Roel Hartman - Oracle Application Express for Mobile Web Applications

Oracle Application Express for Mobile Web Applications

Roel Hartman
Christian Rokitta
David Peake

Oracle Application Express for Mobile Web Applications

Copyright 2013 by Roel Hartman, Christian Rokitta, and David Peake

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ISBN-13 (pbk): 978-1-4302-4947-4

ISBN-13 (electronic): 978-1-4302-4948-1

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Contents at a Glance

Contents

Foreword

When I was first introduced to a predecessor of Oracle Application Express (APEX) in 2001, building web applications for mobile devices wasnt something that many businesses were actively pursuing or even considering. At best, there were some efforts under way to make information available on mobile devices through protocols like WAP (Wireless Access Protocol) using languages like WML (Wireless Markup Language). And for most companies, even the idea of running their business applications using a desktop web browser was still fairly new. Companies that did make the jump to browser-based applications had to contend with different browsers and a general lack of support for web standards. With Internet Explorer 6 introduced that same year, and peaking at 95% market share the following year, most business then simply started building for that platform.

Twelve years on, things have gotten much more complex, yet also much easier in many respects. On the desktop side, there are now several popular browsers that need to be supported by businesses, with Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Firefox each slightly above or below a third of the overall usage share. And on the mobile side, there is an ever-growing variety of supported browsers, screen sizes, and supported features to contend with. Thankfully, most users now have modern web browsers installed on their desktops as well as mobile devices, which handle web standards quite well, thus freeing up time for front-end developers to focus their attention on user experience and optimizing page layout for different screen sizes and overall performance. And thanks to popular JavaScript libraries like Modernizr and Selectivizr, and concepts like progressive enhancement, even users of older browsers are no longer left out in the dark and will be able to use modern web apps, albeit with reduced visual fidelity in some cases.