Oracle Forms Generator 4

In a recent posting I promised to outline the major new features of the Oracle Forms Generator 4 which is due for production availability in September 1993 on MS-WIndows. Other platforms will follow shortly after.

Oracle Forms Generator 4 will automatically create screens and menus from high level definitions recorded in the Oracle CASE Dictionary. Developers will be able to create applications supporting a full Graphical User Interface (GUI) and client-server environment as well as traditional character and block mode applications.

New Oracle Forms 4 Objects

The new Generator release introduces support for Oracle Forms 4 including the generation of new screen item types such as:

	push buttons
	radio buttons
	check boxes
	display items
	edit items
	pop lists
	text lists 
	image items

`Look and Feel' Standards

An improved layout algorithm will create screens using the new GUI objects following standards held in CASE Dictionary 5.1 as Preferences. This will ensure that all generated applications are compliant with the chosen development `look and feel' standards.

Flexible Client-Server Generation

CASE Dictionary 5.1 will support client-server applications development by allowing the repository to hold the definition of where application functionality is to be executed (e.g. client-side, server-side or both). Oracle Forms Generator 4 will then use these definitions to generate appropriate client-side applications components complementing the server-side generation supported by the Dictionary. Additional code will also be created to produce user-friendly error handling from exceptions detected by the server-side code.

Multi-Window Control

The developer can use the Forms 4 capability to manage multiple windows by defining within CASE Dictionary how blocks are mapped to windows. The Generator will then create the appropriate objects and code to deliver true multi- windowed applications to users, including appropriate window navigation and block synchronization.

Greater Template Functionality

The templates forms, used as the basis for generating forms, will now be able to contain a wider selection of objects including images and references to objects in library forms.

Enhanced Cursor Management

The performance of generated applications can now be more accurately controlled by the inclusion of options to generate explicit cursors. Received on Thu Apr 22 1993 - 12:36:27 CEST