Re: SqlForms, SqlMenu, ReportWriter - Version 7.0

smith_at_vnet.IBM.COM (Scott Smith) writes:

>I have been using Oracle 6.0, and the three main tools.
>(Forms, Menu, Report Writer). These tools are text based in nature.
>Do the tools that ship with Ver 7.0 support GUI objects? In other words,
>if I run these tools under MS Windows 3.1, will the user see GUI instead of
>straight text?
 

>Thanx.

This is one of the more confusing aspects of using Oracle. The RDBMS and the "tools" (Forms, Menu, Reports) go under different version numbers.

As you stated, you have been using Oracle RDBMS version 6 but, most likely you have been using SQL*Forms v3.0, SQL*Menu v5.0 and SQL*ReportWriter v1.1.

You can upgrade your RDBMS to version 7. The new Oracle tools that are currently shipping include SQL*Forms 4.0 and Oracle Reports 2.0. The Menu and FOrms functions have been combined into the one forms 4.0 package. If I'm not mistaken, the "Tools" also include Oracle Book and perhaps Oracle Graphics. Not sure about this though.

Anyhow, This new tool set is now shipping under MS-Windows 3.1 with SunOS versions soon to come. All of these tools have a GUI development and runtime modules.

A few caveats: The Windows versions of the tools require quite a bit more horsepower to run. Figure on a 486 with 12 megs of RAM or more to do development. I know they say "8 is enough" but most develpers have found otherwise.

The other is that once you upgrade to the new tool set, the old licence for the tools (at least in MS-DOS) is no longer valid. For this reason, I'd suggest doing some sort of limited trial before upgrading all of your tools and runtimes.

Hope this helps

Rich Holowczak
Rutgers University
holowcza_at_andromeda.rutgers.edu Received on Fri Dec 10 1993 - 19:11:10 CET