The iPhone Developer Conference was great

The last two days, when I visited the conference, I got tons of new infos and ideas around the iPhone and how to create applications on it.



I think, I'll create a showcase for iPhones, where you can manipulate data through an App and parallel you see those updates automatically in a forms application. Using the newest version Forms 11 with AQ's is the basis of the showcase.

Gerd

iPhone Developer Conference in Cologne

Tomorrow starts the german's iPhone Developer Conference in Cologne.

I'll have a close look, if this is the new way of creating apps. And maybe I create the first app which can interact with Oracle Forms :-)

Let's see
Gerd

Blogging via Google Wave - First Test through email

Google wave is cool. Each day I find new things in this platform.

And now is the time to test the connectivity between google wave and my blog.

In this first test I write an automated email to the blogger-account. And the second test afterwards is from within the wave

I need luck
Gerd

The presentation for the DOAG conference 2009 is finished

The title is: "Shout out: Oracle Designer vs. SQL Developer Data Modeler".

I'll demonstrate in the presentation the advantages and disadvantages of both tools. I base the demonstration on an EMP / DEPT example, which I design live.

Chapters of the white paper are

- Domains
- ER-Design
- Transfer ER to DataModel
- Data Modeling
- Generating DDL-Scripts
- Reverse Engineering
- Guaranteed Future

The day after the presentation I'll upload the paper to my download-portal on google-code

Gerd

Forms Debugger - hidden Feature

The Forms 10g debugger is much better than the Forms 6i debugger. He is completly new written and has the ability to debug remote. So you can look into a running session of an user and search for errors. This is in the new web-environments a powerful method to find problems.

And that's only one aspect of the new debugger.


The debugger works in two different modes: The stop-mode is well-known, because you can use there all functions of the debugger. He is active, while you investigate the code. You can work in this work, through a breakpoint e.g.


The run-mode is the other one. He can be found only, while the form is running in the foreground.


And at that point you can press the break-button, which is one of the most interesting features in the debugger. It creates a breakpoint dynamically in the next line of code, which will be executed.

So, if you press the button, nothing happens. If you then return from the Forms Builder back to the runform, the next event in the form starts the debugging-process. And then the debugger shows you the first line of code in that trigger, which will be executed next. So you don't have to think to much, where to set breakpoints and so on... just use the break-button.

That's my tip of the day
Gerd

Forms 11g is available on OTN

Go to Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g and click on Downloads


In the list of available tools, search for "Portal, Forms, Reports and Discoverer"



then relax, while downloading 2.1 GB and enjoy the new Oracle Forms 11g R1.

Available on Windows and Linux. Solaris, HP and IBM is "Coming soon"
Have fun
Gerd

Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g launched

Charles Phillips launched the Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g two days ago in Washington D.C.

So now the Fusion stack is out and more and more products can use the new middleware. That is a good info for us, where we were waiting for the new platform for our Forms 11g.

Charles Phillips spoke about Key Partners, which helped him during the development of Fusion with beta testing and trainings. And here are two images from his presentation where we found our OPITZ CONSULTING logo on his main presentations:

Let's hope, that Forms 11g is launched in the next weeks
Gerd

Disabling a Trigger

If you have a trigger and you want to quickly disable him, then just use the "_"-technique :



In this case we have a Key-Create-Record-Trigger which should be disabled. Rename the "-" to "_" in the name of the trigger and from that point on the trigger is a user-named-trigger, which won't fire through an event.



Important: You can't rename the trigger to "KEY-CREREC2" or something else. The hyphen is in forms reserved for event-triggers.

To activate the trigger rename it back to "-" and that's all.

Have fun
Gerd

AdSense test finished

These two weeks with Googles AdSense were very interesting. You see each day your income in thousands of dollars (oh, I mean cents... and not thousands :-) ) and there are many tools to show up reports, when somewhere clicked on the Ads, and so on...

But, as I said, this is only a short test for myself and from now on the blog is Ads-Free, as before :-)



have fun
Gerd

AdSense in my blog (only for a short time)

Today I found a new tab on the blogger-UI of this google-blog. It's named "Monetize" and so they want, that all the bloggers think, they get rich, when they start Google's AdSense program. I know, that I not get rich, because I didn't have 2 million clicks the day :-)

But I start this AdSense for a while to get infos about this technique and how Google implemented the Ads into the blogs.

Please don't think, that I want to nerve you. My blog will go on and after the test I give you a little feedback, how this Ads work and how they have impact on the user-frequency.

Let's start the test!
Gerd

And the winners are:

In adaption of Grants Posting I copy here a list of the 5 best Oracle Forms Java Beans of the April 2009 Contest:

18,8% Md. Mehbub Islam: Scanner Bean
17,5% Hafed Benteftifa: FRITE (Forms Rich Text HTML Editor)
17,5% Vijaynath Nair: Autocad Integration Bean
16,2% Francois Degrelle: Carousel Bean
16,2% Lionel Lasserre: Planning Bean


If you have a minute then use this links and see the astonishing beans they have created.

It's phantastic to see, that all of this run in Oracle Forms and much more. So you can modernize your application so easily and you have to integrate only some little Java Beans.

Thanks to all of those, who attend at the contest
Gerd

Data Modeling White Paper

It looks like that the Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeling Tool can grow up to the new Oracle Designer.

And here is a good overview for all of us who want to know more about the data-modeling-capacities SQL Developer Overview

have fun
Gerd

Filtering data through multiple rows

Lets say we have created a form on the table EMP and want to filter the data, so that only the Employees from Department 20 and 30 are displayed. The best UI for the user is a filter-block, where you see all departments and can mark them.

In this filter we click on the checkboxes for department 20 and 30:



The button Query data (Abfrage starten) starts a query on the emp-block.



What do we need for this technique?

-) A CONTROL-block with an item TI_Filter_String (char, 2000)
-) A checkbox CB_Filter in the DEPT-block (numeric, 0-unchecked, 1-checked)

The button, which starts the query, needs a WHEN-BUTTON-PRESSED:

:Control.TI_Filter_String := ';';
go_block ('DEPT');
first_record;
LOOP
  IF :DEPT.CB_Filter = 1 THEN
    :Control.TI_Filter_String := :Control.TI_Filter_String || :DEPT.DEPTNO || ';';
  END IF;
  IF :SYSTEM.LAST_RECORD = 'TRUE' THEN 
    EXIT;
  ELSE
    Next_Record;
  END IF;
END LOOP;
go_block ('EMP');
execute_query;

The EMP-block needs this default-where:

:Control.TI_Filter_String LIKE '%;' || DEPTNO || ';%'

The trick is, that each deptno from the filter-string can be found using the LIKE %;...;% - technique:



Have fun with this little trick!
Gerd

Forms Function Numbers

Editing the fmrweb.res to assign hotkeys to Forms Functions is not that easy. The syntax is described inside the file and there are no problems with the parameters JFN, JMN, URKS and URFD. But what IDs are used for FFN ?

#    JFN : JMN : URKS : FFN : URFD   (whitespace ignored)
#
#      JFN = Java function number
#      JMN = Java modifiers number
#     URKS = User-readable key sequence (double-quoted)
#      FFN = Forms function number
#     URFD = User-readable function description (double-quoted)

Here it the complete list:

  FFN Description
-----+---------------
    1 Next Field
    2 Previous Field
    3 Clear Field
    4 Left Arrow
    5 Right Arrow
    6 Up Arrow
    7 Down Arrow
    8 Goto Beginning of Line
    9 Goto End of Line
   10 Goto Extreme Vertical Up
   11 Goto Extreme Vertical Down
   12 Scroll Up
   13 Scroll Down
   14 Scroll Left
   15 Scroll Right
   16 Delete Character Left
   17 Delete Character Right
   18 Delete Line
   19 Move Cursor Left
   20 Move Cursor Right
   21 Scroll-Up
   22 Invoke Editor for Field
   23 Delete Character  ??
/  23 Insert Line       ??
   24 Search
   25 Toggle Insert/Replace Mode
   26 Select Item
   27 Return
   28 Invoke Menu
   29 List of Values
   30 Help
   31 Redraw Screen
   32 Exit
   35 Show Keys
   36 Accept
   61 Next Primary Key
   62 Clear Record
   63 Delete Record
   64 Duplicate Record
   65 Insert Record
   66 Next Set
   67 Next Record
   68 Previous Record
   69 Clear Block
   70 Block Menu
   71 Next Block
   72 Previous Block
   73 Duplicate Field
   74 Clear Form
   75 Enter
   76 Enter Query
   77 Execute Query
   78 Display Error
   79 Print
   80 Count Query
   81 Update Record
   82 User Defined Key 0
   83 User Defined Key 1
   84 User Defined Key 2
   85 User Defined Key 3
   86 User Defined Key 4
   87 User Defined Key 5
   88 User Defined Key 6
   89 User Defined Key 7
   90 User Defined Key 8
   91 User Defined Key 9
   92 Clear Eol
   95 List Tab Pages
11022 Accelerator Key 1
11023 Accelerator Key 2
11024 Accelerator Key 3
11025 Accelerator Key 4
11026 Accelerator Key 5
11027 Accelerator Key 6
11028 Accelerator Key 7
11029 Accelerator Key 8
11030 Accelerator Key 9
11031 Accelerator Key 10

Have fun with the Forms Function Numbers !
I'll check as soon as possible, why the Nr. 23 is duplicated in the notes from Oracle...
Gerd