Understanding Websheets

Abstract

Websheets were a new marquee feature of APEX 4.0 and deliver end-user control over both web content and structure. In the early days of APEX, when it was still known as Project Marvel and later as HTML DB, some people thought that end users could use APEX to develop their own applications. Although this was true for simple spreadsheet-like applications, most end users weren’t comfortable building web applications that needed an underlying normalized database together with snippets of SQL, PL/SQL, and JavaScript. Websheets now fulfill the early promise of end-user development for web content like blogs, wikis, and very simple business applications. Websheets give end users this power without forcing them to learn how to normalize a database or write code. Everything in websheets, except a few optional, advanced features, is declarative.