Oracle Forms New Feature Ideas

Michael Ferrante-Oracle

There has been lots of discussion around what features "might" find their way into the next Forms release.  Wouldn't it be cool if one of your suggestions became one of those "new" features?  Well, it's time to be heard.  We posted threads like this several times during other release cycles and have found them to be very helpful.  As a result I will continue to start threads like this from time to time.

Although many other improvements are planned for the coming release, UI will be a main focus.  So what ideas do you have?  Here is a template you can use to share your idea.  Feel free to copy it.

SUGGESTION DETAILS

WHAT VALUE WOULD THIS ADD TO APPLICATIONS OR THE PRODUCT

EXAMPLE MOCKUP (IF POSSIBLE)

Here is an example of what you might share:

SUGGESTION DETAILS

Provide a way to hide selected sides of the border of text fields.  Currently a text field is shown with a border around all four sides of the rectangle or completely hidden (no sides shown).

WHAT VALUE WOULD THIS ADD TO APPLICATIONS OR THE PRODUCT

By providing selectable border sides, applications could be designed to more easily resemble their HTML counterparts. This would be one step more toward helping to modernize the Forms runtime UI.

EXAMPLE MOCKUP (IF POSSIBLE)

ben_g

Hi Michael

Thank you, I'll think of some suggestions to post here.

Would you like to receive suggestions relating to Form Builder here or in a separate thread? I bounce really hard off it every time I switch back from Visual Studio or NetBeans. Of course that's assuming you have resources to improve the IDE

Regards

Ben

Holger.Lehmann

Ok, I'm telling some thoughts:

• better support of calling and consuming webservices for feature enhancements
• a public betatest for the next release (ok, no new feature, just a personal wish)
• ability to store more information from formweb.cfg in the repository
• and I don't renew the things about Flexible UI, Repsponsive Design and so on, that's not Forms business

Michael Ferrante-Oracle

Feel free to add any Forms specific suggestions in this thread.  Regarding the Builder, although we are currently not planning any big changes for it, we are planning to make a variety of improvements.  One thing not on the roadmap at this time would be to do extensive redesigned.  For Builder, we are looking at cleanup and minor updates to help improve working efficiently.  For example, possibly adding wheel mouse support in places where it is currently not available, adding right-mouse click editing features (cut/copy/paste), etc.  Although unclear if anyone uses it, we plan to make a minor improvement to the Object List Report.  And numerous others like that... There are a few larger scale changes being discussed for Builder, but we are not prepared to share those details at this time.

Regardless of what your idea is, share it anyway.  All suggestions will be considered.  However, if you want your idea to have the highest chances of inclusion, be reasonable.  As mentioned, extensive redesigns the Builder is not planned. Again, the target areas include, but are not limited to:  runtime UI, FSAL, admin tooling (e.g. FMC/EM, FADS), performance, security, and other areas that I'm not at liberty to discuss

Whatever ideas you have, please share them.  Be sure to provide as much detail as possible.

SFrix

Hi, Thanks Michael to let us make our wish list here.

I have two requests regarding the builder.

It could be super cool to have a feature allowing to make a diff between two modules and allowing to merged changes. Today we have to use an external tool to do that. To be able to call by command this feature will be the cherry on the cake.

Auto-completion for the code is also a feature that could good to have (specially when you use get_*_property or set_*_property built-in but for all form built-in and pl/sql code).

Are they reasonable ? ;-)

Thanks

Michael Ferrante-Oracle

@Holger.Lehmann

What did you have in mind when you asked about storing "more" formsweb.cfg information in repository?  Today we do not store any information from our config files in repo.  Can you be specific?  What would you like stored in repo and why?

Michael Ferrante-Oracle

@SFrix

Auto-complete in the PLSQL editor is not likely something we can do for any near term release.

Regarding your idea for "diff", what exactly would you like to see?  Diff what?  We already give you the ability to diff properties.  Diff'g the code and identifying each difference would be extremely difficult without making significant changes.  However, it may be possible to expose something more like what we currently do for properties.  What if you selected two (or more) triggers and if they are not all exactly the same we show something like **** in the Property Palette or somewhere else?  Again, we already do this for Properties. I suspect we could do similar for triggers, PUs.  Doing this for pl/sql libraries may be difficult, but not impossible.

Holger.Lehmann

Hi Mike,

I thought of hiding the application user that runs a form if it is not user specific or every user does login with a specific userid.

Often there is a user/password with term userid= in formsweb.cfg that could be moved to the OPSS repository maybe,

Walid KHARRAT

Thanks for the initiative,

posibility to get "meta-data" from paramlist : get the list of parameters included in the paramlist and possibility to loop and  extract value of each parameter.

possibility to get list of forms opened. and the current active form from this list.

possibility to order the close of one forms from another

possibility to send custom event from one form to another.

i want the possibility to manage forms from background form(the main form) javascript event and pjc can be attached only in the main form and they have the ability to send events to another forms specially the active one.

Walid KHARRAT

have the integration with VCS tools (git, svn ...) this can be very helpful

Holger.Lehmann

Another topic for linux based systems:

there are many binary package as a prerequisite for an installation:

question? why can't these packages be automatically installed by the installer?

same for windows: the Visual C++ Files. they have to be manually installed at the moment ?

SFrix

Hello,

By diff I meant to be able to identify the changes between two versions of a module (fmb, pll, mmb). Not only the property or specific triggers. It is for the entire module; like ORCL Forms API Master tool do.

With this tool we are able to find the items created or deleted or changed between the two versions; also which code of triggers have changed, trigger added or removed, ...

Michael Ferrante-Oracle

@Holger.Lehmann

Although I agree that the system requirements could/should be handled by the installer, we can't do it in most cases because some packages have unique licensing and terms of use that you are expected to read before installing them.  If the installer installed them we would have to take ownership of ensuring you are notified of each license for each package or actually ship each package's license.  Since every machine is different, your actual needs may differ from the next organization.

That said, I do plan to work with our Release and Install team to see if we can do a better job of testing the system before performing the installation.  Meaning, the installer should warn of what may be missing before it continues.

Michael Ferrante-Oracle

ALL,

These are all great ideas.  Please keep them coming.  And also, be sure to spread the word that we are looking for feedback.  So far only a few people have commented in this thread.  Let's see if we can start a trend.

Also, please read the first post.  Be sure to provide details and explain why your idea adds value.

datadec

SUGGESTION DETAILS

Sorting of multi-record blocks in execution by clicking on header

WHAT VALUE WOULD THIS ADD TO APPLICATIONS OR THE PRODUCT

Allows end users to change the order of the records by clicking on the column of your choice. The ordering could be ascending or descending.

EXAMPLE MOCKUP (IF POSSIBLE)

Atawneh

SUGGESTION DETAILS

NEW RUN TIME MODERN NATIVE UI LIKE JAVA FX APPLICATION LOOK AND FEEL

WHAT VALUE WOULD THIS ADD TO APPLICATIONS OR THE PRODUCT

Atawneh

SUGGESTION DETAILS

add filter box  above data block fields, coloring pl sql code in the editor

WHAT VALUE WOULD THIS ADD TO APPLICATIONS OR THE PRODUCT

datadec

SUGGESTION DETAILS

Resize width columns in multi-record blocks in execution.

WHAT VALUE WOULD THIS ADD TO APPLICATIONS OR THE PRODUCT

The user can adjust the column width when they need.

SFrix

SUGGESTION DETAILS

To be able to put stacked canvas on another stacked canvas.

WHAT VALUE WOULD THIS ADD TO APPLICATIONS OR THE PRODUCT

To ease the contextual display of complex screens and to create more "components" that can be use in any case.

datadec

SUGGESTION DETAILS

New Canvas type browser for integrate web applications.

WHAT VALUE WOULD THIS ADD TO APPLICATIONS OR THE PRODUCT

Possibility of displaying a panel (canvas) that integrates a browser where web applications are integrated with the forms that can communicate with javascript.

EXAMPLE MOCKUP (IF POSSIBLE)

RajeshAlex

SUGGESTION DETAILS

Better formatting for the triggers and plsql code. A code formatter is very important.

WHAT VALUE WOULD THIS ADD TO APPLICATIONS OR THE PRODUCT

Right now everyone in my team writes the code in forms builder and once completed copies to Toad or sql developer and formats there and then copies back.

Best Regards

Rajesh Alex

JeanYves Bernier

Hi  @RajeshAlex , I do exactly the same.

Format the code in SqlDev and paste it back to form builer.

RajeshAlex

Mike,

Another one I can think is Multi Select LOV

Most modern languages has this feature.

SUGGESTION DETAILS

Multi Select LOV.

WHAT VALUE WOULD THIS ADD TO APPLICATIONS OR THE PRODUCT

Very useful for query blocks.. Right now we are limited to either one item from list of values or none.Many times search users need to select multiple values. This will be also helpful when reports are being called from forms..

Multi Select LOV can return multiple values separated by comas

( If these features gets implemented add my name to it:-)

Best Regards

Rajesh Alex

Andreas Weiden

Hi Michael,

i used to be a heavy forms user and contributor in this forum, but my working focus switched to C#-Development some years ago. Nethertheless i frequently have to deal with Forms Builder an do some changes to existing modules.

SUGGESTION DETAILS

A modern IDE

There is one thing any developer who uses an "up-to-date" IDE  immediately complains about when having to use forms (including me after using Visual Studio and Eclipse for several years now). The Forms IDE was already outdated when i started building forms modules in 1997. And, with the exception of some minor changes, NOTHING has changed in the IDE. The IDE is HORRIBLE if you have ever used a modern IDE. There is no kind of comfort for the develeoper, starting from code-completion, code-formatting, code inspection, debugging (with keeping break-point stable). The window handling is the worst i can imagine. There is no kind of docking windows, having an easy way to open more than one code editor, tabbing etc.. There is nothing like code inspection, refactoring or any other modern help for the developer. The binary file format makes it nearly impossible to do a sensible version-control. No chance for merging or file-compare without manual interference or third-party tools.

Whenever i have to deal with doing changes to a forms-module nowadays, i feel uncomfortable and look forward to be able to do developing in Visual studio again. And in my eyes this is one of the biggest problems, as productivity, which was one of the outstanding advantages of forms for a long time, is far better in the meantime in other tools.

WHAT VALUE WOULD THIS ADD TO APPLICATIONS OR THE PRODUCT

Productivity. Feeling, that you work in the 21. century.

Best regards,

Andreas

Michael Ferrante-Oracle

@RajeshAlex

What about multi-select TLists ?

Edward Novillo - BEST RESOURCE S.A.

Hi Michael,

I have a suggestion not directly related to Forms Builder, but is part of it on local runtime mode.... that's why I'm sending it..

SUGGESTION DETAILS

Hide messages related to WEBLOGIC on  running localy (my PC/laptop), or even better sending to Java Console

WHAT VALUE WOULD THIS ADD TO APPLICATIONS OR THE PRODUCT

During development work (coding, testing, fixing issues, etc) we usually open, close, maximize or minimize several windows, but keeping open/minimized those windows related to Weblogic starting/working is not necessary.  Saving all in a log file, or showing into the Java Console could be better.

What would be the value?... I would say give us a cleaner environment on Developement time on Windows, without those console windows