Oracle Forms Interactive Workbook

About

Features

• Comprehensive, clear writing style.

  • Provides students with an understandable introduction to the Oracle Forms. Ex.___

• Guided hands-on interaction.

  • Provides students with detailed step-by-step instructions on how to use the product. Ex.___

• Real-world lab exercises with answers.

  • Draws students in and reinforces the material so they can more easily understand the subject. Ex.___

• Self-Review and Test Your Thinking questions—In each chapter.

  • Enables students to test their understanding and solidify skills learned. Ex.___

• Companion Website.

  • Provides students with necessary files and answers to Test Your Thinking questions. Ex.___

• Advice/Quote icons.

  • Focuses students' attention on special advice or guidelines. Ex.___

• Tips boxes.

  • Provides students with helpful time- and trouble-saving tips and tricks. Ex.___

• Warning flags.

  • Provides students with precautions and information designed to avoid computer troubles. Ex.___

• Web flags.

  • Directs students to the book's companion Website for reference. Ex.___

Description

This integrated book-and-Web learning solution teaches all the Oracle Forms skills you need, through hands-on, real-world labs, exercises, projects, and our great Web-based training site! Learn how to make the most of Form Builder and its components, build Forms and Forms Objects, create high-productivity layouts, and more. Next, master more sophisticated techniques, including Forms Triggers, multiform applications, alerts, and menus; and deploy applications in both client/server and web environments. Finally, master the fundamentals of Oracle Reports and discover how to do call reports directly from Oracle Forms. A free Web-based training module includes a Virtual Study Lounge to allow interaction with the author; "Test Your Thinking" project solutions and detailed explanations, interactive Q&As and self-review exercises, new projects, book updates, and more! For every Oracle developer and DBA who wants to master Oracle Forms.

Sample Content

Downloadable Sample Chapter

Click here for a sample chapter for this book: 0130158089.pdf

Table of Contents

(NOTE: All chapters conclude with Test Your Thinking.)

1. Concepts and Objects.

Oracle Forms Concepts. Mandatory Forms Objects.

The Data Block and Layout Wizards. Oracle Forms Files.

The Object Navigator. The Property Palette. The Layout Editor.

Master-Detail Forms.

Text Items and Display Items. Buttons, List Items, Radio Groups, and Check Boxes.

Triggers Basics. Creating Triggers of Various Types. Forms Built-ins.

List of Values (LOVs). Alerts.

Canvas and Window Concepts. Content Canvases and Windows. Stacked Canvases. Toolbars.

Subclassing. Visual Attributes and Property Classes. Object Groups and Object Libraries. Template Forms.

PL/SQL Libraries. Stored PL/SQL Objects.

Calling One Form from Another.

Running Oracle Reports from Forms. Passing Parameters to Reports.

Menu Modules. Menu Security.

Preface

Introduction

The Oracle Forms Interactive Workbook presents Oracle Forms in a unique and highly effective format. It challenges you to learn Oracle Forms by using it rather than by simply reading about it.

Just as a grammar workbook would teach you about nouns and verbs by first showing you examples and then asking you to write sentences, the Oracle Forms workbook teaches you about Forms, triggers, and items by first showing you examples and then asking you to create these objects yourself.

Who This Book Is For

This book is intended for anyone who needs a quick but detailed introduction to building applications with Oracle Forms. The ideal readers are those with some experience with relational databases, specifically Oracle, but little or no experience with Oracle Forms or application development.

You should be comfortable with relational database concepts, as well as SQL and PL/SQL. If you are unfamiliar with any of these subjects, refer to the other books in the Prentice Hall Interactive Oracle Series.

The content of this book is based on the material that is taught in an Introduction to Oracle Forms class at Columbia University's CTA program in New York City. The student body is rather diverse in that there are some students who have years of experience with IT and programming, but no experience with Oracle Forms, and then there are those with absolutely no experience in IT or programming. The content of the book, like the class, is balanced to meet the needs of both extremes.

How This Book Is Organized

The intent of this workbook is to teach you about Oracle Forms by presenting you with a series of challenges followed by detailed solutions to those challenges. The basic structure of each Chapter is as follows:

Each Chapter contains interactive Labs that introduce topics about Oracle Forms. The topics are discussed briefly and then explored through Exercises, which are the heart of each Lab.

Each Exercise consists of a series of steps that you will follow to perform a specific task, along with questions that are designed to help you discover important things about Forms on your own. The answers to these questions are given at the end of the Exercises, along with more in-depth discussion of the concepts explored.

The Exercises are not meant to be closed-book quizzes to test your knowledge. On the contrary, they are intended to act as your guide and walk you through a task. You are encouraged to flip back and forth from the Exercise question section to the Exercise answer section so that if need be, you can read the answers and discussions as you go along.

At the end of each Lab is a series of multiple-choice self-review questions. These are meant to be closed-book quizzes of sorts to test that you have absorbed the Lab material. The answers to these questions appear in Appendix A. There are also additional self-review questions at this book's companion Web site, found at http://www.phptr.com/phptrinteractive/. (The companion Web site will be explained in the next section of this introduction.)

Finally, at the end of each Chapter you will find a "Test Your Thinking" section, which consists of a series of projects designed to solidify all of the skills you have learned in the Chapter. If you have successfully completed all of the Labs in the Chapter, you should be able to tackle these projects with few problems. There are not always "answers" to these projects, but where appropriate, you will find guidance and/or solutions at the companion Web site.

The Chapters should be completed in sequence because the material builds on itself as you go along. Additionally, many of the files you create and save in earlier Chapters will be required in later Chapters. In the end, all of the skills you have acquired and files you have created will come together in Chapter 13, "Forms Menus," where you will create a menu system to manage your completed and working application.

About The Companion Web Site

The companion Web site is located at

http://www.phptr.com/phptrinteractive/

Here you will find two very important things:

1. Files you will need before you begin reading the workbook.
2. Answers to the Test Your Thinking questions.

All of the Exercises and questions are based on a sample database called STUDENT. The files required to create and install the STUDENT schema are downloadable from the Web site. Additionally, many of the Exercises require that you work with pre-created Forms files. For example, in Exercise 1.1.1, you will be required to open and answer questions about a file called EX01_01.fmb. This file and all the rest you will need for the workbook are downloadable from the Web site.

The answers to the "Test Your Thinking" sections will also be found at the Web site. These answers will be textual or in the form of downloadable files.

In addition to required files and "Test Your Thinking" answers, the Web site will have many other features like additional review questions, a message board, and periodically updated information about the book.

You should visit the companion Web site and download the required files before starting the Labs and Exercises.

What You'll Need

There are software programs as well as knowledge requirements necessary to complete the exercise sections of the workbook.

Software

• Oracle Developer 6.0
• Oracle8
• Access to the WWW
• Windows 95/98 or NT 4.0

Oracle Developer 6.0: Oracle Developer 6.0 is Oracle's application development tool suite that contains a number of different components. The Oracle Forms Interactive Workbook is concerned only with Oracle Forms. Oracle Forms Version 6.0.5.0.2 was used to create the Exercises, but subsequent versions should be compatible.

Since Oracle frequently improves and changes its products, new versions are released all the time. However, the concepts covered in this book are fundamental to the Oracle Forms product and are unlikely to change significantly in the near future. So, even if your version of Oracle Forms is different than the one listed here, you should still be able to make use of this book.

Oracle8: Oracle8 is Oracle's RDBMS and its flagship product. You can use either Oracle Personal Edition or Oracle Enterprise Edition. If you use Oracle Enterprise Edition, it can be running on a remote server or locally on your own machine. Oracle 8.0.5 Enterprise Edition running locally was used to create the Exercises for this book, but subsequent versions of Oracle should be compatible.

Additionally, you should have access to and be familiar with SQL*Plus.

Windows 95/98 or NT 4.0: The Oracle Forms development environment is available on a number of different operating system platforms, including Microsoft Windows and various flavors of UNIX. The Exercises, screenshots, and examples in this workbook were created using Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 with Service Pack 3. Therefore, it is geared more toward those working in a Windows environment.

But, as mentioned before, most of the Forms concepts in this book are rather fundamental and, therefore, apply to all operating systems. So, even if you are developing on a UNIX platform, this book can still be of use to you. If you are using UNIX or another non-Windows OS, keep in mind that the screenshots will not match what you see on your screen and that Appendix B, "Windows Registry," does not apply to you.

Access to the WWW: You will need access to the Internet and WWW so that you can reach the companion Web site, http://www.phptr.com/phptrinteractive/

Here you will find the files that are necessary for completing the Exercises.

It is important that you visit this site and download the necessary files before you start working through the Chapters in this book.

Knowledge

To complete the Exercises, you should be familiar with relational databases as well as Oracle database concepts. You should be comfortable using SQL to access and manipulate database objects such as tables, constraints, sequences, and so on. You should also be able to write simple PL/SQL procedures that include, among other things, local variables, conditional logic, and cursors. If you are not familiar or comfortable with these subjects, it is recommended that you refer to the other books in the Oracle series. These are listed earlier in this Introduction.

Finally, you should be reasonably comfortable with accessing and configuring the Windows Registry. This will be necessary so that Oracle Forms can properly locate all of the files you create. Appendix B, "Windows Registry," provides a brief description of the Registry and all of the information you will need to configure it for Oracle Forms.

You should read and complete the tasks in Appendix B before starting the Labs and Exercises.

About the Sample Schema

The STUDENT schema contains tables and other objects meant to keep information about a registration and enrollment system for a fictitious university. There are ten tables in the system that store data about students, courses, instructors, and so on. In addition to storing contact information (address and telephone number) for students and instructors, and descriptive information about courses (cost and prerequisites), the schema also keeps track of the sections for particular courses, and the sections that students have enrolled in.

The SECTION and ENROLLMENT tables are two of the most important in the schema. The SECTION table stores data about the individual sections that have been created for each course. Each of these section records also stores information about where and when the section will meet, and which instructor will teach the section. The SECTION table is related to the COURSE table and INSTRUCTOR table.

The ENROLLMENT table is equally important because it keeps track of which students have enrolled in which sections. Each enrollment record also stores information about the student's grade and enrollment date. The ENROLLMENT table is related to the STUDENT table and SECTION table.

The schema also has a number of other tables that manage grading for each student in each section.

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