Orbit applications are organized into Pages, Sections, Queries, and Tokens. These application components are stored in Orbit's Repository within the database. Orbit supports unlimited number of applications within the repository, each with its own related objects. The application is the highest level object within Orbit, and determines which Pages, Sections, Queries, and Tokens are displayed to the developer. An application may also have several versions, each stored within the repository.

 An Orbit Page is an ordered collection of Orbit Sections. Page types can be HTML, JavaScript, Style Sheet or any pre-defined or user-defined type. When a page is displayed in Orbit each section is displayed in the order it is listed. A page also supports master-detail reporting, inactiviting references of a section on a page, and determines other features such as security, caching, and logging.

 Orbit Sections are snippets of code that make up a page. Sections may have queries attached to them to allow dynamic replacement based on the query results. Sections can be reused in multiple pages, adding consistency to your application.

 An Orbit Query is a SQL statement that drives the Orbit Section being displayed. Query results may be used in the attached section or any other subsequent section on the page. A query may return zero, one or multiple records. If a query is expected to return multiple records for a section, the section should be assigned a "Repeating" section type.

Queries are extremely powerful in Orbit, providing many built-in features that would require many lines of programming code otherwise:

• Queries can support up to 20 named bind variables for optimized parsing in Oracle's SGA.
• Queries can contain tokens and OML logic, even dynamically determining the "from" and "where" clause at runtime, as in the example above.
• Queries support aggregate functions that are very useful for reporting, such as Sum, Avg, Min, Max. This enables you to provide summary information at the bottom of detailed output.
• Break logic allows you to show only the first unique occurance of a column value.
• Queries support execute logic OML, which enables queries to fire conditionally.
• Built-in Next / Previous functionality supports limited record display on the page, preventing users from displaying very large result sets.

 Orbit Tokens are replacement variables that can be used anywhere in an Orbit Query, Section, Page element, or even another Token element. Tokens are placeholders for the actual values that are replaced at run time. Tokens are specified by using the following notation: #token#

Orbit has a complete language surrounding tokens, called OML - Orbit Markup Language. OML supports over 120 token functions and modifiers which support every Oracle SQL function. This makes OML ideal for any Oracle developer. Some examples of OML are:

• #result=EXEC[package.procedure()]#
• #firstname.upper#
• #value=DECODE[#var1#][a][1][b][2][3]#

Click here to view the entire OML Quick Reference 
Orbit Markup Language Quick Reference - Lists all Orbit Token Functions, Modifiers, and Internal Tokens used in the OML presentation level language.