18 Upgrading Application Express Applications

Installing a new release of Oracle Application Express, updates existing applications to the latest release, but does not alter application user interface or application components.

Once you upgrade an Oracle Application Express instance from a previous release, existing applications will work without modification. However, to keep applications maintainable, up-to-date, and to leverage new functionality, perform the following steps after an upgrade or after an application has been imported which was exported from a previous release.

Tip:

At the completion of each task described in this section, Oracle recommends running and thoroughly testing your application.

• Reviewing Release Notes
  After you upgrade from a previous Oracle Application Express release, review the Oracle Application Express Release Notes.
• Refreshing the Universal Theme
  Update an application to use the latest Universal Theme to take advantage of new features, enhancements, and bug fixes as well as styling for new Application Express components.
• Updating App Compatibility Mode
  The Compatibility Mode attribute controls the backward compatibility of the Application Express runtime engine when executing an application.
• Running Application Upgrade
  After upgrading to a new release, the Application Upgrade wizard can help you to bulk update your application to leverage new features instead of deprecated ones or to automatically enable new functionality for existing components.
• Reviewing Old JavaScript
  For applications using jQuery Migrate or legacy JavaScript, review the User Interface, JavaScript settings.

See Also:

Upgrading from a Previous Oracle Application Express Release in Oracle Application Express Installation Guide

18.1 Reviewing Release Notes

After you upgrade from a previous Oracle Application Express release, review the Oracle Application Express Release Notes.

Oracle Application Express Release Notes contain important information not included in the Oracle Application Express documentation. Key sections to review include:

• Changed Behavior - Describes changes in application and component behavior compared to previous releases.

• Deprecated Features - Lists features which Oracle plans to desupport or remove in a future Oracle Application Express release. If a feature is related to application metadata or an API, existing applications can still use the feature, but Oracle strongly recommends that developers start to modify their applications as described in this section. Use Application Express Advisor to scan existing applications for deprecated attributes.

• Deprecated in Previous Releases - Lists features which were deprecated in a previous release but have not been fully removed or desupported from Oracle Application Express. Oracle strongly recommends that developers start to modify their applications as described in this section. Run Oracle Application Express Advisor to scan existing applications for deprecated attributes.

• Desupported Features - Lists features that are no longer available. If a desupported feature is related to application metadata or APIs, then existing applications may not work as they did previously. Oracle recommends modifying the application to replace the feature.

See Also:

Running Advisor to Check Application Integrity

18.2 Refreshing the Universal Theme

Update an application to use the latest Universal Theme to take advantage of new features, enhancements, and bug fixes as well as styling for new Application Express components.

Tip:

Before starting this procedure, Oracle recommends backing up your application by either exporting it or creating a copy. See Exporting an Application and Copying a Database Application.

To update an application to use the latest Universal Theme

1. Navigate to the Themes page:
   1. On the Workspace home page, click the App Builder icon.
   2. Select an application.
   3. Click Shared Components.
   If the Universal Theme is not up-to-date, the Shared Components page displays a banner at the top of the page.
2. Click Refresh Theme.
3. Run and test your application.

See Also:

Updating Universal Theme page in the Universal Theme application

18.3 Updating App Compatibility Mode

The Compatibility Mode attribute controls the backward compatibility of the Application Express runtime engine when executing an application.

Certain runtime behaviors change from release to release. To not break or change the behavior of existing applications, this attribute is automatically set during upgrade if necessary.

To keep applications maintainable, set Compatibility Mode to the latest release after reviewing the changed behavior in the Release Notes and making the necessary changes.

To update the Compatibility Mode within an application:

1. On the Workspace home page, click the App Builder icon.
2. Select an application.

   The Application home page appears.

   
   Description of the illustration edit_app_prop.png
3. From Application home page, you can access the Edit Application Definition page in two ways:
   • Click the Edit Application Properties button.
   • From Shared Components:

     • Click Shared Components.

     • Under Application Logic, click Application Definition Attributes.

   The Edit Application Definition page appears.

4. Click the Definition tab.
5. Properties, Compatibility Mode - To use standard behavior in an application, set the compatibility mode of the application to the current version.
6. Click Apply Changes to save your changes.
7. Run and test your application.

See Also:

Compatibility Mode in Oracle Application Express Release Notes to learn more about Compatibility Mode changes in various releases.

18.4 Running Application Upgrade

After upgrading to a new release, the Application Upgrade wizard can help you to bulk update your application to leverage new features instead of deprecated ones or to automatically enable new functionality for existing components.

The Upgrade Application page displays the available upgrade types and the number of objects that can be upgraded. Click on the number under Candidate Object to review the candidates and upgrade.

To upgrade an application to use new components:

1. Navigate to the Workspace home page.
2. Click the App Builder icon.
3. Select an application.
   The Application home page appears.
4. Click Utilities.
5. Click Upgrade Application.
   The Upgrade Application page appears displaying the available upgrade types and the number of objects that can be upgraded.
6. To review the candidate objects, click the number link under the Candidate Objects column.
7. On the Upgrade page, select the objects to upgrade and click Upgrade.
8. Run and test your application.

18.5 Reviewing Old JavaScript

For applications using jQuery Migrate or legacy JavaScript, review the User Interface, JavaScript settings.

If your application uses jQuery Migrate or legacy JavaScript, review this logic to determine if it is still necessary. Removing this dependency benefits the application by not only ensuring you are only reliant on current, supported technology, but also a performance benefit because Oracle Application Express will not need to load the corresponding library code.

jQuery 3.x breaks compatibility with earlier 2.x versions. For applications that still rely on removed 2.x functionality, you can use the jQuery Migrate plug-in (to include this plug-in, set the Desktop User Interface Details attribute Include jQuery Migrate to Yes).

If your application relies on removed 1.x jQuery APIs, that functionality no longer works as of Oracle Application Express release 18.1. You must update the JavaScript to only use jQuery 3.1 (or greater) APIs. In addition, jQuery UI 1.12.x has changed the folder structure and files that make up the library compared to version 1.10.4. To learn more, see Known Issues for jQuery UI and jQuery Upgrade in Oracle Application Express Release Notes.

To review the User Interface, JavaScript settings:

1. On the Workspace home page, click the App Builder icon.
2. Select an application.
   The Application home page appears.
3. From Application home page, you can access the Edit Application Definition page in two ways:
   • Click the Edit Application Properties button.
   • From Shared Components:

     • Click Shared Components.

     • Under Application Logic, click Application Definition Attributes.

   The Edit Application Definition page appears.

4. Click the User Interface tab.
5. Edit the following settings:
   1. JavaScript, Include Deprecated or Desupported Javascript Functions - Specifies if deprecated or desupported JavaScript functions are included on every page in the application by selecting the appropriate releases. See the Oracle Application Express Release Notes for a list of deprecated and desupported functions.

      Tip:

      If you are confident your application does not contain any references to deprecated or desupported functions, do not select any checkboxes to reduce the overall size of the JavaScript files loaded
   2. JavaScript, Include jQuery Migrate - Specifies if the jQuery Migrate plug-in should be included on every page in the application.

      The plug-in restores deprecated features and behaviors of jQuery so that old JavaScript code and jQuery plug-ins will still run properly with the jQuery version loaded by Application Express.

      Tip:

      If you are confident your application does not use a jQuery plug-in and does not contain any references to deprecated jQuery features, disable Include jQuery Migrate to reduce the overall size of the JavaScript files loaded.
6. Click Apply Changes to save your changes.
7. Run and test your application.