A Question or two you might find yourself asking when you are new to FOEX and don’t really know it is… Is FOEX a bunch of Plugins, a Framework, or is FOEX a replacement for APEX?
Well, the truth is…
… FOEX initially started out as a handful of standalone Plugins for Oracle APEX to encapsulate Ext JS Components like a Datagrid, Tree or TreeGrid. But.. as time progressed and new requirements surfaced it became clear that this wasn’t enough anymore as these components needed to interact with each other as well as requiring other widgets to be built to also interact with. So we started to add Plugin by Plugin to fill in the Gaps.
Currently we hold about 50 Plugins, some as big as a Datagrid, others as small as a Input Field or a dynamic action.
Still, all these Plugins are defined and created using the Oracle APEX Plugins interface and rely on the Power and simplicity of APEX and the Oracle Database. Applications are still built with the Oracle APEX Application Builder and of course use the standard Runtime Engine of Oracle APEX.
All we are doing is leveraging every single possible Feature that APEX Plugins and Dynamic Actions provide.
That leads to 50+ Plugins (with many more to follow) that can interact with each other and collectively become a bigger thing and by that become: a Framework. However you can still use one or a handful of plugins rather than the entire framework to enhance your standard APEX application e.g. like adding an editable grid to your APEX page instead of using a tabular form.
So whenever we say Framework, you know now that these are basically Plugins for Oracle APEX that can interact with each other and therefore can play together nicely.
Maybe, we should put the terms Plugin and Framework aside and call it what it is: FOEX.
So the formula APEX + Ext JS = FOEX, which equates to Building beautiful and secure Applications amazingly FAST!
Don’t take our word for it, try it, and see for yourself…