Deploy the Application and Publish a PDF File

Once you have developed in, Oracle Visual Builder, the web application with the functionality that you want it to present to end users, you can stage and publish the application so that you can test it and/or distribute it to end users.

Stage and Publish a Web Application

You stage and publish visual applications from the Visual Builder home page. You must stage an app before you can publish it. When an app is published, the staged app becomes the live version, and the app settings defined for the staged app are applied to the published app. A Visual Builder web application cannot be modified after it's published; you would need to create a new version and stage and publish it again. The runtime environment provides a proxy server that your apps can use to help with authorizing calls to services. You can bypass the proxy if you choose, for example, by using the direct authentication mechanism in your app to call services.

To stage and publish an app, deploy the app's resources to the same Visual Builder runtime environment that provides services used by the staged and published apps. The Visual Builder runtime environment contains the server that delivers pages to web applications, and services your web and mobile apps might use to access data, including the database used to store data and the proxy server for managing connections to REST services. The runtime is used when you are designing apps in the Designer and for staged and published applications. The runtime also integrates Oracle Identity Cloud Service (IDCS) to authenticate and authorize app users.

When you stage an app, the following happens:

1. The application's resources are copied to a directory on the server.
2. The database schema in the staging database is updated with changes from the development database.
3. A URL for accessing the staged web app or downloading the mobile app is created.
4. The web and mobile apps access the services and resources provided by the staged application.

When you publish an app, the following happens:

1. The directory containing the staged application's resources becomes the live app. The staged app is not accessible after it is published.
2. The database schema in the live database is updated with changes from the staging database. You can choose if and how data should be migrated from the staging database to the live database.
3. A new URL for accessing the live web app or downloading the mobile app the first time you publish the app is created. For web apps, this is the permanent URL for accessing it.
4. Web and mobile apps access the services and resources provided by the published app.

Stage a Visual Application

You can stage unpublished versions of your application at any time from the home page or from the main menu. The entire process of staging a visual application is beyond the scope of this playbook but you can find complete instructions in "Stage a Visual Application", accessible from the "Explore More" topic elsewhere in this playbook.

Publish a Visual Application

You can publish a staged version of your application at any time from its home page or from the main menu. The entire process of staging a visual application is beyond the scope of this playbook but you can find complete instructions in "Publish a Visual Application", accessible from the "Explore More" topic elsewhere in this playbook.