Oracle9iAS Forms Services Deployment Guide Release 9.0.2 Part Number A92175-01 |
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This chapter describes the basic files you need to configure Oracle9iAS Forms Services, provides an overview of how Oracle9iAS Forms Services runs in Oracle9iAS, and describes the steps you need to follow to deploy Oracle9i Forms applications. After installation is complete, you can use the information in this chapter to change your initial configuration or make modifications as your needs change.
This chapter contains the following sections:
This section introduces the basic files you need to configure Oracle9i Forms applications. For more advanced configuration topics, see Chapter 3, "Configuring Oracle9iAS Forms Services".
This section contains the following sub-sections:
Location of files are given relative to the ORACLE_HOME directory. Forward slashes should be replaced by back slashes on Windows.
Oracle9i Forms configuration files allow you to specify parameters for your forms. This section contains the following sub-sections:
Location: forms90/server.
This is the Forms Servlet configuration file that contains the following:
Variables (%variablename%) in the baseHTML file are replaced with the appropriate parameter values specified in the formsweb.cfg file and from query parameters in the URL request (if any).
For more information about formsweb.cfg, see Chapter 3, formsweb.cfg.
Location: forms90/server.
The baseHTML files (base.htm, basejini.htm, basejpi.htm, and baseie.htm) are used as templates by the Forms Servlet when generating the HTML page used to start up an Oracle9i Forms application.
We recommend that you make configuration changes in the formsweb.cfg file and avoid editing the baseHTML files. If you need to change the baseHTML files, create your own versions and reference them from the formsweb.cfg file by changing the appropriate settings.
For more information about baseHTML files, see Chapter 3, base.htm, basejini.htm, basejpi.htm, and baseie.htm.
Location: forms90/server.
This file allows you to configure Forms Trace. Forms Trace allows you to replace the functionality that was provided with Forms Runtime Diagnostics (FRD) and Performance Event Collection Services (PECS), which were available in earlier releases of Oracle9i Forms. Forms Trace allows you to trace the execution path through a form (for example, steps the user took while using the form).
For more information about ftrace.cfg, see Chapter 7, ftrace.cfg.
By default Oracle9i Forms is configured for OC4J by deploying it as a J2EE compliant application packaged in an EAR (Enterprise Archive) file called forms90app.ear. This EAR file is deployed during the Oracle9iAS installation process (if you choose to configure Oracle9i Forms). During deployment, the EAR file is unpacked into the applications directory of the OC4J instance.
This section describes:
Location: j2ee/ProductGroup2/applications/forms90app/forms90web/WEB-INF/web.xml.
Once Oracle9i Forms has been installed and configured, the web.xml file is located in the directory j2ee/ProductGroup2/applications/forms90app/forms90web/WEB-INF underneath ORACLE_HOME. It defines the aliases "f90servlet" and "l90servlet" for the Forms Servlet and the Forms Listener Servlet.
For more information about web.xml, see Chapter 3, web.xml.
During Oracle9iAS installation and configuration, the Forms EAR file (forms90app.ear) is deployed to the "ProductGroup2" OC4J instance. This results in the following directory structure.
Names with a + sign are directories:
%ORACLE_HOME%/j2ee/ProductGroup2/applications/forms90app
This section describes the file used to configure Oracle HTTP Listener for Oracle9i Forms.
Location: forms90/server.
This is the Oracle HTTP listener configuration file for Oracle9i Forms. It is included into oracle_apache.conf, which in turn is included into httpd.conf (the master HTTP listener configuration file). Forms90.conf defines virtual directors (aliases) and servlet mount points to map URL requests to the Forms Servlets running in the OC4J servlet engine.
For more information about forms90.conf, see Chapter 3, forms90.conf.
This section describes the file used to configure font and icon settings for Oracle9i Forms.
Location: forms90/java/oracle/forms/registry
This file allows you to change the default font, font mappings, and icons that Oracle9iAS Forms Services uses.
For more information about registry.dat, see Chapter 3, registry.dat.
This section describes the default environment variable containing environment settings for the Forms runtime process.
For a full list of customizable environment variables, see Chapter 3, Customizing Environment Variables and Registry Settings.
Location: forms90/server.
This file contains environment settings for Forms runtime and can be found in the same directory as the formsweb.cfg file. On UNIX, default.env should include the PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH.
For more information about default.env, see Chapter 3, default.env.
Once you have created your application in Oracle9i Forms Developer , you are ready for application Web deployment. Oracle9i Forms accesses an application in Oracle9iAS through a specified URL. The URL then accesses the HTTP Listener, which communicates with the Listener Servlet. The Listener Servlet starts up ifweb90.exe for each new Oracle9i Forms module.
For more information about how Oracle9iAS Forms Services runs, see Oracle9iAS Forms Services in Action.
To deploy a basic form with the default parameters set up by the installer:
.fmb is a design time file that can only be opened in Oracle9i Forms Developer. .fmx is the runtime file created when you compile the .fmb and is used for Web deployment.
For more information about Oracle9i Forms Developer, go to the Help menu in Oracle9i Forms Developer.
[my_application]
form=name_of_module
For example,
[application]
form=hrapp.fmx
In the previous example, Oracle9i Forms is running the application "application" and calling the file "hrapp.fmx".
This means the Oracle9i Forms module hrapp.fmx will be callable on the Web by entering "...?config=application" in the Browser URL.
Note: You can name the configuration section anything you want, as long as it does not include spaces.
Forms90_Path is an environment variable that can be set using an Oracle9i Forms environment file, an ASCII file referenced by envFile=<name of the file> in formsweb.cfg. The deault environment file used is default.env located in the Forms90\Server directory.
To create your own environment file copy default.env and modify it as needed by your application. In the application configuration section in formsweb.cfg, add the following parameter:
[application]
form=hrapp.fmx
envFile=<your file name>.env
http://mymachine.com:7777/forms90/f90servlet?
where "mymachine" is the name of your machine and "7777" is the port used by your HTTP Listener.
Since you specified a configuration file, you will need to add "config=" and the name of the configuration section. So, using the example in step 2, the URL to access hrapp.fmx would be:
http://mymachine.com:7777/forms90/f90servlet?config=application
There are three ways to predefine paramter values for your Oracle9i Forms applications. You can define parameters by:
The default configuration section displays the default values that will be used by Oracle9i Forms. The default configuration section contains two parts: System Parameters and User Parameters. While you can edit the existing default configuration section, you cannot create new ones.
For example, the default value of the system parameter that specifies how to execute the Forms applet under Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.x is defined as follows:
IE=JInitiator
If you want the Forms applet to run in the browser's native JVM, edit the parameter in the formsweb.cfg file to read:
IE=native
You can override the system and user parameter values in the named application configuration section (see Creating configuration sections in formsweb.cfg.). For example:
[myApp]
baseHTML=mybase.htm
baseHTMLjinitiator=mybasejini.htm
baseHTMLjpi=mybasejpi.htm
baseHTMLie=mybaseie.htm
form=myapp.fmx
userid=
Note: Parameters specified in the named configuration section of formsweb.cfg will override the system parameter settings.
Override system parameter settings if your application requires modifications to the underlying HTML templates or another value set for the Internet Explorer virtual machine. Change the system parameter setting only if the modification must be adopted by all applications run by the server.
Note: System Parameters cannot be overridden in the URL, while User Parameters can.
Under the configuration sections you created in step 2 of Deploying Your Application, you can specify parameters for your Oracle9i Forms applications. You can specify any application and system parameters that are in formsweb.cfg.
For example, you can make the look and feel of the application to be the Oracle look and feel:
[Human Resources]
form=hrapp.fmx
envFile=<your file name>.env
userid=scott/tiger@orcl
lookandfeel= oracle
You can also override the default parameter values in the named configuration section. For example, to predefine the connect information of an application to scott/tiger@orcl, the parameter value for userid must be set in the named configuration section:
[Human Resources]
form=hrapp.fmx
envFile=<your file name>.env
userid=scott/tiger@orcl
For other parameters you can edit, see Parameters in the formsweb.cfg File.
Note: Parameters specified in the configuration section will override your application default settings.
You can directly type parameters into the URL that accesses your Oracle9i Forms application. Using the previous example, instead of specifying the pageTitle parameter in your configuration file, you could also type it into the URL as follows:
http://mymachine.com:7777/forms90/f90servlet?config=hr&pageTitle="My Company"
You can use the ampersand (&) to call a combination of a form and named configuration parameters. For example, in the following URL:
http://mymachine.com:7777/forms90/f90servlet?config=ienative&form=hrapp,
you are calling the form "hrapp" with the parameter settings you specified in "ienative".
Note: Parameters specified in the URL will override parameters set in the configuration section.
This sections describes how an Oracle9i Forms application runs in Oracle9iAS, and how the configuration files are used, assuming that the Forms Servlet is used to generate the initial HTML page. For simplicity, we assume the Web server is running on port 7777 on a machine called "mymachine.com". We also assume no modifications have been made to the standard configuration created during the Oracle9iAS installation process.
When a user runs an Oracle9i Forms application, the following sequence of events occurs:
http://mymachine.com:7777/forms90/f90servlet?config=ienative&form=hrapp
In this case, the (top level) form module to be run is called "hrapp" using the configuration section called "ienative"
Whenever a variable (like %myParam%) is encountered, the Forms Servlet looks for a matching URL query parameter (for example, &myParam=xxx), or, failing that, looks for a matching parameter in the formsweb.cfg file. If a matching parameter is found, the variable (%myParam%) is replaced with the parameter value.
For example, the baseHTML file contains the text %form%. In our example, this is replaced with the value "hrapp".
The virtual path definition in the forms90.conf file for "/forms90/java" allows the applet code to be loaded from the Web server.
Note: The Forms applet code (for example, f90all_jinit.jar) is only to be loaded over the network the first time the user runs an Oracle9i Forms application (or if a newer version of Oracle9i Forms is installed on the Web server). Otherwise, it is to be loaded from the Web browser's (or the Java plug-in's) cache on the local disk.
This file must either be present in the workingDirectory (which is specified in the formsweb.cfg file), or in one of the directories named in the FORMS90_PATH environment setting, which is defined in the environment file (default.env by default). You can also specify the directory in the formsweb.cfg file (for example, form=c:\temp\myform).
Users can view Oracle9i Forms applications on the Web using Oracle JInitiator plug-in (using Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer). In future patch releases other virtual machines will be supported.
For more information about client browser support, including the latest supported platforms, go to the Oracle9i Forms Developer menu and choose Help | Forms on OTN...
Oracle JInitiator runs within a Web browser and is based on Sun's JDK/JRE 1.3. It provides the ability to specify a specific Java Virtual Machine (JVM) on the client rather than using the browser's (native) default JVM. Oracle JInitiator does not replace or modify the default JVM provided by the browser. Rather, it provides an alternative JVM in the form of a plug-in for Netscape Navigator and as an ActiveX component for Internet Explorer.
Oracle provides two JAR files (f90all.jar and f90all_jinit.jar) that group and zip classes together for efficient delivery across the network to the client. f90all_jinit.jar is an extra-compressed JAR file that can be used only with Oracle JInitiator to provide increased performance at download time. Once on the client, the files are cached for future use.
For more information about Oracle JInitiator, see Appendix A, "JInitiator".
When an user starts a Web-enabled application (by clicking a link to the application's URL), the Forms Servlet:
* Internet Explorer 6 that has been upgraded from 5.5 only (IE 6 is not certified in the base release)
** Internet Explorer running on Windows with the Microsoft Native VM.
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