Futureproof and dynamically created button

Question

I have been looking solution how to make buttons dynamically so that I can fetch dynamically values for buttons:
- value,onclick,class,type,request
This excellent page has very closely what I am looking: http://www.laureston.ca/2012/04/20/simple-workflow-implementation-in-apex/
but I have challenges getting the escaped special characters to work especially for the apex.submit - part.
Maybe that is just because 'copy-pasting' the plsql-region code from www-page didn't work out of the box
Application Express 4.2.3.00.08
Because dealing with the escape chars make the page easily break and there are now the new dynamic actions, I need to check what would be futureproof way of dynamically creating the buttons.
If this is anyway the most practical way to proceed, then where I should look for further information about htp.p(....) button creation examples with rich escapes?
Made small test page, where you can see one of my trials trying to get the escapes right.
user test
pass test
http://apex.oracle.com/pls/apex/f?p=1403:2
rgrds paavo
--below the code for dynamic plsql region -- very likely the escape chars are not copypasted and shown correctly:
DECLARE
--PL/SQL Dynamic Region
--thisworks too??
  v_showme varchar2(3000);
BEGIN
  for c in (select sysdate||'asdasd;asdasas'  as button_label
            , 'PIMREQUEST'  as button_request
            , 'button-gray' as button_class
            , 'button'      as button_type
            , 'P38_XPIMPOM' as button_setme
            , 'JUUSTOA'     as button_setme_value
            from dual) loop
htp.p('<button value='''||c.button_label||''' onclick=\"apex.submit('''||c.button_request||''');'' class='''||c.button_class||''' type='''||c.button_type||'''>
<span>'||c.button_label||'</span>
</button>');
  end loop;
END;

Answer 1

Hi Paavo,
Your right about the button_id. It's value comes from an input parameter. The button won't show up in the "When button pressed"-list_of_values. This is not only because you write the id yourself, but more because the entire button is created on the fly. The button isn't stored internal in an apex table, that's why it won't show up in a list of values.
If you want to trigger a dynamic action with the button, you can use a jQuery selector as triggering element. Here you can refer to the button_id using the '#' as jQuery marker for ID, e.g. '#myButton'.
What the button that you render does, depends on what you put in the p_link parameter. A normal save button would submit the page with condition 'SAVE', you can do that by setting p_link to 'apex.submit("SAVE")'. If the button should do a page redirect, you set p_link to 'http://www.page2go.com', or whatever url you wish to redirect to.
The text you put in the button attributes is added as HTML element definition, so if you set p_attrs to 'alt="alternate text"', that will be added to the html of your button.
An example for a conditional button call could be:
      if p_order_id is null
      then
        create_button
          ( p_id        => 'newOrder'
          , p_link    => 'javascript:apex.submit("CREATE"');'
          , p_label     => 'New Order'
          , p_css       => 'customButton'
      else
        create_button
          ( p_id        => 'updateOrder'
          , p_link    => 'javascript:apex.submit("SAVE"');'
          , p_label     => 'Update Order'
          , p_css       => 'customButton'
      end if;     
This would create a 'CREATE' button for a new order (p_order_id is null), or a 'SAVE' button for an existing order.
Regarding your ps: if you mean can you conditionaly create a button using dynamic actions? Then the answer would be yes. Yes you can use the create_button procedure in a dynamic action, however by writing it as stored procedure in the database, or in a database package, you can easily reuse your code and still have only one version of your procedure that you need to maintain.
Regards,
Vincent
http://vincentdeelen.blogspot.com