Oracle Forms tutorial

[Arcadius A.]

Hello!
I've just downloaded and installed Oracle9i Developer Suite.
I have a good knowledge of Java and PL/SQL ...and now, I'm interested in
learning Oracle Forms.
Please ...would you be kind enough to point me to any on-line step by step
tutorial to get me started?

Thanks in advance.

Have a perfect day!

Arcadius A.

[Jan Gelbrich]

Hi, Arcadius,

unfortunately I might have to disappoint You: there are no free tutorials
available on Forms.
Forms is so utterly bad documented that it really hurts.
The only way out of this is to have a look into some books:

Oracle Developer Advanced Forms and Reports
by Author(s): Peter Koletzke, Paul Dorsey
ISBN: 0072120487
Format: Softcover, 835 pages.
Issued: 2000
$59.99 US
Oracle Press Books
(for the beginners)

Oracle Forms Developers Handbook
Albert Lulushi
2000
ISBN 0-13-030754-8
975 (!!!) pages
US$ 59.99
Prentice Hall

Oracle Developer Forms Techniques
by Bulusu Lakshman
List Price: $34.99
Published: FEB 18, 2000
ISBN: 0672318466
Pages: 264
(high end)
http://www.sams.com

That is about all useable books out there.

hth, Jan

"Arcadius A." <ahouans@sh.cvut.cz> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:bdvmjg$2pjr$1@ns.felk.cvut.cz... Hello! I've just downloaded and installed Oracle9i Developer Suite. I have a good knowledge of Java and PL/SQL ...and now, I'm interested in learning Oracle Forms. Please ...would you be kind enough to point me to any on-line step by step tutorial to get me started? Thanks in advance. Have a perfect day! Arcadius A.

[Arcadius A.]

"Jan Gelbrich" <j_gelbrich@westfalen-blatt.de> wrote in message
news:be14lg$2qan$1@ID-152732.news.dfncis.de... Hi, Arcadius, unfortunately I might have to disappoint You: there are no free tutorials available on Forms. Forms is so utterly bad documented that it really hurts. The only way out of this is to have a look into some books: Oracle Developer Advanced Forms and Reports by Author(s): Peter Koletzke, Paul Dorsey ISBN: 0072120487 Format: Softcover, 835 pages. Issued: 2000 $59.99 US Oracle Press Books (for the beginners) Oracle Forms Developers Handbook Albert Lulushi 2000 ISBN 0-13-030754-8 975 (!!!) pages US$ 59.99 Prentice Hall Oracle Developer Forms Techniques by Bulusu Lakshman List Price: $34.99 Published: FEB 18, 2000 ISBN: 0672318466 Pages: 264 (high end) http://www.sams.com That is about all useable books out there.

Thanks so much for the info!

Arcadius

[Daniel Morgan]

"Arcadius A." wrote:
"Jan Gelbrich" <j_gelbrich@westfalen-blatt.de> wrote in message news:be14lg$2qan$1@ID-152732.news.dfncis.de... Hi, Arcadius, unfortunately I might have to disappoint You: there are no free tutorials available on Forms. Forms is so utterly bad documented that it really hurts. The only way out of this is to have a look into some books: Oracle Developer Advanced Forms and Reports by Author(s): Peter Koletzke, Paul Dorsey ISBN: 0072120487 Format: Softcover, 835 pages. Issued: 2000 $59.99 US Oracle Press Books (for the beginners) Oracle Forms Developers Handbook Albert Lulushi 2000 ISBN 0-13-030754-8 975 (!!!) pages US$ 59.99 Prentice Hall Oracle Developer Forms Techniques by Bulusu Lakshman List Price: $34.99 Published: FEB 18, 2000 ISBN: 0672318466 Pages: 264 (high end) http://www.sams.com That is about all useable books out there. Thanks so much for the info! Arcadius

And the books are terrible too.

The best way to approach forms is to start off buildinging visual attributes.
Then inherit the visual attributes into property classes.
Then build a single form encapsulating the property classes.
Then inherit from that form into the final application.

Not that this is something that works with initial learning except in a
classroom environment. But it is the mental picture you should have as you
explore the product.
--
Daniel Morgan
http://www.outreach.washington.edu/extinfo/certprog/oad/oad_crs.asp
damorgan@x.washington.edu
(replace 'x' with a 'u' to reply)

[Jan Gelbrich]

"Daniel Morgan" <damorgan@exxesolutions.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:3F084AFA.72AD1A6A@exxesolutions.com... nimonic wrote: Daniel Morgan <damorgan@exxesolutions.com> wrote in messageAnd the books are terrible too. The best way to approach forms is to start off buildinging visual
attributes. Then inherit the visual attributes into property classes. Then build a single form encapsulating the property classes. Then inherit from that form into the final application. Not that this is something that works with initial learning except in
a classroom environment. But it is the mental picture you should have as
you explore the product. I do not agree that "Oracle Developer Advanced Forms and Reports" is a terrible book. It is an excellent book and a credit to Peter Koletzke and Paul Dorsey. It is not a beginners book however. Wait until you have a good deal of Forms experience before you read it but I highly recommend that you do read it. My comment was generic, not specific, as I don't have Kolezke's book. Do me a favor though if you wouldn't mind ... look up in the index and
table of contents how to make a trigger perform its default behavior before
executing your code vs. executing your trigger code in place of its default behavior.
Please let me know how, or if, they index this topic. Thanks. My problem with most of these books, no make it all of them, is that the
books are fine while you are reading them cover to cover but useless for looking up
how to do something after that initial read.

And that is why I mentioned those three books, which are good for initial
reading when you
start from nothing. The key concepts (there are more aside OO methods),
e.g. QBE and DML excluding each other -> System Modes,
or block basing methods etc.,
need to be explained in that situation. Whithout that, a beginner
will not understand anything how Forms works
.... and that took about half a year for me that time.

After beginnings when starting developing forms,
I used more and more the Online Help - it is hard to read and even harder to
understand
(well I havs no idea how it changed in 9iDS ...),
but You can enter a keyword and read some topics on it.
The online help is just the opposite of the books:
almost no concept explanations, just tiny atomic tips. Can be quite
confusing !

The rest of the work is trial an terror, unfortunately ... it just depends
how fast you can manage to judge
which of the 200+ built-in triggers (and 200+ functions) to use for your
problem to solve.

P.S. I am still learning, doing forms for 1 1/2 year now, all on my own ...
I had no chance to take courses in it.
Luckily I have some fellows in my team (and: this NG !) sharing some
experiences.


Jan (DBA and Forms Developer)

[shay]

There are some books on Forms at http://www.amazon.com/oracle
The best way to learn is to attend an Oracle University course or at
least get their books or the online training on CD.
http://education.oracle.com/

For free training search google you can find links like this:
http://cisnet.baruch.cuny.edu/holowczak/oracle/dev2k/2.0/
or http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~youssefm/oracle/forms/

The online help and online doc on OTN can help too
http://otn.oracle.com/products/forms

[nimonic]

Daniel Morgan <damorgan@exxesolutions.com> wrote in message news:<3F084AFA.72AD1A6A@exxesolutions.com>...
My comment was generic, not specific, as I don't have Kolezke's book. Do me a favor though if you wouldn't mind ... look up in the index and table of contents how to make a trigger perform its default behavior before executing your code vs. executing your trigger code in place of its default behavior. Please let me know how, or if, they index this topic. Thanks. My problem with most of these books, no make it all of them, is that the books are fine while you are reading them cover to cover but useless for looking up how to do something after that initial read.

Interesting question. I can't seem to find the answer in any of my
Forms documentation. But I'm not sure if I understand the question.
Are you referring to Trigger Execution Hierarchy?

[nimonic]

Daniel Morgan <damorgan@exxesolutions.com> wrote in message
Not heirarchy. Not a question of which triggers fire in what order though that would be a perfectly good example of where almost every bit of Forms documentation fails. Rather ... if I want to use a trigger to modify a behavior ... how do I get the trigger to perform is normal function before, or after, the code I've put into the trigger. As I've said ... the ability to look up solutions to real-world issues ... is virtually non-existant in every book I've seen. I could give ten, twenty, fifty, different examples of basic things a Forms developer might wish to look up and would be unable to find an answer in any of the currently available books. Here are a two more from a very long list. What are the built-in environment variables for trapping error conditions? What are the built-in environment variables for identifying the current block, item, etc.

Ok I think your talking about On Triggers. On Triggers replace default
processing. To perform the default processing you use the associated
built-in.

Example: To bypass the default logon processing use an On-logon
trigger. Then to perform the default logon use the LOGON built in (you
will have to look in the forms help for the right built-in).

Your right, forms is a complicated beast and difficult to document.