4.2 About Editable Interactive Grids

Editable interactive grids possess all the same functionality of regular interactive grids, plus some additional functions in the interface and the customization menus. You can add, edit, delete, copy, paste, and refresh much of the underlying data in an editable grid.

Description of the illustration ig_editable_interactive_grid2.png

About Editable Interactive Grids

With an editable interactive grid, you can change or update data directly in the form. The in-line editing allows selecting, adding, and changing a grid's contents. Interactive grids can have other views, including details, icon, and chart views. Editing only applies to the grid view of interactive grid.

Editable Cells

You can change the contents of an individual cell in real time by double-clicking a cell.

You can also go into Edit Mode by:

• Clicking Edit
• Doubleclicking a data cell
• Pressing Enter or F2 while focus is in a data cell

Once you are in edit mode, use Tab to move to the next cell, and Shift+Tab to go back to the previous cell.

To leave edit mode:

• Click Edit
• Press Escape

Editable Rows

The primary way of adding new content to an editable interactive grid is by adding new rows. You can use the Row Actions menu to edit an individual row, or the Selection Actions menu to edit multiple rows at once.

Copy, Cut, Paste, and Paste Insert

The Selection Actions menu contains clipboard features, including Copy, Cut, Paste, and Paste Insert, which inserts data rather than overwriting existing data. Standard operating system keyboard shortcuts for copy, cut, and paste work in interactive grid. You can copy and paste between interactive grids or even within an interactive grid. In addition to these commands, editable interactive grids also support dragging data from a spreadsheet to the interactive grid. Hold down the Shift key while dragging to insert.

Interactive grid has two selection modes: Row Selection and Cell Selection. Row selection, which selects multiple rows, is the default. You can change to cell selection by using Actions, Selection, or by pressing F8.

Copying data works even when the grid is not editable.

When pasting data, ensure the data is appropriate for the columns being pasted into. For example, if the column is a number field, do not paste text into it. While you can copy and paste LOV data within the same editable interactive grid, copying and pasting the display value may not work, since the display value for a LOV column typically differs from what APEX stores internally.

Tip:

Paste (and drag and drop) only work with source applications that put tabular data on the clipboard in an appropriate format. Many applications use HTML format, which works well.

Browsers differ in how they implement access to the clipboard. You may need to grant permission to your browser in order to paste data.

All clipboard features only work when not in edit mode. In edit mode, some item types (including text field and text area) have their own clipboard support, but only applicable to the cell being edited. You can only paste into writable data cells. If you paste more data than fits on a page, the extra rows are not pasted unless you are on the last page of the data, and then APEX inserts new rows for the data. If you paste into a control break and there is more data than fits, APEX inserts new rows before the end of the break.