FormsAPI Master
FormsAPI Master helps you to programmatically modify and analyze Oracle Forms and Reports Modules.
An easy to learn scripting language (similar to PL/SQL) gives you full access & flexibility
over Oracle's Forms Open API. FormsAPI Master is a powerful add on tool for the Oracle
Developer Suite that allows you to automate and track changes in Oracle Forms and Reports modules!
Automate complex tasks by writing scripts
The
scripting language
used is a variant of the well known "Pascal" programming language.
The similarities to Oracles PL/SQL
make it very easy for Oracle Forms Developers to get proficient in writing scripts.
The Oracle Forms Open API functions and procedures exposed through the scripting engine allow you to do
everything (and more!) to a Forms module than what you can do by opening it up in Forms-Builder.
You can create, change, and delete items and properties and automate complex changes by using scripting.
Endless possibilities
The possibilities with FormsAPI are truly endless. Here are just a few examples of what is possible and has been
done with FormsAPI Master:
- Resize your old legacy 640*480 screens to 1024*768 or whatever resolution you like!
- Make sure your application runs on Unix & Windows (lowercase icon filename, menus and library filenames, etc ...)
- Make a visual make-over of your old design, Use a new color scheme, icons, add PJCs, and background graphics to give your application modern up to date look!
- Translate labels, captions, titles, prompts, texts and list items of your Forms module into another languages and make it multilingual!
- Attach new libraries and detach old ones
- Analyze and gather change impact information
- Check your application conforms to "good practices" - every item has a visual attribute assigned, every button/menu item/radio button has a shortcut, fields have the proper height, etc ...
- Add a new line of code to the "When-New-Form-Instance" trigger in every module
- Replace the obsolete run_product calls in Forms9i with report-objects
- Batch compile all your modules
- Convert boilerplate texts to prompts
- Patch module information for version control directly into the module
- Integrate the DeveloperCompare tool with many leading Change Management Systems
- ...and many more ..
Making change happen
In normal application development environments you think twice before making changes to your
whole application system that are not absolutely necessary. Mostly because if you have to do
all the work manually it will take weeks or months .. or is simply impossible to do. This is where
FormsAPI Master really shines. The tool gives you the power to apply all sorts of complex changes to
your whole application system often within hours. Think of FormsAPI Master as a tool to increase your development
team by 500 junior developers. You will need to tell them exactly what to do (by writing a script)
but once they know they will execute the work for you in mere minutes and in perfect quality (nothing gets overlooked!)
instead of weeks or months.
Worth the investment
Many of our customers are able to claim a ROI (return of investment) with the time saved through automation on their
very first project. Depending on your project requirements FormsAPI Master can save you weeks or even months
of human developer time! Many of them buy it for a big Forms version upgrade project, but then find other uses
for FormsAPI Master scripts almost on a weekly base. There is no doubt that FormsAPI Master increases
productivity and quality of your applications by a large factor.
More tools for everyday use
FormsAPI Master also comes with a variety of other useful tools. The DeveloperCompare tool and the PowerSearch
for example are two of the tools that many use almost daily.
DeveloperCompare
lets you visually compare and merge differences in objects, properties, and code between two Forms or Reports Modules.
You can even say which objects and properties should be compared and which ignored. No more guessing what
changes broke the new version - with this tool you know the answer within a few seconds! It's also great
for other common structured development practices like Code Reviews, TwoStream Development and Change
Management. The DeveloperCompare utility is a handy tool that can safe you
hours of frustration and work!
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PowerSearch
enables you to search through hundreds of modules(Forms,Reports,text files,etc) in minutes.
PowerSearch handles all the common search problems (whitespaces, ignoring comments/strings,
wildcards, etc) for you by using special rules that take PL/SQL syntax into consideration.
In the Property-Search mode you can even have complex search criterias based on one or more
property values. An example of such a search would be to find all items based on column
"first_name" that have a data lenght unequal to 30 characters.
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DeveloperReport
is similar to the Forms Doc functionality available under the Administration menu inside Forms
Builder, just a little bit more flexible and with nicer output. You can choose which
objects & properties you want to extract and then save the resulting report as Text, HTML, RTF, or even
in XML format.
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Please note that if you don't need the scripting automation then you might want to have a look at
FormsTool instead.
FormsTool is a trimmed down version of FormsAPI Master without the scripting environment.
Download a free 30 Day Trial now!