Sunday, February 11, 2007

Apex 3.0

I have finally got access to the Apex 3.0 evaluation instance, after some problems reading the email containing my login credentials. It looks good. The "What's New in Apex 3.0" document details lots of interesting new features; however there a couple of things on my "wish list" that are not mentioned there, but have been added. These are not very exciting, but assist the developer:
  • Region Static ID: now you can give your regions an identifier of your choice, rather than having to refer to Apex region IDs like R17346384974630405 in your code. Not only can your own identifiers be easier to read and remember, they won't change when you copy the page.
  • #BUTTON_ID#: this new substitution variable means you can reference the button ID in the button template, and so enable manipulation of the button via Javascript.
Up to now I have devised my own work-arounds for these, but these will make life simpler in future.

No doubt I'll stumble across other goodies as I spend more time playing with, er I mean "evaluating", 3.0