Copy Paste On Tabular Form

Question

I have a great need to produce an APEX (version 2.2.1) tabular form in
which users would be able to do Excel-like copy/paste of tabular form
fields from one part of the form to another.
For example, a user would want to somehow (ideally highlight with the mouse - not sure if this is possible) select the first 2 rows of the form and then
copy/paste these to, say, rows 7 and 8, overwriting any values in
those form fields. Or, select field 2 (this would be on row 2) under column A and then copy/paste this field to, say, fields 3 through 10 under the same column A.
I am currently trying to do this using javascript, but am not sure how to go
about it and would appreciate any help or advice.
Thank you very much.
Elie

Answer 1

Hello Vikas.
Thank you very much for creating your sample page. I liked the way you're
duplicating entire rows in the form.
I'm sorry for not responding sooner. I have been under the gun, sort-to-speak
at my work place. I've been playing with another tool (explained below) to see
if it could help me out with my application.
The issue before me is that users need the flexibility of an Excel like interface
in which they are able to do any sort of copy/paste/fill operations as desired
prior to submitting their changes to Oracle. This kind of functionality is what
I've been trying to, if not duplicate, at least get part way there in Apex. And
this is what spurred me on to post my question to you and to this Forum.
I went ahead and dabbled my way through all sorts of javascript (learned an awful lot, I might add) and have come up with a sample tabular form in which I'm able
to copy a single form field to any selected row / column combination in the form.
I've copied my app ( App 19379, Page 12 ) up to the Apex forum.
Here's the link:
http://apex.oracle.com/pls/otn
Workspace = play
Login username = [email protected]
Login password = playtoo
Originally, this app brought up a second page (Paste Page) as a popup in which
users could select which columns and rows they wanted to copy a form field to.
They would then click a "Go" button on this Paste popup page. This "Go" button
would then run a javascript function "do_paste()" in the calling page. This function
would copy the form field to the designated columns and rows. This worked fine.
However, I wanted a solution in which everything is entirely on a single page
rather than having a popup page appear.
And so, I modified my page 12 so that the user could designate the target
columns and rows entirely on the same page (page 12), and so, eliminate
the popup page.
This works to a point.
The user first clicks "Copy". This displays (via a javascript function) the
contents of the selected form field in a text box. This also displays the
target fields "From Column", "To Column", "From Row", "To Row".
The Copy button is replaced with a "Go" button. The user then designates
target columns and rows and clicks "Go". This causes the selected form
field to be copied to the designated targets.
Unfortunately, clicking the "Go" button also causes the page to be submitted.
This submit operation causes the form to be refreshed which then completely
erases the copy action and the form ends up with the original data. The user
does not see that anything has happened. However, under the wraps, my
javascript do_paste() function was invoked but then it's result was reversed
by the submit action.
I do not know how to get around this submit action (which refreshes the form,
thereby reversing my do_paste() function). I could, of course, bring back the
popup page. The paste does work with that. I was just hoping I could do the
copy/paste all on one page.
In any case, this represents my current state with respect to an Apex solution
to my need.
I did in the meantime find another interesting solution to my problem.
Years ago in another job I had worked with a tool called Oraxcel (now
called SQLXL - www.oraxcel.com). This tool is an add-in into Excel and provides an API between Excel and Oracle (as well as various other dbms systems: mysql, sql server, db2, etc.).
Well, I downloaded a free trial copy and have been playing with it.
In a nutshell, I can now allow users to continue using Excel to do
copy/paste/fill operations and provide [ via VBA buttons and macros
that interface with Oracle - actually it is using Oracle's product "Oracle
Objects For OLE (OO4O) ] them the ability to upload the excel data (new and
modified and deleted rows) to Oracle tables, download from Oracle tables (from a package/ref cursor or a table), create Excel LOVs that are dynamically populated from Oracle, and provide validations run from a package and display error
messages to the Excel page.
In effect, Excel becomes the "front end" to my Oracle schema.
As it turns out, in my particular application, Apex pages still play a critical role
as users need to interface with these as well. However, the SQLXL product
appears to be a neat solution allowing users Excel like flexibility to copy,
paste, fill, and other operations that Excel does so well while still interfacing
with Oracle.
Am still playing with this tool and built a small "proof of concept".
In any case, thank you again so much for your help and your sample page.
I would like to incorporate the neat way you're duplicating rows in the form
as I believe this will come in handy in naother APEX app I'm currently
working on in another project at my work place.
Elie