Recently, I had an opportunity to create several new application features in Oracle APEX and Oracle Forms. I found myself intrigued by the differences and similarities in their approaches. This sparked the idea to share my insights through this blog.

That's why I created a simple Departments-Employees master-detail report using APEX and Oracle Forms. I wanted to do it as much automatically as possible, using default settings.

Rather than advocating for one tool over the other, I aim to show you a step-by-step guide to create this report using both tools.

No judging, just a tutorial and a lot of screenshots.

Share your thoughts in the comments if you want.

Enjoy reading!

Initial setup

Oracle database with tables: "DEPARTMENTS" and "EMPLOYEES" with FOREIGN KEY relation by column DEPARTMENT_ID + inserted some sample rows.
Oracle Forms 12.2
Oracle APEX 23.2

Oracle Forms

Create a new form

Open Oracle Form Builder and create a new Form Module by choosing "File -> New -> Form"

Result is:

Create DEPARTMENTS data block

Create a new data block by choosing "Data Blocks" and green "plus" button

Pick "use the Data Block Wizard" and press OK
The Wizard screen will show up
Select the type of data block to create.

Choose the parent table and columns you want to include in the data block

Give a name to your data block

Create DEPARTMENTS layout

Create a data block and call Layout Wizard
Select a canvas type to put the data block on. I chose default "content" (sounds a little bit like APEX's Static Content region isn't it ?:) )
Choose the data block columns you want to be included in your canvas frame

Choose prompt (label), width and height of your columns

Select layout style "tabular"

Choose the frame title, the number of records to be displayed, the distance between records and the optional scrollbar

The first data block for the master table Departments is created. This is a preview of what I created (but it's like a preview of what I did similar to what you see in APEX Builder)

Create EMPLOYEES data block (detail report)

Choose the data block wizard again, and pick "table and view"

Choose the existing EMPLOYEES table and all columns to be included in the data block

Create a relationship to the parent DEPARTMENTS table. Forms are smart and have an "auto-join data block" option
Table DEPARTMENTS was automatically selected, but I had to choose what columns are used to join both tables - DEPARTMENT_ID
Give a name to a new data block and call Layout Wizard again

Create EMPLOYEES layout

Select a canvas to put the data block on. I will pick CANVAS4 (automatically created for DEPARTMENTS earlier)
Choose data block items to be shown on the canvas
Pick a label, width and height
Select "tabular" layout style
Name a frame, set the number of records, distance and scrollbar
That is the final result (a developer view)
And a final view that the end user will see