Java 7 and Forms 11

Some days ago a new certification-document with an interesting info was updated:

Link to the certifications

In this excel-sheet is Forms 11.1.1.6 certified with JRE 1.7.0_04+. Very good news! And now we can hope, that Forms 11.1.2 gets the same certification soon, because this is the latest version available on OTN :

And last but not least: " Please Oracle, certify Oracle Forms 10g with JRE 7 ! "
Gerd

Java 7-Auto-Update, more Links

Here are some more links and notes to the Java 7 Auto-Update-Problem. You must log into "My Oracle Support" to see the metalink-notes.

Oracle Java SE Support Roadmap

Updated Java 6 EOL date

Note 1412103.2
Installation and Configuration for Oracle Java SE

Note 1467442.1
URGENT BULLETIN: All E-Business Suite End-Users Must Manually Apply JRE 6 Updates

Note 1469230.1
FAQ - Java SE Auto Update

Note 1470123.1
What Impact does the Desupport of Java 6 have on Fusion Middleware 11

Note 1470671.1
JRE7 Is Not Certified For Oracle Health Insurance

Actual version of JRE 1.6
Oracle JDK 6 update 33 (1.6.0_33)

have fun
Gerd

Java 7-Auto-Update Warning

It looks like, that all forms-applications run into a huge problem, starting next week, July 3rd 2012.

Oracle's Java 1.6-Updater will automatically update the JRE to 1.7 on all PC's, where auto-update is activated. And Java 1.7 is not certified with Forms 10g, Forms 11g or the E-Business-Suite (EBS-forms-components)

I try to find all relevant informations to that topic and blog them afterwards. So feel free to share this blog to all customers who may have this problem next week.


Here are the first links:

The latest news directly from E-Business Suite Development



JRE Troubleshouting Guide



OTN Forms Forum: steps to install and deinstall
Michael Armstroing describes amongst others the deinstallation of Java 1.7



And here is the description of the internal problem, why we get problems with Java 1.7



read it
Gerd

Future of Oracle Forms conference, part 4

Wilfred van der Deijl presented "Partial and or Gradual migration by embedding existing Forms in new UI technology".

Because Oracle didn't offer a migration solution from Oracle Forms to ADF, Wilfred showed a technique to integrate existing forms applications into a new ADF application. He called it OraFormsFaces, a framework, which allows him creating hybrid applications. The non-forms part must not be ADF, so you can use other web technologies too.

This hybrid way can be used to slightly move from forms to another technology, without having Big Bangs.


In the last presentation Steven Davelaar spoke about "JHeadstart: Real world experiences for migrating Forms to ADF"

JHeadstart is a JDeveloper extension for template based working in ADF. Best practices can be used out of the box.

Stevens presentation was the last one from the General Session Part.


After a short break the "Parallel Break-Out sessions" began. In parallel sessions 3 speaker had their own room and 45 minutes to present more information about the own topic.


At 5pm the day ends with the big speaker panel.

Here we all had the chance to discuss with the speaker about forms modernization and their presentations.

The night-sessions started at 7pm. Six parallel hands-on sessions could be visited. The speakers had VMwares for the participants, so that they could test in their own environment.

At 9:30 the conference ended.

All relevant links can be found here

At that point I have to say many thanks to AMIS, all the speakers and the host Lucas Jellema. They did a great job on the conference with 89 participants.

Many thanks
Gerd

Future of Oracle Forms conference, part 3

Mia Urman started with the next presentation: "To infinity and beyond: Extend the life of your Oracle Forms application by running your existing Forms from next generation technologies/platforms without migration"

She demonstrated "next generation forms" with oraplayer. A tool, which recreates a form into a mobile version.

In the first step OraPlayer records a forms business scenario.

Then you publish it to the web. In the last step you create an UI in the technology of your choice.

While you playback the scenario you work and interact with a running forms-runtime in the background.


The presentation of Madi Serban showed the co-existence of Forms, ADF and APEX applications. It started with the question "Should we stay or should we go?" and went to redesigning applications using the Pitss-tool.


The presentation, that came next, was "Yo!Forms" from Oliver Tickell and Don Smith.

Yo!Forms is a tool, that can run forms-fmx in the web without java-plugin in pure html and javascript.

I took a photo of a live-presentation, where I could use the safari-browser of my iPhone to start a forms-runtime and work with the forms like if it were running in a JVM

The betatest of Yo!Forms is starting this year, as I heard.

to be continued
Gerd

Future of Oracle Forms conference, part 2

While Lucas Jellema was presenting his keynote, he had a time slot for Grant Ronald, live from UK via skype.

Grant told us about how we should develop in forms today, how to migrate today to Forms 11 and Forms 12 in the future. One sentence was very clear: "There are no plans to desupport Oracle Forms".



In the next presentation Francois Degrelle spoke about "Modernizing Forms using Pluggable Java Components and the Forms Look and Feel project".

He started with "Why should we use Java Beans in our Forms"

He demonstrated interesting java beans like a java calendar, a html browser, a Swing JTable integration and many more.

Important for him was the extensibility of Forms using the whole world of Java integrated in Beans.

In the second part he spoke about his open-source framework "Forms Look and Feel" and the convenience to use it in Forms.

Here is the link to the framework

to be continued
Gerd

Future of Oracle Forms conference, part 1

Yesterday I attend at the "Future of Oracle Forms" conference in Nieuwegein, Netherland.

Great conference !

Lucas Jellema from AMIS started as host with a wide overview over the history of forms, the evolution and future of forms.

After that the day was structured into 3 parts. In the first part each speaker has 30 minutes to show the topics of his presentation. Each speaker got an additionally 45 minutes afterwards, where 3 tracks run parallel in separate rooms. Last but not least, each speaker gave a 120 minutes hands-on in the evening.

to be continued tomorrow in part 2
Gerd

Conference "Future of Oracle Forms"

I got an invitation to an interesting conference in the netherlands next week (May 15th 2012).

AMIS in the netherlands is the initiator of the conference and host, too.

The conference is splitted into two parts. From 9 to 5 we will hear many presentations from the top speakers in europe. Francois Degrelle, Wilfried van der Deijl, Mia Urman and many others are on the list. In the evening we can use our own notebook to participate in hands-on-sessions!

That will be a good chance, to hear and see, what can be done to modernize your Oracle Forms.

Links to AMIS are here :

Day-Program

Evening-Program

I'm glad to meet all the speaker and can discuss with them over the future of forms.
Gerd

Oracle Reports 12c

is part of the Oracle Fusion Middleware 12c !

That is the essential part of the yesterday's "Statement of Direction for Forms, Reports and Designer".

"We are planning to release Oracle Reports 12c as part of Oracle Fusion Middleware 12c". This is the important sentence in the reports-section of "Oracle's Product Strategy".


That's very good news. Now I can end my campaign "Save Oracle Reports" :-)  And it's the first day I can officially point on an Oracle Document, in which we can read it line for line. The last two months were hard, because of the many rumors about this topic and the few things I'm allowed to write...

So, let's go into a wonderful weekend with reports in our mind
Gerd

New Statement of Direction, March 2012

This is the new Statement of Direction from March 2012. (My last SoD-Post)

Here are some links to older Statement of Directions:

SoD Forms 2012 / 03
SoD Oracle Fusion 2010 / 05
SoD Forms 2009 / 07
SoD Forms 2008 / 07
SoD Forms 2007 / 11
SoD Forms 2005 / 09
SoD Forms 2005 / 05
SoD Forms 2005 / 03
SoD Forms 2004 / 06

The Future of Oracle Forms is .... Forms

Many thanks to Mia. She gave me the tip to her blog

Mia's Blog

where she pointed to Grant's presentation:

Grant's presentation

That's the first time, that we directly hear from Oracle, that the best technology to where we should migrate to, is .... Oracle Forms

and not Java, APEX, ADF or .NET !

that's a good start into 2012

Save Oracle Reports

Many thanks to all of you. I got many emails in the first days of my "Save Oracle Reports" campaign.

I forwarded all emails last week to Oracle Product Management.

I'm interested if we get response... and what kind of response, if we get one.

We need

Campaign Save Oracle Reports

I started last thursday the campaign "Save Oracle Reports" and I get more and more EMails. All of them have company-wide applications running with forms and reports and cannot live without reports.

One customer (thanks to Markus) pointed me on the actual OTN-Forms-Forum-Poll named "How many Oracle Reports do you have" :

I think, it is important, that we all attend at this poll.

Oracle Reports is dying?

At the DOAG Development Panel yesterday was told about the future of Oracle Reports. That did not sound good

Next week there will be an important internal meeting at Oracle, where they speak over the future of Oracle Reports in the Oracle Fusion Middleware 12c. It looks like, that the BI Publisher will be the replacement for Reports and Oracle Reports 11g would be the last version.

That's not good... And not only because the price of the BI Publisher, I do not even speak about ...

And here is my idea to save Oracle Reports:

I need emails from all customers, who have an invest in Oracle Reports and want to save it. Write down your arguments, why you need Oracle Reports in Fusion Middleware 12c. The emailaddress is

I will bundle all answers a.s.a.p. and forward them to Oracle Development directly. They agreed with me yesterday about that. They need and want this feedback !

Very important: We don't have time and have to react very fast. Spread this idea to other customers, your colleagues, etc. They should write me in the next days.

I hope we have a chance to get our

let's try it
Gerd

Oracle Forms 12c

"Oracle Forms 12c" is the new official name in the Fusion Middleware 12 universe for our good old forms!

Heard on the German Oracle User Group Conference from the development team.

So it looks like all products are getting the c (for cloud) in their name.

Let's hope, that Fusion Middleware 12 starts in 2012 !