is to make the UI control for all such properties a multi-line text area instead of a one line text item.

  • vincent morneau Admin OP 1.7 years ago

    This is a good idea and it would be useful to Popup LOV with additional columns. However now with other modern items like Combobox and Select One/Many that would also benefit from additional columns, we would need to make this generic. Closing for now, but hope we can revisit later.

  • cwu OP 1.7 years ago

    @vincent morneau Vincent: Thank you very much for keeping this idea of mine for your future consideration. Just wanted to let you know this function existed in Oracle Form Designer. While converting out enterprise application in Oracle Form (over 500 forms) to APEX, we spent a lot of time for LOV conversion, specifically on entering/reviewing the "Additional Outputs" for a "Popup LOV" item, as our application contains huge number of LOVs with additional columns.

    Understanding implementing this idea takes some effort/time, the alternate approach: “making the UI control for all such properties a multi-line text area instead of a one-line text item”, suggested by fac586 under my posting, would be easily and quickly implemented.  Wonder if this change could be included in the near future releases?