Publishing Dynamic Data on the Web

You have all sorts of useful data sitting in your database. But how do you make that data available across your organization? And how do you keep that data fresh and up-to-date?

Oracle Portal includes all the tools you need for building highly functional applications that display your data to the people who need it (and who are authorized to view it), and allowing those users to update and add to that data—all from the comfort of their own Web browser.

In this section of the Quick Tour, you will learn about the Oracle Portal features that support application building.

• The Building Blocks of an Application
• Wizard-based, Declarative Design Environment
• Keeping Track of Your Applications
• SQL*Plus for the Web
• Publishing Components as Portlets

The Building Blocks of an Application

An application is a collection of related components that insert, update, and publish data from a database. With Oracle Portal, you can build different types of components to publish data in a wide variety of ways.

• Forms display data in a form-like interface where users can add new information, or update or delete existing data.
• Reports display data in a structured format.
• Charts display data in a graphical format.
• Calendars display data by date.
• Dynamic Pages display dynamic data in otherwise static HTML pages.
• Hierarchies display data in a hierarchical format with drill-down capabilities.
• Menus provide navigation to other components through hypertext links, optionally protected by database roles.
• Frame Drivers display data in one area of a page based on user selections made in another area.

Many of these components can include customization forms, where users can restrict the data displayed by the component to the specific data that interests them.

In addition, Oracle Portal provides two other component types that you can use to increase the functionality of your applications.

• Links enable your users to navigate from one component directly to another, optionally passing values to restrict the data displayed in the second component.
• Lists of Values offer your users a choice of values for fields in components or customization forms.

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Wizard-based, Declarative Design Environment

So, how do you build these applications and components? You need to know all about programming and SQL, right? Wrong! Oracle Portal provides easy-to-use wizards that enable you to quickly build robust application components, regardless of your programming knowledge. Oracle Portal's component-building wizards guide you step-by-step through the process of building forms, reports, charts, and all the other component types.

You don't even need to go through the whole wizard. As soon as you see the Finish button you can click it and let Oracle Portal finish the job for you. You can always go back later and edit the component to if it doesn't quite meet your requirements.

But does that mean that you are restricted to building only simple applications? Not at all. If you are familiar with PL/SQL or JavaScript, you can add your own code to enhance your components even further. That's the advantage of Oracle Portal's highly declarative application design environment—non-programmers can create the simple applications that they need by themselves, freeing up experienced developers to create more complex applications.

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Keeping Track of Your Applications

With your applications very probably containing many individual components, it is vital that you are able to easily keep track of all those components.

The Navigator is an easy-to-use tool that enables you to quickly access all the components of an application in a single place. Within the Navigator you can perform all the tasks necessary to manage an application's components, including:

• Create new components.
• Edit or delete components.
• Grant access to components.
• Access additional component management tools, e.g., export, copy, rename.

You can also use the Navigator to perform tasks on an entire application. For example, what if you want to move your application to a different server? You don't want to have to export each component individually; it would take far too long. In the Navigator you can export all the components in the application in a single operation.

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SQL*Plus for the Web

Before you can even begin to build applications, you need database objects (tables, views, procedures, etc.) to store the data exposed by those applications.

The Navigator also provides access to all the data sources in your database. You can use the Navigator to create a wide variety of new database objects for your applications. Or, if your database objects already exist, the Navigator offers you the ability to examine the properties of those objects or the data within them, and even edit or drop objects, regardless of how they were created. All this takes place within a familiar Web environment.

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Publishing Components as Portlets

As well as all the other advantages of building your applications with Oracle Portal, you get the additional benefit of being able to easily incorporate them into your portals. Because the page building and application building tools are pieces of the same product, they are very closely integrated.

Simply select a couple of check boxes and your application's components are available to be added to any page. It's as easy as that. You don't need to write any special code—Oracle Portal takes care of all that for you. Other users can then add your components to their pages and have access to the application right at their fingertips, along with all their other most frequently accessed tools. Adding components to a portal in this way is an extremely effective way of providing a simple, easy-to-use entry point to a more complex application.

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