In APEX 4.0, Oracle introduced the plug-in. A plug-in is an extension to the existing functionality of APEX. The idea behind plug-ins is to make life easier for developers. Plug-ins are reusable and can be exported and imported. In this way it is possible to create functionality which is available to all APEX developers. It is also possible to install and use them without having knowledge of what is inside the plug-in.

APEX is actually a program that converts your settings from the APEX builder to HTML and JavaScript. For example, if you created a text item in the APEX builder, APEX converts this to the following code (simplified):

<input type="text" id="P12_NAME" name="P12_NAME" value="your name">

When you create an item type plug-in, you actually take over this conversion task of APEX and you generate the HTML and JavaScript code yourself by using PL/SQL procedures. That offers a lot of flexibility because now you can make this code generic so that it can be used for more items.

The same goes for region type plug-ins. A region is a container for forms, reports, and such. The region can be a div or a HTML table. By creating a region type plug-in, you create a region yourself with the possibility to add more functionality to the region.

There are four types of plug-ins:

In this chapter, we will discuss all four types of plug-ins.