It’s that time of year again, our 2023 quarter 1 family of products are starting to trickle out, with ORDS 23.1 available today (Downloads Page.)

Upgrading, same as before
Run the ‘install’ command, and run through your pools as desired, then start ORDS back up.

When we’re done, you’ll should see a confirmation of version –

And now starting it back up with ‘serve’ –

So what’s new?

APEX Management endpoints in the Database API

Inspired by this blog post from our friend and co-worker Carsten, and developed alongside the APEX team 🙂
Simplified/Nicer Looking Sign-Ins
Most of the time you’ll see this are for authenticating to SQL Developer Web. What used to be two-step series of prompts and dialogs, is now a single dialog.

What if you don’t have a ‘simple’ scenario?
Examples of something not simple, combinatations of:
- multiple pools configured in your ORDS server
- REST Enabled schemas with aliases
Then you’ll use the Advanced panel to sort that.
Let’s say I have two pools, with a pool mapped to a database called ‘orcl.’ And in that database, I have a schema called JEFE, REST Enabled as ‘boss.’
BEGIN ORDS.ENABLE_SCHEMA(p_enabled => TRUE, p_schema => 'JEFE', p_url_mapping_type => 'BASE_PATH', p_url_mapping_pattern => 'boss', p_auto_rest_auth => FALSE); COMMIT; END; /
I would in the advanced panel, supply the ORDS mapping pattern to my pool, that would be ‘orcl’, then I would supply the alias for JEFE, which would be ‘boss’, and separate the two with a ‘/’
Note that this isn’t a common deployment for customers, so this wouldn’t be required except in ‘Advanced’ situations. And later this year we hope to have it so that ORDS can automatically ‘sort’ aliased schemas automatically, so it should get even easier.
But let’s login with that exact scenario –

Which logs me in, and I see this –

Even more Connections improvements
We automatically support your browser stored credentials/auto-fill.
Chrome goes, oh I know this – if I select one of those, it will pre-fill the form AND submit it, so it’s actually a single-click operation.

And finally, when you sign out, it immediately takes you back to the sign-in page.

Note if you’re in that small case of ORDS deployments with multiple pools, you’ll need to use the advanced panel to set the pool mapping as desired for your new session.
REST Workshop Export Schema
Exactly what it sounds like. Instead of simply exporting 1 module at a time, I can export…all of them!

Now, my export script is big…too big for all of it to be shown in the slider that pops out when clicking the Export button, so I’ll need to use the ‘Download’ button vs simply copying the PL/SQL to my clipboard.

Is that all?
Nope! I’ll have much more to show/demo in a week or three, stay tuned!
What about SQL Developer, Data Modeler, and SQLcl?
Versions 23.1 of those should be out next week. They’re just going through their final shake-downs and certifications.