Defaulting Values and Read-Only Items?

Question

Hi All,
Brand new to APEX and trying to think of ways to get a few things working for me hoping you might have some suggestions.
1. Want to have a few items default upon the creation of a record.
- Created Date - have a column/page item that I would like to default/auto populate with the current date
- Create by - would like to have column/page item default with the login id of the user
2. Dynamically make page/items read-only.
- Once a record is created I would like to ensure that the only person able to edit the record would be the creator. I assume I can use the Read Only feature at the item level but am unsure of the syntax to use to make the item read-only for only the user who created/or is creating the record. Since I would like to be defaulting the "Create by" (see question 1) column to the login id of the user this should be plausible just not sure of the syntax to reference the current user id.
3. Passing a value to to bind variable.
- I have build a basic page with an Interactive Report and have made one of the columns in the Interactive report 'linkable' which launches a BI Publisher report by calling a Report Query. Currently in my report query I have hard coded a value in the SQL statements where clause to prove the theory works what I am struggling with is a declarative way to pass the value that I am clicking to a bind variable in my SQL statements where clause in the query.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions and appreciate your patience with an APEX newbie .. about 2 days old at this juncture. The more specific you can be on what to do and where to go is greatly appreciated.
For those interested in have greater control with your report layout BI Publisher looks to be a great options. I was able to getting by reviewing [how to document:|http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/database/application_express/howtos/howto_master_detail_pdf.html] on OTN. My challenge some in the fact that rather then simply being on the exact row that I want reported on I would like to simply click on a link in a list and pass that value as the bind variable.
JES

Answer 1

Hi -
"1. Want to have a few items default upon the creation of a record."
This is typically done in a trigger at the db level.
CREATE OR REPLACE TRIGGER mytrigger
BEFORE INSERT OR UPDATE
ON mytable
REFERENCING NEW AS new OLD AS old
FOR EACH ROW
BEGIN
  if (:new.CREATED_DATE is null)
    then
      :new.CREATED_DATE := sysdate;
    end if;
  if (:new.CREATED_USER is null)
    then
      :new.CREATED_USER := nvl(v('APP_USER'),user);
    end if;
  :new.UPDATED_DATE := sysdate;
  :new.UPDATED_USER := nvl(v('APP_USER'),user);
END CREATE OR REPLACE TRIGGER mytrigger;"2. Dynamically make page/items read-only."
See 'APP_USER' in the Apex docs...
"3. Passing a value to to bind variable."
This is done in the report configuration in the Apex UI...
Session State Include application and session information.
You might want to consider reviewing some of the Apex docs and tutorials, I recommend this:
[http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E14373_01/appdev.32/e13367/toc.htm]
Good luck.