APEX Version/Source control

Question

Hi,
I would like to know how other people are managing this. We have developed our own way which works 99% of the time however there are some flaws.
We require that more than one user be working on an application at a time and that these different pages can be released to production at different times.
We have some pretty large applications, some business critical.
1) We export the full application into our CVS application
2) We export each page individually and assign module numbers as we do with apps forms etc
3) Initially the full application is released to prod
4) Any subsequent page changes are done to the page export and that page only is released. The revision is increased on that page module.
5) If any changes to shared components are made then the full application is released.
All updates are stored in packages which we manage as per our normal apps packages without any problems. Our problems are with apex applications.
Let's say user A has exported page 1 of an application and is working on a large change.
User B is also working on a very small change which involves adding a new item to a list.
User B wishes to release his change but cannot do so at page level because of the shared component - he must release either full app or do a separate export for that component.
He cannot release the full app because user A is still using it.
The only thing he can do is do an export of the components and then import that. This is then not version controlled. It is not acceptable for us to have to export and manage every single component individually (I know you can do them as one whole but then if two users are modifying shared components then the issue arises again!)
There is always a mis-match between the application full export and the pages. If we ever had to recover an app, our strategy is to install the full app and then the individual pages. This isn't ideal however so long as we keep things up to date then we have to accept it.
Does anyone have any better procedures than this?? With APEX becoming more and more popular then I believe it needs to become a little more formal in this area. Or perhaps I am just missing something?
I've read the thread Source/version control with APEX? but it doesn't really relate to the issue above.

Answer 1

Hello Chris,
I'm not sure how you organized your project, but a typical APEX project for me has different components:
- PL/SQL where all business logic is in
- External JavaScript files to do some client side things
- External CSS files to handle the look and feel
- APEX application(s)
So for all of the above you want source control. We use Subversion. For the first three (plsql, javascript, css) I guess it's trivial how do this as they are just files.
For APEX you can export your application every night (and even split it into different components if you want). So that gives you one or more files as well which can be loaded in Subversion.
If you want to do team development in APEX; we use following features:
- Locking of Page
- Build Options
- Entering Comments
If it's a very big project you might want to split your APEX application in multiple ones which can work together (same Authentication scheme, same Theme etc. by Publish and Subscribe option).
APEX itself is also build in APEX, and they use different applications as well, but you don't see it in APEX itself, you just see it by the changing APP number in the url.
I'm not sure how familiar you are with all of the above, but this is roughly the way we do it.
Hope that helps and give you a clearer view.
Regards,
Dimitri
http://dgielis.blogspot.com/
http://www.apex-evangelists.com/