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Chapter 12

Using the Object Navigator to Create Your First Oracle Form

This chapter covers SQL*Forms Designer screens, the Object Navigator, and various menu options. After you're acquainted with the basic product, you learn how to develop a simple form.

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Launching Forms Designer

Forms Designer 4.5 is Oracle's software product for developing the forms you learned to run using Forms Runtime in Chapter 11, "Using an Oracle Form." Forms Designer is launched by double-clicking the Forms Designer icon in the Developer 2000 icon group.

Figure 12.1 shows the Designer 2000 group and the Forms Designer icon.

FIG. 12.1
The Oracle Developer
2000 icon group and
Forms Designer icon.

Forms Designer's Initial Screen

When you double-click the Forms Designer icon, the Forms Designer default screen is displayed. The Object Navigator is displayed first.

This screen contains a default form file ready to be used to create a form. The Object Navigator displays a list of various high-level objects in the objects window. These objects are the components of the form.

The Designer default window has four parts. These are as follows:

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Figure 12.2 shows the Forms Designer screens immediately after you've launched Forms Designer.

FIG. 12.2
The first forms designer
screen, containing the
Object Navigator.


Using the Object Navigator

The Object Navigator is a dialog list box containing Designer objects. The Object Navigator is laid out like a tree branch.

On the left side of the branch or list are the high-level objects. Each of the high-level objects is similar to a stalk of the branch. As you move down from the stalk, additional branches occur. The branches are the child-objects of the high-level object. As you move down this next level of branches, other branches or objects can appear. That is how the object navigator works. The objects you see on the first object navigator are the high-level object. Under each of these objects, child objects can be created. In many cases, the child object can have child objects. The object navigator is used to create and trace these various objects.

In Figure 12.2, you can see three levels of objects. At the highest or parent level, objects in the default Object Navigator are Forms, Menus, Libraries, Built-In Packages, and Database Objects. Each of these objects can have multiple child objects.

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The Forms object in Figure 12.2 has one type of child object: the form module or application. In this example, there's one module called MODULE1.

This is the default name of a blank form that's created when you launch Forms Designer or create a new form module. Each module or file object has children.

The module child objects are indented below and to the right of MODULE1. They include the Triggers, Alerts, Attached Libraries, Blocks, Canvas-Views, Editors, LOV's, Object Groups, Parameters, Program Units, Property Classes, Record Groups, Visual Attributes, and Windows.

The purpose of the Object Navigator is to quickly find and access any object created or used in Forms Designer. You access objects by starting at the parent level and following the branches to the object you want.

Expanding and Collapsing Objects

Each of the objects in the object list shown in Figure 12.2 has a symbol at the left. You can see three different symbols: a turquoise minus sign (-), a turquoise plus sign (+), and a darkened plus sign (+). These symbols tell you whether you can create or see additional child objects.

The minus sign indicates that the object is fully expanded, showing all of its child objects. In Figure 12.2, two objects contain the minus sign: the Forms object and the MODULE1 objects.

The Forms object has only one child object, MODULE1, and it is displayed. The Module1 object contains a minus sign since all of its child objects are displayed.

The Triggers object under Module1 has a darkened plus sign. This means the object can have children objects but currently doesn't have any. This object can't be expanded further since there are no child objects yet.

The Windows object has a turquoise plus sign preceding it, which means that it has existing child objects. You can see the child objects by expanding the Windows object.

You can expand objects in several ways. The easiest is to place the cursor on the plus sign and click the mouse button. This causes all children objects to be displayed.

When you expand multiple objects, the Object Navigator gets cluttered. You can remove the clutter by collapsing objects. The easiest way to collapse an object is to place the cursor on the minus sign and click the mouse button.

Figure 12.3 shows the default Object Navigator after the Forms object is collapsed and the Built-in Packages object is expanded.

Defining Form Objects on the Object Navigator

The Object Navigator offers a variety of objects that are used in forms. These are shown in Table 12.1, with a brief description of each. (The objects are discussed in more detail in the next four chapters.)

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