Most websites and web-based applications are built on original intellectual property that needs to be protected using a copyright notice. Over at Love2Dev.com, Chris Love has created a nice explainer on the importance of adding a copyright notice to your site (or app).
The tl;dr of Chris’s research is that while website contents are copyrighted by default, adding the notice ensures that you’ve told the world who owns those rights. And while the notice by itself won’t give you a lot of enforceable legal protections without other precautions, it’s the first thing you really have to do.
Our marketing guy Brock says that a properly formatted copyright notice can also help your sites look more professional. This is especially true if the notice is kept up-to-date. After all, nothing quite says “out of business” more than a copyright notice that’s four years old.
Unfortunately, as of version 21.1, Oracle APEX doesn’t have a click-button way to produce one of these notices. Luckily, the way around this is simple, effective, and — by creating it dynamically — the date displayed will always be current.
The first step is to visit your app’s Global Page (0) in Page Builder. Create a new Region, and call it Copyright Notice. Leave the region’s type as ‘static content,’ and set the layout position to ‘footer.’ Under appearance, set the template to ‘blank with attributes.’
Within this new region, create a page item, and rename it ‘P0_YEAR’. Next, set the new page item’s type to ‘hidden’ and switch ‘value protected’ off.
The source of P0_YEAR should be set to ‘SQL Query (returning single value)’ that is used ‘always.’ The query that should populate the value of the page item with the current year is:
select to_char(sysdate, 'YYYY') from dual;
The final step is to set the source of the Copyright Notice region to the following text that interprets the dynamic value of the hidden page item using a substitution string:
© &P0_YEAR. [name of your company or application]
And voilà! — a dynamic-date footer copyright notice. If you want to get really fancy, you can even add an extra statement about the extent of the copyright you are asserting. For example, if you’re claiming ownership rights for all of the content, you can include, “All rights reserved.” On the other hand, if you’re putting your content under a Creative Commons license, you can include that information here. Either way, you’ll have a properly-formatted copyright notice that’s always up-to-date.
Looking for more help with Oracle APEX development? Let’s chat.
