Tutorial for Oracle10g Forms / Reports

(Version 3.0)

 

 

 

 

by: David Zhu  (IT Analyst)

Reviewed by:   Joe Callaghan  

 

  School of Business Administration

Oakland University

Rochester, MI 48309-4401

 

March.  2006

 

 

 

 

Prerequisite:

   You have an Oracle account on Oracle server and you have Oracle10g Developer Suite installed and configured to the Oracle10G Server on your workstation.

   You have created a Student table (FTPT_STATUS, MAJOR, SEX, START_SEM, START_YEAR, STUDNAME) in Oracle database by using Oracle10g Designer or SQL*Plus.

   You have basic PL*SQL knowledge.

 

Lesson 1

In this lesson you will learn:

   What is Oracle10g Forms/Reports

   Tools provided by Oracle10g Forms/Reports to create Forms and Reports

   How to log on to Oracle10g Forms/Reports

   Create your first block and form based on your Student table

What Is Oracle10g Forms/Reports?

Oracle10g Forms/Reports is an Oracle tool that helps you to create web-enabled forms and reports based on the tables that you have created using Oracle10g Designer or SQL Plus commands. Starting from Oracle10g, Oracle10g Forms/Reports has become one of Oracle10g Developer Suite components. You can use Oracle10g Forms/Reports to:

   Design and customize your forms and reports.

   Add various functionality, like radio buttons, combo boxes, and list of values to make your forms and reports more user friendly.

   Write triggers on your objects to add functionality to them and capture errors.

   Web enable your Forms or Reports on a development server.

Tools Provided By Oracle10g Forms/Reports

Oracle Oracle10g Forms/Reports provides four tools:

   Object Navigator: In this tool you can view all your objects, add new objects and name/rename your objects.

   Layout Editor: This tool helps you design your forms and reports and add various objects to them like push buttons and list boxes.

   PL/SQL Editor: This is the tool that is used to write all the codes for the triggers, procedures or functions.

   Menu Editor: This tool will help you create a customized menu that can be attached to your form or report.             

 

Logging On to Oracle10g Forms/Reports

1. To log on to Oracle10g Forms/Reports, go to Start Programs  Oracle10g Developer Suite  Forms Developer, click Start OC4J Instance (Very important: You must keep OC4J running while using Oracle10g Forms/Reports !!!), after OC4J initialized, then click Forms Builder.

 

2. Immediately, you will see the window for Forms Builder:

 

 

 

 

 

3. Double click Data Blocks, Select 'Use the Datablock Wizard' and click OK--This is the easiest method to design a new form.

 

4. You will now see the Welcome to the Datablock Wizard Window. Click Next to proceed.

 

5. You will now see the window for the Datablock Wizard. Select Table or View as in the figure and click Next.

6. You will now see the window that prompts you to select a table or a view--your form will be created based on this selection. Since no table or view is being shown, click on browse to look at the list of tables and views in your database.

 

 

7. Once you click browse, the connect window will appear. Type in your username, password and database to connect to the database.

 

8. You will now see the tables window. Select current users and tables and click OK.

9. You will now see the list of tables created in your database. Select Students and click OK.

 

10. You will now see your selected table and its available columns on your screen. Click on the single right arrow to select the first column to be shown in your form; in this case the

STUDID column. You will now see this column under the database items selected sub-window.

11. To move the rest of the columns, simply click on the double right arrow and this will select all your columns in to the database items.

12. You will now see the Congratulations window. Make sure that "Create the data block, then call the Layout Wizard" is selected and click on Finish.

 

13. You will now see the Layout Wizard Welcome window, click next. You will see the following screen, click next.

 

 

14.  select the items that you would like to show in the form. Make sure that the data block selected is Students and then click the double right arrow to move all the columns of the Student block from the available items to the displayed items. Click on Next to continue.

15. The window with the prompt for the height and width of the items will appear. Click Next to accept the default values.

 

15. The Layout Wizard will now prompt you to select the layout or view style of your block. Select Form and click Next.

16. The Layout Wizard will now prompt you to select a title for the form that you are creating. Type in Student Records. Click Next to continue.

17. Congratulations! You have now successfully created your first form. Click Finish to view your form.

18. You will now see the canvas view of the form that you have created. You can now add various objects like push buttons, combo boxes and radio buttons to your form to make it more graphical and user friendly. We will do this in the next lesson.

19. You can now format the form manually. Click on the frame to select it. Then drag the frame to make it bigger.

20. You can now space out the data fields to make your form more visually appealing. You can do this by simply selecting the data field and dragging it to your desired area.

21. After you have formatted all the data fields, your form should look like the following:

Lesson Summary

In this lesson you have learned:

   What is Oracle10g Forms/Reports

   Tools provided by Oracle10g Forms/Reports to create Forms and Reports

   How to log on to Oracle10g Forms/Reports

   To create a data block

   To create a basic form based on a table that you had created.

   How to view your form in the canvas.

Next, you will learn to add more objects and functionality to your basic form. For this, proceed to Lesson 2.

Tutorial for Oracle10g Forms / Reports

Lesson 2

In this lesson you will learn how to create an end-user interface and add more functionality to the basic form that we created in Lesson 1. Specifically, this will involve:

   Creating LOVs, or List of Values, where you will connect your form to another table from which the users make their selections

   Creating Radio Buttons

   Creating Combo Boxes and Poplists

   Creating Push Buttons

   Adding triggers to the Push Buttons for inserting, deleting and retrieving records

List of Values (LOVs)

1.     In this form we are designing, we will create a List of Values for major, so that the user can select a major from the list. To do this, first we will have to create table called Major_List.

2.     To do this, go to SQL*Plus and type the following code at the SQL prompt

SQL> CREATE TABLE MAJOR_LIST (MAJOR    VARCHAR2(20));

3.     Now type in the following statement to insert more data into the Major_list table:

SQL> INSERT INTO MAJOR_LIST VALUES ('Accounting');SQL> INSERT INTO MAJOR_LIST VALUES ('Info. Systems');SQL> INSERT INTO MAJOR_LIST VALUES ('Marketing');SQL> INSERT INTO MAJOR_LIST VALUES ('Finance');SQL> INSERT INTO MAJOR_LIST VALUES ('Decision Sciences');

SQL> COMMIT;

4.     Now, type in Select * from Major_List; to view your newly created table and its records.

5.     Now, Open the Module you previously created in Oracle Forms Builder. First, double click LOV in the Object Navigator on Forms Builder, then select Use LOV Wizard.

 

6.     Immediately, the window for LOV Wizard will pop up, select Next, you will have the following screen:

7.     Click Build SQL Query, then highlight MAJOR_LIST table, click Include:

 

 

 

 

Close Select Data Tables window, select MAJOR in Query Builder window:

 

Then, click OK. The following SQL command created.

 

 

 

8.     Click next, you will have the following screen:

9.     Select major and move it under LOV Columns, then click next.

 

10. You will have the following screen:

11. Accept all default settings of LOV Wizard. Click Look up return item and select STUDENT.MAJOR, then click OK.

 

 

Click next, you will have the following window, type in MAJOR_LOV as title for your LOV:

Click Finish at this point, you will come back to the Object navigator window. Now, name the LOV as MAJOR_LOV by double clicking the icon under LOVs:

 

Which opens the following window, change the LOV name to MAJOR_LOV, then close the Property Palette.

 

 

 

 

 

12. Now go back to the Canvas View by clicking on the small picture icon just beneath the word Canvases in the Object Navigator.

13. In the Canvas View, we will create a push button and position it right beside the Major data field. To create the push button, select the box like icon from the toolbox, click on it once and drop it beside the Major data field.

14. After the push button has been created, then right click on the button and select Property Palette from the list that pops up.

15. Once you are in the Property Palette, remove the label, specify Iconic as Yes and in the icon Filename type Down. Click on the close button in the lower taskbar located on the upper right corner.

16. You will now return to Canvas View. Your Canvas will now look like:

 

 

 

 

 

17. Now back in the canvas, right click on push and this time select the PL/SQL Editor.

 

 

15. In the PL/SQL Editor we will write a trigger that will connect this button to the table called Major_List, so that when the user clicks on the button they will be able to view the list of options. When you select the Pl/SQL Editor, the window for the new trigger selection will appear.

16. We will write a When-Button-Pressed trigger, since we would like the code to be activated when the user presses the button. Scroll down and select When-Button-pressed trigger.

17. Immediately, you will see the PL/SQL Editor window.  Type in the following code in the blank space in the Editor.

DeclareReturn_LOV Boolean;BeginReturn_LOV :=show_LOV('Major_LOV');End;

18. After typing in the code, click compile on the upper left-hand corner of the window.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

19. To test how the button works, you can view the form by returning to the Canvas View and selecting Run Form from the Program menu. (note: if you have not installed Oracle Jinitiator on your pc, the system will automatically start Oracle Jinitiator installation process when you click Run Form. You will have to let system complete the installation process in order to use Run Form function. Also, you must keep the OC4J Running when using Run Form).

20. When the form is running, type in an ID number in the STUDID field (there has to be data in the primary field). Then click the button with the down arrow. The list of majors will pop up.  To return to the canvas View, simply click OK in the list of majors and click the close button in the upper right taskbar.

 

 

 

 

21. We will now create radio buttons for the FTPT_Status to give the user an option of creating either Full-Time or Part-Time.

 

22. To do this, right click on the FTPT_Status field in the canvas view and go to its Property palette.

23. Change the item type from text to Radio Group and set the initial value to either FT or PT. Close the Property Palette by clicking the close button on the upper right hand corner.

24. Once you return back to the canvas, you will realize that the data field for the FTPT_Status is no longer visible. This is because we have specified it to be a radio group and not a text item. To see them, we will have to insert radio buttons. Select radio button from the tool palette on your left.

25. Drop the radio button into the canvas. Immediately a window will appear, prompting you to select the radio group you would like to attach this radio button

to. Select the radio group FTPT_Status.

 

26. Now right click on the radio button and go to its Property Palette. Change the label of the button to 'Full_Time', change background color to gray and give the radio button a value of FT.

27. In the same manner create a second radio button, attach it to the radio group FTPT_Status, give it a label of 'Part-Time' and a value of PT.

28. Select a rectangle from the palette and draw it around the radio buttons.

29. Go to the Property Palette for the rectangle frame by right clicking on it.

 And then change the fill pattern to blank.

 

 

30.   Select Bevel Lowered to format the frame.

31. You can now test your form by selecting Program Run Form. Your form with the newly created radio buttons should now look like:

 

 

32. We will now create a drop-down poplist for the variable Start_Sem that will contain four entries: Fall, Spring, Summer 1 and Summer 2. To do this, go to the Property Palette for the Start_Sem and change its item type from text to list items, and select list style as poplist.

 

33. Click on Elements in List and type in the list elements and list values. In this lesson, the list elements and values will be same and will be Fall, Spring, Summer 1 and Summer 2. (or 01, 02, 03, 04, depending on the data type in your database ).

34. Now go to Programs Run Form to view your newly created Poplist.

 

35. We will now create three push buttons and write triggers for each button. To create a push button, select the button icon from the palette on the left of the canvas and drop in the lower part of the form.

36. We will change the label of the first push button in the property palette to "Retrieve." To do this, right click on the button and go to its Property Palette.

37. Now select the PL/SQL editor by right clicking on the push button.

38. Select the WHEN-BUTTON-PRESSED-TRIGGER, insert the following PL/SQL code in the blank space of the editor and then click Compile.

begin

select studid, studname, ftpt_status, sex, start_sem, start_year, major

into :student.studid, :student.studname, :student.ftpt_status,

:student.sex, :student.start_sem, :student.start_year, :student.major

from student

where studid = :student.studid;

exception

when no_data_found then

message ('Invalid Student Id:Please enter a valid Id.');

raise form_trigger_failure;

end;

39. In the above code, we are writing a select statement for retrieving the record of a student with any particular student ID. If no data is found on a particular student ID, then 10g Forms/Reports will give an error message and raise the form_trigger_failure trigger. Run the form and type in a invalid STUDID to check the message.

In a similar manner, create two other buttons, totaling three push buttons.

40. Go to the second push button, right click on it and go to its property palette. Change its label to Insert. Now come back to the Layout Editor, right click again on the push button and go to its PL/SQL Editor. In it, write the following code in the When-Button-Pressed trigger:

Commit;Clear_Form;

41. Label the third push button as Clear. At the When-Button-Pressed Trigger, write the following code:

Clear_Form;

42. Now go back to the Canvas View and Program Run Form to view your form with the three push buttons.

 

 

 

Lesson Summary

In this lesson, you have learned how to add various objects to your form and write triggers on them to add functionality. Specifically this involved:

1.     Creating LOVs, or List of Values, where you connected to another table from which users make their selections

2.     Creating Radio Buttons

3.     Creating Poplists

4.     Creating Push Buttons

5.     Adding triggers to the push buttons for inserting, clearing and retrieving records

In the next lesson we will create another push button for deleting records, to which we will add alerts for warning the user before a record is deleted. We will also use a procedure to create the above mentioned functionality. To learn how to do this, proceed to Lesson 3.

 

 

Tutorial for Oracle10g Forms/Reports

Lesson 3

In this lesson, you will learn how to:

   Create Alerts (a modal window) on a push button that will function as a warning or a message to the users when they click the button.

   Create Procedures which are stored blocks of code which can be called from multiple objects saving the time taken for retyping codes

Creating an Alert

1. Go to Alerts in the Object Navigator and double click on it. 2. Double click on the newly created alert and name it DELETE_ALERT.

3. Now double click on the alert and you will immediately go to its Property Palette. In the properties:

   Change the title of the alert to Delete Alert, and Name to Delele_Alert.

   Type in the message as "Are you sure you want to Delete?"

   Select Stop as the Alert style

   You can add a third button to the alert or just keep the OK and Cancel

   Make sure that Button1 is selected as the default button

 

4. To activate the alert, we will create a procedure which we will call from the delete button. To add a procedure, go to the Object Navigator and double click on Program Units. Immediately the window for the new Program unit will appear.

 

5. In the window for the new Program Unit, type in the name as Display_Delete-Alert. Make sure that procedure is selected as the type of Program Unit and click OK.

6. Once you click OK, you will be automatically taken to the PL/SQL Editor window.

7. In the PL/SQL Editor, type in the following code for activating the alert. You may have to delete a couple of lines from the Editor to avoid duplication. In this code, we will declare a number variable called return_alert. We will then set it to show the alert that we created earlier in this lesson called Delete_Alert. We will then write a simple if/then statement, such that if the user clicks on OK, which is alert button 1, then 10g Forms/Reports will perform the deletion and commit the changes. Otherwise, it will exit the alert window and help the users decide on their action. (See the following to get a view of the code as it should look in the PL/SQL editor. Do not forget to compile.)

 

8. We will now add a push button to the form and then add the above procedure to it, so that whenever the user clicks on delete, the alert will be shown. To do this, go the Layout Editor by double-clicking Canvas icon and add a push button to the form, go its properties, and change the label to Delete (use the steps used to create a push button in Lesson 2). Now go to its PL/SQL Editor by right clicking on the push button.

9. At the When-Button-Pressed trigger in the PL/SQL Editor, write the following code:

delete from student

where studid = :student.studid;delete_record;Display_Delete_Alert;

10. The last line of the code will call the previously created procedure Display_Delete_Alert and activate the alert whenever the user clicks on the delete button. The first two lines of code delete the record for any particular student ID.

11. Then click Run Form.

 

 

Lesson Summary

In this lesson you have learned how to:

   Create alerts on push buttons (delete) so that when the user clicks on the button the alert is shown as a warning

   Create procedures or stored blocks of code that can be called from any object

 

Next you will learn how to create reports. To do this, proceed to Lesson 4

 

Tutorial for Oracle10g Forms/Reports

Lesson 4

In this lesson you will learn how to create reports based on our existing Student table. Specifically, this will involve:

Using the Data Model Wizard

Using the Layout Editor to customize our reports

Our objective will be to create a simple report that will list students along with some student attributes. Students in this report will be categorized by major. As a starting point, let us assume that the STUDENT table has the following rows.

You may enter the data shown below using the INSERT statement in SQL*Plus covered earlier in the tutorial. For example, the following statement may be used to insert the first row (for the student Diana with Student Id '1113').

SQL> insert into student values ('1113', 'Diana', 'PT', 'F', 'Fall', 1996, 'Marketing', 'Y');

Or, you may enter data directly from the previously created form.

Enter the rest of the data by either method.

Creating Reports:

1. In order to create reports, you will need to go to the Reports Builder in Oracle10g Forms/Reports. To do this, go to the Start button and select Programs Oracle10g Developer

Reports Developer Report Builder

2. Immediately, you will see the Welcome to Report Builder Window. Select the radio button for the Build a new report manually and click OK.

3. Once you click OK, you will see the Report Editor-Data Model window, with a default name for the Data Model.

4. The Report Editor is the tool that you will use to create your data model for the report. Click on the SQL icon (See the following) in the toolbar located on the left hand side, and drag and drop it on the palette. Immediately, the SQL Query Statement window will appear. Type in the displayed SQL query to view student information in order of major.

5. Once you click OK, Oracle10g Forms will prompt you to connect to the database. Type in your User Name, Password and Database.

6. You will now see your data model, where Q_1 stands for the name of the query and G_Major, stands for its associated record group which contains the list of fields that you will be able to view in your report.

7. To change the name of your query, right click on it and select the Property Inspector:

8. Immediately, you will see the window for the Property Inspector. Change the name by typing in the name (Q_StudMajor) beside the 'Name' tab, and press enter. You can also change or edit your SQL query by clicking on the space beside the SQL Query Statement tab.

9. Your Data Model should now look like the following:

10. Recall that we have been asked to create a report that will display a list of students and their related information organized by Majors. To do this, we will move the Major records into a separate record group. In Oracle10g Reports terms, it is called to 'break out'. First, click on the G_Major, and drag and lower it to create more space between the record group and the query. Then select Major, and drag and drop it on the line connecting Q_StudMajor and G_Major.

Figure 11.12: Creating a Break Group

11. Your Data Model should now look like the one in Figure 11.13 with a new group for Major.

12. Right click on the G_1 to go to its Property Palette. Change its name to G_Break.

13. Your Data Model should now look like the following:

14. Now select Report Wizard from the Tools Menu to generate the report.

15. You will now see the first screen of the Report Wizard. Select “Create both Web & Paper Layout”, click next, and Type in "List of Students by Major" in the Title box. Next, select the radio button for Group Above in order to create breaks after record groups for each Major. Now, click Next.

16. You will now see your SQL statement again. You can edit your statement here if you choose to. At this time we will use the query that we had entered earlier. Click Next.

17. You will now be prompted to select the fields that you would like to designate as group fields. Selected Major into Group Fields window (see the following). Now, select the next tab, Fields.

Selecting a field to Designate as group Field

18. You will now be asked to select the fields that you will display in your report. We would like to see all the fields, so click on the double right facing arrows to select all the fields and click next.

Selecting the Fields that are to be displayed in the Report

19. You will now be prompted to select fields for which you would like to calculate totals. Let us assume that we have been asked to provide the total number of students in each major and also the Grand total of the number of students. To do this, select StudID, and click on Count.

20. Your Screen should look like the following with Count (StudId) in the Totals column). Click Next.

A view of the Totals Screen

21. You can now modify your labels and their width. In this case we have put a colon and a space after Major and have changed the label for CountStudIdPerReport to "Number of Students: " and click Next.

Modifying the labels and their width of the report.

22. The final modification involves selecting an appropriate template for the report. In this case, we will select Beige from the list provided. You are free to select any template of your choice. Click Finish.

Figure 11.24: Selecting an appropriate template for the report

23. Your report should now look like the following:

24.Web-enable Reports:

To web enable the report, click Run button on the top of the window, Oracle10g Reports will generate a report in HTML version. You can deploy this file on a web server to publish it on-line.

Lesson Summary

In this lesson you have learned how to:

Create a simple Data Model using the Report Editor

Create "Breaks" in the Data Model

Generate reports based on the created Data Model using the Report Wizard

Create simple charts using the Chart Wizard