Forms - An Overview of Oracle Form Builder v.6.0 Abhishek Parag Prashant Arun

Agenda What Is Oracle Form Builder? Forms Concepts - What is a Form? The Forms Application References

What Is Oracle Form Builder? Component of Oracle Developer/2000 – Forms – Reports – Graphics Application builder Event-driven applications

Forms - The Basic Idea Are used to create applications to enter, access, change, or delete data from an Oracle database in an online, form-based environment. Forms provides many objects for developing an effective application module. Coupled with the concept of user extensibility, Forms can be used to serve virtually every online need in an Oracle database environment.

Forms Concepts The Big Picture Triggers and/or default processes User actionsInternal events Database Application State

Forms Concepts Events Processes Triggers

Forms Concepts Events – Things that happen – External Events User Interaction; Mouse, Keyboard, Menu – Internal Events Timers Processing steps for which triggers can be set – Initiate Processes No Events? No Processing!

Forms Concepts Processes – Pre-programmed default behaviour – What Forms DOES, for example; Navigation Transaction Processing Validation Query Processing Master-Detail coordination – Series of Internal Events

Forms Concepts Triggers – Fired when Internal/External events occur – Replace, supplement or initiate default processing – Initiate “External” events, to make Forms behave as if user performed action E.g. Simulate User key-press

Triggers Trigger – Forms trigger – Database trigger

Triggers Forms Trigger – Fires in response to Forms Events Database Trigger – Fires in response to Database Events THESE ARE COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT OF EACH OTHER!!!

The Forms Application Form Builder builds Forms, Menus and Libraries Application consists of at least one Form Can also include one or more Menu and Library modules Oracle provides default Menu

File Types Forms Modules –.FMB; Forms Source –.FMX; Forms Executable Menu Modules –.MMB; Menu Source –.MMX; Menu Executable Libraries –.PLL; PL/SQL Source and Executables –.PLX; PL/SQL Executable Only

The Forms Application What You See exit enter File Edit View Query Block Record Insert Help Whatever Are you really sure you want to do this? Canvas View Control Item Base- Table Item Menu Window YesNo

The Forms Application What you see; – Window – Menu – Canvas/View – Items Base-block items Control-block items – Database records

Forms Components Highest Level of Hierarchy - Forms - Menu - Built-in Packages - Database Objects

Forms Components Windows - Displays canvases. - Form can have multiple windows. - Modal; user must respond and dismiss window before doing anything in another window. - Modeless; user can move to another window.

Forms Components Canvas-Views - Visual element of Forms. This is how you display all those Items. - Canvas; Background on which text and items are placed. - View; Visible portion of canvas. - Form can have multiple canvases. - Canvases can be stacked, scrolled.

Forms Components Blocks - Base-Table Block corresponds to Database Table; set of items representing database table columns. An ‘instance’ of a Base-Table Block corresponds to a Database Record. - Control Block is usually a collection of control items (e.g. Buttons, Check- Boxes, Radio Groups), but can also be collection of Display Items (read- only text), Text Items (‘variables’), images, etc.

Forms Components Block Properties

Forms Components Items - Base-Table Items are text items that correspond to Database Columns. Forms creates them automatically. - Control Items can be Buttons, Check-Boxes, Radio Groups, Display Items (read-only text), Text Items (‘variables’), images, etc.

Forms Components Item Properties

Forms Components Visual Attributes - Collection of display properties. - Refer to Named Visual Attribute in Items to standardise appearance. Change in NVA will affect all Items referring to it. Property Classes - Collection of ANY properties. - When items refer to Property Class, only properties that make sense for that item will be used.

Forms Components Triggers - At Form, Block or Item level - Lower level triggers fire before higher level triggers - If same trigger-type occurs at different levels, only lowest will fire

Triggers Can be coded at Form, Block, and/or Item Level Some Triggers apply to multiple levels of hierarchy, others are specific – When creating new trigger, List of Values presents list of appropriate triggers Each Trigger-type executes only once Lowest level Triggers fired first

Forms Component Alerts - Window that displays message - Modal; User must respond - One, two or three buttons - Three types; - Stop (stop sign) - Caution (exclamation) - Information (‘i’ symbol) - Use SHOW_ALERT built-in function

Forms Components LOVs - Allows user to select from specific set of values. - Displays Record Group.

Forms Components Editors - Editor; simple text-editor dialog box for entering lines of text into Text Item. - Can create editors with different appearances for different text fields.

Forms Components Parameters - Used as a Form variable. - Pass values between Forms.

Forms Components Program Units - PL/SQL Procedures and Functions used in this Form.

Forms Components Attached Libraries, Libraries & Built-in Packages - PL/SQL procedures and functions. - Attached Library; Reference collected routines. - Library; Maintain and reference collected routines. - Built-in Packages; Oracle supplied procedure and functions.

Forms Components Object Groups - Package reusable objects for later copying or reference. - E.g. Your Form includes an alarm clock to wake the user after ten minutes inactivity. This includes Triggers, Procedures, a Window, some graphics, etc. You can package these objects together to conveniently include this functionality in other forms.

Tour of Form Builder Starting forms – Virtual session Connecting to the database

Client What Is Forms Looking For Forms Runtime Forms Server (Compiled Objects) Database Registry FORMS_PATH Connect

References On-line help Oracle Developer/2000 Handbook (2nd. Ed.) – Robert J. Muller, Oracle Press Oracle technology network (

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