No post should look good, started with a statement asking the visitor to move on because “There is nothing much to see here”. Trust me, if you already referred my previous post(s) for Oracle Forms & Reports 12.2.1.4, then there is nothing new I have for you in this post. As I don’t have much to offer other than what I have already did through my previous post, let us see how we can insure your fresh attempt to get this whole complex stack installed & configured successfully on your computer.
Are you excited? Don’t be. Oracle has released the much waited Windows version for their Oracle Forms & Reports couple of days back and I must say, I was super excited based on the promises given about the IDE improvements. For improvements what I could see what line numbers inside PL/SQL editor.
Software Requirements
Side note before anything else. Please note, you must install software from the same architecture. Said, if you install JDK 32-Bit and expect your 64-Bit Weblogic to work properly, that is not going to happen. Hence insure all the software you download and install belong to the same architecture.
Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable packages (Specific to Weblogic 12.2)
and for Oracle Forms 12.2.1.19, you have to install Visual Studio 2017 VC++ compoments.
Before you start the installation, let’s do a checklist
Is your Windows machine updated with latest patches for OS and .Net?
Do you have a static IP address for your computer/laptop?
What is the name of your computer? does it looks like some random letters?
Have your read the installation document? :) nobody does it right?
Legal, cracked, pirated… OS comes in different flavors & nothing can stop it. However, keeping your box up to date is your responsibility. Oracle is a very complex technology, that depends upon many OS elements. A broken box will not get you anywhere.
Static IP address is 2nd most important element when you are installing a server software, that is WebLogic in our case. As this server has to be identified and reached by clients, a fixed IP address is a must, however not always possible when a user has limited infrastructure. Microsoft has provided “Microsoft Loopback” interface for such requirements. Please Google and find more about setting it up, if you are one of those users. Microsoft Loopback helps you to setup a static IP address, please note other computers in your network cannot reach your computer using this IP address or setup!
Name of your computer or HOST name. Much of the Computer/Laptop that you buy with Windows preinstalled come with some whacky names. You should change such names to something more meaningful like “JOHN-PC”,”XYZ” etecetra.
I didn’t either read installation manuals until recent times. I realized that, I could avoid hours or sometimes days long Googling merely by reading the instruction manuals.
Once you are done with Microsoft Visual Studio C++ redistributable package(s) installations, we can proceed. Please follow the below post that should take you through installation and setting up a classic weblogic domain, report server instance etc. I hope you will have least issues installating and configuring Oracle Forms & Reports following my post 🙏(Don’t get discouraged by the title of the referred post, as I stated in the beginning, there is nothing new HERE!). The one thing I want to warn you about the time that your computer might take to bring up the UI for the Oracle Forms & Reports installer. This could be nothing less that 7-8 minutes, much more depending upon your hardware resources.
After a long break, I am going to post about deploying Oracle Forms & Reports based application using Weblogic Server 12c (12.2.1.4).
With my previous posts about Weblogic 12c & Oracle Forms & Reports, I have provided most of the details about configuring the Forms and Reports environments for deploying Forms & Reports based application(S). Well, for a beginner this could post a challenge.
So the post is for beginners and those trying to setup an environment using Weblogic Server for the first time. Please note, you must adjust the paths listed below according to your installation/naming conversions.
To start with, I always install Weblogic Server & Oracle Forms & Reports software on the same HOME. Example: D:\Weblogic\Middleware\Oracle_Home
The advantage of following the same name throughout installations (of same version) is, I can copy the fine tuned configuration files from an existing installation and later use them when I am forced to remove and reconfigure the complete infrastructure.
To host Oracle forms and reports based applications, we need to make few changes with existing configuration files for both Forms and Reports. Prior making those changes, let us run a quick errand for mandatory elements for successful deployment of applications.
HOST Name (aka your computer name). Make sure you have a meaningful name for your computer. If you have installed and configured Weblogic and other software components against a name that looks like a joke, then redo the installation and configurations against a new computer name (eg: RAJESH-PC, JOHN, MARTHA, ORASERVER or anything that is short and could easily be identified). Refer documents those explain you how to change your computer name.
You must have a STATIC IP address for your computer that is going to host your Forms & Reports application. If your computer is part of domain network & supported by a DNS server, you might take a risk of not having STATIC IP, however, please note, Oracle insists for a STATIC IP for the box on which you install database & other server software. Usually at home/small networks, you are connected to a wireless router/router or a computer that issues dynamic IP addresses. If you are at home, you may assign a IP address outside of DHCP scope for you computer. Please google for more details to know how to setup STATIC IP address. If you are new to these basic networking elements, consult someone who could help you.
HOST File modifications. As we are talking about Windows environments, regardless whether client or Server OS, you will find the HOST file under:
C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc
You can use Notepad to open up this file and add an entry like below. If you are on Windows 7 or later, make sure that you are opening Notepad as Administrator (The whole exercises you have read until were only tested on Windows 10):
Where 192.168.1.65 is the STATIC IP address assigned to my computer, erp-prod.my.home is the fully qualified domain name(FQDN) and erp-prod is the hostname.
At home you don’t need the FQDN, unless you have a DNS configured or you fancy a computer name like “mycomputer.mydomain.com” instead of just “mycomputer”
The above were the least amount of network related settings those you insure to make sure that your application can be accessed from your computer (and your network). Please note, you have to open port 7777 (default OHS) through the firewall so that other computers on the network can access your application. For local testing, you may skip this.
So, I guess we are good with the above mentioned and will move to setting up “stuffs” for our first application. I already have an application that was developed using 11g Forms & Reports and will be using the same for the rest of explanations.
Setup TNS Names. If you are not using environment variable TNS_ADMIN, you should set up the TNS names exclusively for your application deployment.
So, I said I always install Weblogic and other software components in the same place “D:\Weblogic\Middleware\Oracle_Home”. After configuring for a classic domain for Forms & Reports, I can find the tnsnames.ora file under the path:
Where “base_domain” is the default domain name Oracle suggests during the configurations.
I suggest you to make a copy of your tnsnames.ora file prior making changes to the file. The best is, copy the tnsnames.ora file from your database network admin folder after renaming the existing tnsnames.ora file.
Once the TNS names are set, we can quickly setup “formsweb.cfg” file within which our application specific configurations will be defined.
Based on my installation path and classic domain naming, I should find the formsweb.cfg & default.env files under:
Please make sure that each and every other configuration file that you are going to edit/alter is backed up, so that you can rollback to default configuration easily by replacing the wrongly configured files. I usually put “.original” by the end of backed up files!
Below is a sample configuration for my application & trust me, you need more than half of the parameters listed below
You will learn which parameters are not necessary over the long run. Just make sure that you will create all the new configurations by the dead end of “formsweb.cfg” file to avoid confusions. Please give extreme attention to the parameter “java_version=1.7+”. This means, you can only use JRE versions 1.7 and above (JRE7, 8 and other certified)
Once the formsweb.cfg is saved, we can proceed with editing/altering default.env file, that is in the same path. You can tell the forms runtime to look in this file to locate the forms runtimes. For example, I’ve all the compiled runtimes available at D:\12c folder for the application that I am trying to deploy/publish. The FORMS_PATH is pointed to it & other paths wherever I have applications (eg: mapped path \\RT04\OPMAN12C\main). Make sure each path is separated using a “;”
Finally we have to edit/alter one more file, “Registry.dat” which controls how the LOVs appear/behave and many other values for the runtime. We will only configure LOV appearance and required field background color settings this time.
#
# Application level settings to control UI features
#
# app.ui.lovButtons=false
app.ui.lovButtons=true
# app.ui.requiredFieldVA=false
app.ui.requiredFieldVA=true
# The background color is specified as an RGB triple.
# app.ui.requiredFieldVABGColor=255,0,0
app.ui.requiredFieldVABGColor=255,242,203
Please note, you can make these whole changes using Weblogic EM console. For me this is the fastest way.
Once whole these changes are made, you can start Weblogic server, start Weblogic FORMS server and try to run the application by entering the following URL on Microsoft Internet Explorer. Please note, no browsers other than Internet Explorer allow you to load JRE NPAPI client. We will discuss about using Java Webstart method by the end of this post.
One most important element you should cross verify at this point is whether the JRE installed is 32Bit or 64Bit. If you have installed the complete JDK before Weblogic setup, you should uninstall the JRE 8/higher version that is installed and install JRE 32Bit 7 or higher. Internet explorer will not load 64Bit JRE
Now, we will see how to get reports from the application. If you are planning to migrate from Developer 6i to 12c, there is going to be a huge effort involved. I am working with Oracle Applications R12 from last 11 years and have adapted much of the ideas from the application (menu architecture, report submission and many other). You will have to design a totally new approach for your reports, to cut it short. Plus, 12.2.1.4 is the last version of Oracle Reports (according to sources). Hence please start planning for Oracle BI or Crystal Reports integration for your reporting requirements in the future.
If you are switching from Forms/Reports 6i, please note, you will start using Web.Show_Document method for calling reports from Forms. With the given example, I am allowing users to select a report from list of values and storing the report executable value in to :CTRL.REPORT_NAME column and the calling “Web.Show_Document” method.
if (:CTRL.REPORT_NAME IS NOT NULL) then
Web.Show_Document('/reports/rwservlet?usr&desformat=PDF&destype=cache&report='||:CTRL.REPORT_NAME||'¶mform=Yes','_new');
else
NULL;
end if;
You can pass the report name (‘ABCD.rdf’) for example for the parameter report within the url specified in Web.show_document method.
How to OPEN Forms Developer and Reports 12c??
While Oracle Forms 12c is available within the menu
accessing Report Developer may not be that straight forward. Basically report builder windows executable is wrapped inside multiple windows batch files & you will find the rwbuilder.bat file here:
I suggest you not to try to open the executable, as the wrapper setup environment for the executable to run. Interested, the .bat file has the following content:
@REM
@REM Copyright (c) 1999, 2008, Oracle and/or its affiliates.
@REM All rights reserved.
@REM
@echo off
@echo Starting Reports 12c Builder...
setlocal
set DOMAIN_HOME=D:\Weblogic\Middleware\Oracle_Home\user_projects\domains\base_domain
call %DOMAIN_HOME%\reports\bin\reports.bat
set COMPONENT_NAME=rptools1
set COMPONENT_CONFIG_PATH=%DOMAIN_HOME%\config\fmwconfig\components\ReportsToolsComponent\%COMPONENT_NAME%
set REPORTS_INSTANCE=%COMPONENT_CONFIG_PATH%
set CA_GPREFS=%COMPONENT_CONFIG_PATH%\tools\admin
set CA_UPREFS=%COMPONENT_CONFIG_PATH%\tools\admin
@echo on
start %ORACLE_HOME%\bin\rwbuilder.exe %*
@echo off
endlocal
@echo on
I think I’ve made a decent attempt to make it easier for a sample application deployment using Weblogic Server 12.2.1.4 & always ready to develop and provide a sample application for entirely newbies using Oracle’s sample schemas. Feel free to let me know through the comments 🙏
