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Feature Request FR-4972
Product Area Application Builder
Status OPEN

2 Voters

Support APEX shortcuts in APEX Item help text attribute

jkerr Public · Aug 2 2026

Idea Summary
Support the use of APEX Shared Component Shortcuts in APEX Item help text attribute, and the ability to reference the current item name.

Use Case
Enables creation of an Oracle PL/SQL function in DB that accepts an item name and returns help text by querying a table with help meta-data, or table column comments.  Makes it possible to move maintenance of Page Item help text to an APEX Application user interface reducing the need to require code changes to update help information and make help text uniform across the application. And, by making it easier for a non-developer to maintain the information it is more likely to be done on a wider basis.  Particularly where a Page Item Name coding standard of P[page number]_Table_Abbreviation_Column_Name is followed.

Preferred Solution (Optional)
Use logic similar to enabling Shortcuts in Item Post Text and referencing current page item name in Help Text.

This idea is open.

Comments

Comments

  • fac586 OP 7 days ago

    This was previously a feature that may or may not have been fully documented/supported and was working up until APEX 4.2.

    Shortcuts are a great feature that are underutilised due to the restrictions on where they can used and lack of support for fully parameterising them for effective reuse.

    There have been various requests to extend the availability of Shortcuts, but these haven't gained any traction with Oracle. I had in mind a program of 3 shortcut-related enhancements, each of which would be useful in itself, and combined would have turned Shortcuts into a highly reusable and flexible way to output contextual or repeatable content. That's now on hold because I think that Template Components, Template Directives, Text Message substitution strings, PL/SQL Content regions, and more flexible layout options now fulfil many of the use cases I envisaged for enhanced Shortcuts. I'll wait and see whether those needs still exist in designing the next project.

    I also suspect that there are good reasons relating to performance to explain why Shortcuts are not more widely supported.

    However, see the comments on FR-122 for an existing way to meet this request using Text Messages rather than Shortcuts.