How to change page type after the fact

Question

In the application builder, I click on an application and choose Details in View.
I get the list of pages I have in my app.
The page type column has:
Interactive Report
Navigation Form
Dynamic HTML
DML Form
Chart
Report
How do I change this column after a page has long been created?
Specifically, I want to the change "Dynamic HTML" to something else.
Why?
Because on this particular page, tabs do not work (error: page not found).
Buttons created among a regions items do not work (same error, page not found).
I need to use tab and buttons to go from this page to other pages.
And I am suspecting the page type may have something to do with my problem.
Thanks in advance for any pointers.

Answer 1

Thanks for your consideration!
For my current app, a clinical management system,
I'd like to have, say, 1000 items.
(For other applications I am thinking about, but have no time,
nor expertise for now, I'd need millions of items,
each corresponding to a pixel of a graphic.)
Who cares if the current computers are too slow?
How about make it a parameter that can be changed
per app or per apex installation, and default to 100?
Some forms can be broken up logically, as people have helpfully suggested,
and I did follow that advise on some pages.
But other forms cannot be. People have put a lot of thought on designing
those forms, they are government or legal standards (or at least something more important
than computer performance), and people have been trained
with those original forms.
Consider the hoops I have to jump through to get more than 100 items
on a page I am currently working on:
Generate the items (INPUT type="text" and INPUT type="checkbox") using PLSQL
lots of htp.p('<INPUT ...>').
a JavaScript function to collect all the values on the page
and make up an XML string. submits this string to an application
process, and application process parses the XML string and does insert or update.
Another JavaScript to populate the items based on the current values of a row,
using an application process to retrieve the columns of a row.
There are about 150 items on this particular page.
All these are ok, because I was aware of the restriction of 100.
And because I wanted to generate my own HTML to mimic the original
form anyway.
Then things started to go weird.
I need buttons to go back to another page. and I use tabs.
Buttons to go back from this page,
when a button is created with "Create a button in a region position",
it works fine.
When a button is created with "Create a button displayed among this region's items",
it does not work, and I get HTTP 404, https://.../apex/wwv_flow.accept, page cannot be found.
But I need a button to work like the one created with "Create a button in a region position",
but displayed like the one created with "Create a button displayed among this region's items".
This is still not too bad. I saw the difference between the two kinds of buttons.
I copied the HTML code for the button "Create a button in a region position",
and used a display only item to create a Back button where I wanted:
'<table class="t15Button" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0"><tr><td class="t15L"><img src="/i/themes/theme_15/button-l.gif"/></td>'||
'<td class="t15C">Back</td>'||
'<td class="t15R"><img src="/i/themes/theme_15/button-r.gif"/></td></tr></table>'
Here P145_BACK holds the page number to which I want this page to go back to.
Then I noticed that the tabs did not work any more. same error, page not found.
That's is when I got a little frustrated and posted for help on the forum.
Then I begin to undo my steps, and
by lucky accident, I noticed that, if none of the checkboxes is checked,
the tabs work fine. If at least one is checked, I get this error, page not found.
My current solution is to add a function of my own in the doSubmit(B) function in file apex_3_1.js,
which unchecks all checkboxes (o.checked=false).
And now, from this page of about 150 items,
the tabs are ok, and I have a button that is similar to one
created with "Create a button displayed among this region's items", except I created myself
using HTML.
I think this trick of using a custom function in doSubmit(), that unchecks or even hides
INPUT type="text" items (o_div.style.visibility = "hidden"; o_div.style.display = "none";)
should work in general. this function is only invoked when the user clicks the tab,
or buttons among a region's items.
Somebody said regarding restrictions on drugs or sex.....
you will not make people stop, you just make it harder or more expensive.
Same here and many other things, a restriction is just making things harder.
People will try to get around it.
Now that I have a solution, and I am aware of the problem, I'll calm down and
go back to my own thing for now.