CmapTools – Concept Mapping

This is the main map from their home page.  You can click on the icons under the text to see hover text, then click again to jump to that page, which is an additional concept map.  I like that you can sort of read them as English sentences, while still retaining the relationships of a diagram.

Main page of CmapTools site

It looks pretty cool, though I’d think it would be slow to develop each map.  Much slower than a mindmap for example.  But I think having a tool to create these diagrams would be very helpful, especially when they get large and you want to be able to drill down into sub-concepts.

Getting the user’s current Interactive Report WHERE

Update: April 16, 2009 – I found and fixed a bug in how it handled the contains clause in the filters.  Stupid me, I’d used contains in other flavors of SQL so never bothered to confirm that Oracle SQL supports it!

Sorry about that!!!

The purpose of this package is to grab the user’s current Filters and Searches and recreate them in a WHERE clause, so I could do some external reporting.  A couple other people have shown me their solutions to this but this is my original work (with a hint from Anton and Shunt).

The little bit extra mine adds that I haven’t seen elsewhere is that it supports User-Saved Reports.  So if a user clicks the report tab for one of their saved reports and possibly customizes it, my routine can figure that out and recreate their current query.

It also supports the user typing a value into the Search box, which Apex matches against all text and numeric fields currently displayed.  That was an amusing trick!  If you care, you can view the query that IR generates by using Debug mode.

What this code does not support is a sort order, since my external report tool has a fixed sort.  Shunt did something that works with sort orders that you should check out here:

http://simonhunt.blogspot.com/2009/02/next-and-previous-from-interactive.html

If you compare how others handled the various filter options (IN, CONTAINS, etc) versus how I did it, I think you’ll prefer their method.  I know I did, and wished I could have figured it out when I was writing this!  :-/

From the IR report page (e.g. 2), you add the following Javascript to the Page HTML Header:

<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">
function SaveAndRunReport() {
     popUp2('f?p=&APP_ID.:7:&SESSION.:new_request:NO::'+
            'P7_IR_REPORT_ID:'+$v('apexir_report_id'), 1024, 768);
}
</script>

You can certainly make a simpler call, mine just happens to use a pop-up page.

In the target page,  (e.g. 7), you can display the WHERE clause by creating an item computed with the following SQL query:

SELECT apex_ir_query.ir_query_where(:APP_ID,
           2,
           :SESSION,
            7_IR_REPORT_ID) FROM DUAL;

Here’s the package.  It’s hosted on MediaFire, so you’ll have to live with the ads.

Let me know if you find it useful or have suggestions to offer.

- Stew

Google’s Chrome browser down but not out

[I know this is a bit off-topic for me, but thought it was worth sharing. - Stew]

I happened to catch yesterday’s column in the LA Times titled “Google’s Chrome: Brand new but not so shiny?” by Jessica Guynn.  The point was that Chrome came out with a flurry but it hasn’t affected the total market share of browsers yet.

I had to write the following reply to her, which follows:

I was disappointed that you focused Chrome not taking over the browser market within 2 weeks after it was released.  How negative can you get saying it lost its initial market share gain, rather than reporting that Chrome attracted such interest when it first came out.  I was one of the early-adopters/geeks that downloaded it the day after it was released.  I think it shows strong potential.

I’m using it to send this note, but I have gone back to FireFox for most of my browsing.  Why?  For the same reason everyone else did – this is beta software! I can’t believe your column didn’t mention that little detail anywhere in it.  I would guess that everyone who’s tried Chrome has said

“Hey that’s pretty cool and wicked fast.  I can’t wait until it supports all the great FireFox addons I’m used to, but I gotta get work done so back to FireFox or IE.”

So give credit where credit’s due, huh?

BTW, I have no business relationship with Google other than as a user.

That’s my rant for the day.  Thanks for visiting.

Moving back and forth

I stopped maintaining this blog because I’d moved it to the ning.com Oracle Community, but that software lacks so many good features that I’m probably moving back.

I’m also trying out free note-taking database software, EverNote, to keep track of all the Oracle Apex tips and tricks I’m learning. It has a web interface as well and says it has a widget I can use to share here, but can’t seem to connect to WordPress. So far… sigh…

That Apex notebook is here: http://www.evernote.com/pub/sstryker58/Stews_Apex_tips/

I’m probably moving back here shortly. I’m so decisive! :-/

Apex – referencing Workspace images

1. Upload your file to the Workspace.

2) If the file is application-specific, assign it to the application.

3) Note the image name in the Shared Components->Files->Images. You’ll need to click on the icon/link for this item and get the image name value from the detail page, because the icon list replaces underscores with spaces and you need the exact name.

4) To reference it, like your company logo that goes on all pages, add something like the following on the Application Definition page in the Logo field:

#WORKSPACE_IMAGES#company_logo.jpg

You can also use this to reference Cascading Style Sheets that you’ve uploaded to your application.

MindManager Version 7 announced

MindJet has (finally) officially announced the upcoming release of MindManager version 7 (aka MM7), so beta-testers like me are finally allowed to talk about it publicly! I take my beta-tester responsibilities seriously, so kept it under my hat.

They say it’ll be available for purchase on May 30th, for both PC and Macintosh.

This is the software tool I use the most at work, some days even more than email! It’s great for managing lots of information in various forms and places. If you’ve never seen a mindmap, think “graphical outline.” If you’ve never seen a MindManager mindmap, think “visual organizer with tons of power for integrating, sorting, finding and organizing your information”.

As for what’s in the upgrade…

Word 2007 Map Editor for Mindjet MindManager

I just found this PC Magazine review of a new mindmapping tool, and add-on for Word 2007

Their intro:

“This tool for the excellent MindManager program allows for a degree of collaboration that was once impossible for users who didn’t own the program. Now users with Office 2007 can collaborate with MindManager users with no loss of information, though Word users will find that the program takes a little getting used to.”

Complete review is here: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2091652,00.asp

You can get more info on this at MindJet’s website, buried in a newsletter article.  Oddly, the link to the specific page about this tool didn’t work!

MindJet describes it in the newsletter as:

“The free Word 2007 Map Editor for Mindjet® MindManager® enables you to use Word 2007 to open and edit information captured in MindManager visual “maps.” You can then send the edited Word document back to MindManager users, who will see these changes reflected in the original map.”

My employer actually bought a site license so all college staff can use it (and students can buy it at a major discount), so this add-on might not be useful here (even if we’d upgraded to Office 2007, which we haven’t and probably won’t for at least 6 months!).  But it could definitely have use with outside vendors and such!

MindMeister – another web-based mindmapper

From their MindMeister site:

“MindMeister is a collaborative online mind mapping tool – you can capture your thoughts and share them instantly with friends and colleagues.

MindMeister supports all the standard features of a classic mind mapping tool – only online, and with as many simultaneous users as you like!”

It looks pretty slick, but after playing with it for 5 minutes I decided it wasn’t any better than Mindomo – they even have similar charge rates for the monthly license to eachother.  MindMeister will let you collaborate on a map in real-time with others, even using Skype phone to talk while you’re writing together, kinda cool but not important to me.  I couldn’t even check out MindMeister’s ability to import MindManager maps without paying the monthly fee, which is definitely a deal-breaker.

I guess if I was sharing mindmaps with people who didn’t have MindManager, or I didn’t already have a great tool I’m used to using, then I might be more willing to investigate this.