Re: Ver. 1.3 Upgrade

Tom L wrote:
>
> Reposting article removed by rogue canceller.
>
> I have a large application (125 FMB's & 15 PLL's) that was written with
> Developer 2000 version 1.2 (16 bit). I am thinking about going to 32 bit
> Developer 1.3 for Windows 95. Is this a smart thing to do? What are the
> draw backs? Benefits? dangers? concerns? etc.....
>
> Any suggestion or comments is appreciated.
>
> Tom
> tluers_at_one.net
>
> PS: I'm using HP/Unix, Dec Alpha, and DEC VMS machines.

The following is a report I made to my client after we I tried the new 1.3. Enjoy.

---
Evaluation of Oracle Developer/2000 Rel 1.3

Included on the CD are installs for both NT and Win95.  I tried the NT 
install on my system.  It installs in 
the C:\ORANT directory.  So you don’t have to delete version 1.2 from 
your system which is in the 
C:\ORAWIN directory.  That is if you can handle about 400MB of files.  
You will need to keep some of 1.2 
around of you are using any 16 bit SQL Net tools.  I found that the 16 
Bit ODBC driver uses 16 Bit SQL 
Net and therefore the Access app I am developing couldn’t connect until 
I reinstalled 16 bit SQL Net.  So 
far the two (1.2 & 1.3) coexist well on my system.  

First off I got an error while installing.  The installer tried to 
install a windows dll (CTL3D32.DLL) that was 
in use.  I called Oracle and their looking into it.  Amusing side note, 
the customer support database was 
down so the TAR giver couldn’t give me a TAR number????  

  Oracle called back on the install problem.  Seems others are having 
problems also.  They recommend 
closing all running Apps. before installing 1.3.  TAR# 9472615.6.  BUG# 
369486.

I ignored the above error and continued with the install.  The rest went 
all right.  While I installed (about 30 
minutes) I read the release notes.  I was confused about which version 
it’s talking about.  It talked about the 
new 4.5.6 release (this one is 4.5.7.0.10).  It seems to be almost the 
same as the 1.2 release notes.  

And in the notes was mention of a patch.  This will bring the version up 
to 4.5.7.0.11.  I installed it in hopes 
of fixing the VBX problem but was no help.  

Can’t seem to run VBX’s.  I regenerated the Grading form and got an 
error about the NT kernal not a valid 
NT image???  Oracle is looking into this (as soon as the DB is back up). 
 I didn’t try the Win95 version.

  Oracle called back on the second problem (can't open a VBX control, 
TAR# 9472630.6).  As explained 
in the FAX they sent me, Rel. 1.3 does NOT support VBX's.  They explain 
that "VBX's are a 16 bit 
mechanism, and as such are only supported on 16 bit ports".  This is odd 
since the release notes go on 
and on about how simple it is to use VBX's.  And there still is a VBX 
button in the layout editor for 
adding a VBX to a form.
 
Can’t believe they could make the source editor worse, but they managed 
it (NT version).   Some of the list 
boxes are so small its very hard to select anything.  No new features 
were added that I could see.  There is a 
new twist to searching.  Searching for package names depends on whether 
there is a comment before the line 
containing ‘PACKAGE ...’.  If you include a C style comment (/* ... */ 
starting on the first line, the search 
will not find the package name if your search is not spelled in the same 
case.  Example:

/* Package Spec */
PACKAGE PACKAGENAME IS
....

A search for ‘packagename’ would not find this one.  Even if ‘Case 
Sensitive’ is not checked.  You 
would have to search for ‘PACKAGENAME’.  Change the comment in line one 
to ‘--’ style and the 
search works fine.  And of course removing the comment  fixes it too.

The debugger is just as worthless as in previous releases.

Opening the Canvas editor on some canvas's locks up the developer (NT 
version).  Just a few,  3 of the 9 in 
the form I tested caused the developer to lock up.   TAR# 9474066.5.

  Oracle was able to reproduce the problem.  They tell me it is only a 
problem in the NT version.  The 
Win95 version does not have this problem.  BUG# 369617.  I asked to be 
put on the list to get the 
patch as soon as it's out.  The reply was "What List?".  So I'll have to 
call and call until they get a patch 
made.

The Win95 version is much better than the NT version.  It does not have 
the canvas editor bug.  And the 
source editor works correctly.  The only thing wrong that I saw is the 
same lack of support of VBX's and 
limited OCX support as the NT release.  But the Win95 version is very 
resource hungry.  I was having 
trouble running it on a Pentium 133 with 16MB Ram and 30MB free HD 
space.  The hard drive was 
trashing quite heavily.  I cleaned up the hard disk to 100MB free which 
helped out quite a bit.  But still just 
as quick as on my Pentium 60 with 32MB running NT with a 100 swap file. 
 I suspect 32MB of ram is 
required to run in Win95.

We did give OCX’s a try.  I talked with the folks who we bought the tab 
VBX from and sure enough they 
had an OCX version.  We downloaded it from their web site.  I couldn't 
install it because Forms has no 
facility to register OCX's.  We were able to register it with Visual 
C/C++.  We could place the OCX in a 
form.  But we can't figure out how to use it.
 
  TAR# 9476263.6.  The answer from Oracle is your on your own with 
OCX's.  The next release of 
Dev/2000 (rel 2.0) should have full support of OCX's.  I closed the TAR. 
 (That made them happy).

It turns out that OCX's are only partially supported.  You have to read 
the release notes very carefully.  
There is contradicting information in the file.  Section 4.16.1 states 
that you can insert an OCX object in the 
form, but you can only set properties.  And no triggers are supported 
for OCX's.  So a tab OCX is useless in 
this release.  There is mention that in Rel 2.0 all this will be added. 
 So I rewrote my Form to use buttons 
and display items to simulate tabs.  It works like tabs but doesn't 
quite look as nice.

In my 1.2 App. I used the Window API functions to read and write an INI 
file.  I was using the ORA_FFI 
package to call these functions.  Well the name and functionality of 
these functions has changed.  It turns out 
that I need to flush the INI file buffer and to do this I need to call 
the function with null pointers.  ORA_FFI 
does not support null pointers.  In order to use the 32 bit INI API's I 
would have to write a userexit dll.  
That would require installing Visual C/C++.  And from what I hear, 
userexits don't work that well (Oracle 
customer support has 2 phone menu options devoted to userexits).  So I 
rewrote the INI file functionality by 
using the TEXT_IO package.  It's not as nice as INI files but it gets 
the job done.  TAR# 9482103.4.

It turns out that the developer command line option Purgepus=yes (that 
cured some of the problems with  
corrupted forms) causes the developer to crash.  Remove this option!  I 
just hope they fixed the problem that 
Purgepus was there to fix.

The default Forms date format is now DD-MON-YYYY.  Previously it was 
DD-MON-YY.  The cure for 
the year 2000 I suspect.  You may to widen fields that display dates.

In the release notes and the Forms help it talks about the settings in 
the ORACLE.INI file.  It also says that 
this version (NT and Win95) uses the registry.  It seems to be using the 
registry and not the INI file.  There 
are entries in the registry (LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/ORACLE) and no INI 
file to be found.  So 
where it says INI, substitute Registry.

The release notes talks about the new return values of the 
Get_Application_Property.  It now returns new 
values for NT and Win95.  This is NOT documented in the Forms help.  I 
have tested it and it does work as 
per the release notes.

More fun with release notes.  Chapters 7.3 and 7.4 talk about how to 
increase memory and reduce GPF’s.  
They are talking about Win 3.11.  This doesn’t apply to NT or Win95.  
Ignore these chapters.

The mystery continues.  It is now known that Rel 1.3 does NOT support 
VBX’s (Solution ID 2066126.6).  
Nowhere in the release notes does it state this.  Instead it goes on and 
on about how to use them.  Ignore the 
following chapters:  3.3 (concerning VBX’s), 5.1.3, 7.35, 7.36, 10.2, 
10.4, 10.5, 10.6.  And ignore the VBX 
button in the canvas editor.  But DO read 4.16.1 about OCX’s.  

Can’t seem to set the bevel of display items in the NT version.  In my 
situation I noticed that display items 
displayed as lowered in the NT version while they showed as raised in 
the Win95 version.  I was able to 
open the NT canvas editor (luckily it didn’t lockup) and check the bevel 
settings.  They were set to raised in 
both the canvas editor and the property window.  Yet when run in NT the 
display item is shown as lowered.  
Seems to work correctly in Win95.