By PRajkumar on Apr 12, 2012 What is the difference between Oracle D2K form and OA Framework? It is a very innocent but important question for someone that desires to make transition from D2K to OA Framework. I hope you have already read and implemented OA Framework Getting Started. I will re-visit my own experience of implementing HelloWorld program in "OA Framework". When I implemented HelloWorld a year ago, I had no clue as to what I was doing & why I was doing those steps. I merely copied the steps from Oracle Tutorial without understanding them. Hence in this blog, I will try to explain in simple manner the meaning of OA Framework HelloWorld Program and compare the steps to D2K form [where possible]. To keep things simple, only basics will be discussed. Following key Steps were needed for HelloWorld Step 1 Create a new Workspace and a new Project as dictated by Oracle's tutorial. When defining project, you will specify a default package, which in this case was oracle.apps.ak.hello This means the following: - ak is the short name of the Application in Oracle [means fnd_applications.short_name] hello is the name of your project Step 2 Next, you will create a OA Page within hello project Think OA Page as the fmx file itself in D2K. I am saying so because this page gets attached to the form function. This page will be created within hello project, hence the package name oracle.apps.ak.hello.webui Note the webui, it is a convention to have page in webui, means this page represents the Web User Interface You will assign the default AM [OAApplicationModule]. Think of AM "Connection Manager" and "Transaction State Manager" for your page I can't co-relate this to anything in D2k, as there is no concept of Connection Pooling and that D2k is not stateless. Reason being that as soon as you kick off a D2K Form, it connects to a single session of Oracle and sticks to that single Oracle database session. So is not the case in OAF, hence AM is needed. Step 3 You create Region within the Page. Region is what will store your fields. Text input fields will be of type messageTextInput. Think of Canvas in D2K. You can have nested regions. Stacked Canvas in D2K comes the closest to this component of OA Framework Step 4 Add a button to one of the nested regions The itemStyle should be submitButton, in case you want the page to be submitted when this button is clicked About Puneet Rajkumar Search Enter search term: Search only thisblog Recent Posts Under Maintenance Oracle External Bank Payment APIs API to Create External Bank Branch API to Create Bank API to Create APSupplier Site Oracle APSupplier APIs API to Create APSupplier OTBI Developer Guide OTBI vs. OBIA Oracle Application in DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) Top Tags add_resp_to_fnd_user adf_developer_guide adf_helloworld_tutorial am_extension_in_oaf api_create_external_bank_branch api_create_supp_bank api_supplier_site api_to_create_ap_supplier api_to_create_fnd_user autocustomize_oaf_search_page bounce_apache_server call call_d2k_form_from_oaf_page clear_result_table_in_oaf commit_in_sql controller_extension_in_oaf cr_upd_emp_phone_detail cr_upd_emp_salary create_emp_payment_method create_employee_address create_employee_api create_employee_contact create_employee_element_entry create_lov_in_adf_application create_master_detail_form_in_oracle_adf create_oaf_search_page create_simple_search_form_in_oracle_adf create_state_tax_rule create_update_on_one_click d2k data_entry_form_in_adf delete_employee_element_entry delete_records_in_oaf_page dependent_lov_in_oaf BLOGS HOME PRODUCTS & SERVICES DOWNLOADS SUPPORT PARTNERS COMMUNITIES ABOUT Login Welcome to My Oracle World Puneet Rajkumar Welcome to My Oracle World 6/2/2014 https://blogs.oracle.com/prajkumar/tags/oracle_d2k_to_oa_transformation 1 / 4 There is no WHEN-BUTTON-PRESSED trigger in OAF. In Framework, you will add a controller java code to handle events like Form Submit button clicks. JDeveloper generates the default code for you. Primarily two functions [should I call methods] will be created processRequest [for UI Rendering Handling] and processFormRequest Think of processRequest as WHEN-NEW-FORM-INSTANCE, though processRequest is very restrictive. Note What is the difference between processRequest and processFormRequest? These two methods are available in the Default Controller class that gets created. processFormRequest This method is commonly used to react/respond to the event that has taken place, for example click of a button. Some examples are if(oapagecontext.getParameter("Cancel") != null) (Do your processing for Cancellation/ Rollback) if(oapagecontext.getParameter("Submit") != null) (Do your validations and commit here) if(oapagecontext.getParameter("Update") != null) (Do your validations and commit here) In the above three examples, you could be calling oapagecontext.forwardImmediately to re-direct the page navigation to some other page if needed. processRequest In this method, usually page rendering related code is written. Effectively, each GUI component is a bean that gets initialised during processRequest. Those who are familiar with D2K forms, something like pre-query may be written in this method. Step 5 In the controller to access the value in field "HelloName" the command is String userContent = pageContext.getParameter("HelloName"); In D2k, we used :block.field. In OAFramework, at submission of page, all the field values get passed into to OAPageContext object. Use getParameter to access the field value To set the value of the field, use OAMessageTextInputBean field HelloName = (OAMessageTextInputBean)webBean.findChildRecursive("HelloName"); fieldHelloName.setText(pageContext,"Setting the default value" ); Note when setting field value in controller: Note 1. Do not set the value in processFormRequest Note 2. If the field comes from View Object, then do not use setText in controller Note 3. For control fields [that are not based on View Objects], you can use setText to assign values in processRequest method Lets take some notes to expand beyond the HelloWorld Project Note 1 In D2K-forms we sort of created a Window, attached to Canvas, and then fields within that Canvas. However in OA Framework, think of Page being fmx/Window, think of Region being a Canvas, and fields being within Regions. This is not a formal/accurate understanding of analogy between D2k and Framework, but is close to being logical. Note 2 In D2k, your Forms fmb file was compiled to fmx. It was fmx file that was deployed on mid-tier. In case of OAF, your OA Page is nothing but a XML file. We call this MDS [meta data]. dependent_lov_in_oaf deploy_oaf_page download_conc_prog_ldt_using_shell_script enable_diagnostics_in_oracle_apps enable_personalization_link_oaf end_date_resp_for_fnd_user entity_object_extension_in_oaf eo_based_vo_extension_oaf execute_parameterized_plsql_procedure external_bank_payment_apis form fromhost_name_url_of_oaf_page hrms_hire_into_job_api implement_poplist_in_oa_framework implement_train_in_oaf_page implementing_external_lov_in_oaf Categories Oracle Personal Archives June 2014 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Today Bookmarks Apps Tecnical Terms VS Real Time Oracle Technology Network Blog Techi Corner Technology Newsletters Trading Community Architecture (TCA) Developer Guides ADF Developer Guide OAF Developer Guide OTBI Developer Guide Personalization/Extensions for OAF Oracle APIs Oracle APInvoice APIs Oracle APSupplier APIs Oracle External Bank Payment APIs Oracle FNDUser APIs Oracle HRMS APIs New Blogs Stay Connected Menu Blogs Home Welcome to My Oracle World 6/2/2014 https://blogs.oracle.com/prajkumar/tags/oracle_d2k_to_oa_transformation 2 / 4 Whatever name you give to "Page" in OAF, an XML file of the same name gets created. This xml file must then be loaded into database by using XML Importer command. Note 3 Apart from MDS XML file, almost everything else is merely deployed to your mid-tier. Usually this is underneath $JAVA_TOP/oracle/apps/../.. All java files will go underneath java top/oracle/apps/../.. etc. Note 4 When building tutorial, ignore the steps for setting "Attribute Sets". These are not mandatory. Oracle might just have developed their tutorials without including these. Think of these like Visual Attributes of D2K forms Note 5 Controller is where you will write any java code in OA Framework. You can create a Controller per Page or have a different Controller for each of the Regions with the same Page. Note 6 In the method processFormRequest of the Controller, you can access the values of the page by using notation pageContext.getParameter("<fieldname here>"). This method processFormRequest is executed when the OAF Screen/Page is submitted by click of a button. Note 7 Inside the controller, all the Database Related interactions for example interaction with View Objects happen via Application Module. But why so? Because Application Module Manages the transaction state of the Application. OAApplicationModuleImpl oaapplicationmoduleimpl = OAApplicationModuleImpl)oapagecontext.getApplicationModule(oawebbean); OADBTransaction oadbtransaction = OADBTransaction)oaapplicationmoduleimpl.getDBTransaction(); Note 8 In D2K, we have control block or a block based on database view. Similarly, in OA Framework, if the field does not have view Object attached, then it is like a control field. Hence in HelloWorld example, field HelloName is a control field [in D2K terminology]. A view Object can either be based on a view/table, synonym or on a SQL statement. Note 9 I wish to access the fields in multi record block that is based on view Object. Can I do this in Controller? Sure you can. To traverse through those records, do the below Get the reference to the View Object using (OAViewObject)oapagecontext.getApplicationModule(oawebbean).findViewObject("VO Name Here") Loop through the records in View Objects using count returned from oaviewobject.getFetchedRowCount() For each record, fetch the value of the fields within the loop as oracle.jbo.Row row = oaviewobject.getRowAtRangeIndex(loop index here); (String)row.getAttribute("Column name of VO here "); Category: Oracle ::: Tags: oracle_d2k_to_oa_transformation ::: Permanent link to this entry | Comments [0] ::: Weblog Login Feeds RSS All /Oracle /Personal Comments Atom All /Oracle /Personal Comments Welcome to My Oracle World 6/2/2014 https://blogs.oracle.com/prajkumar/tags/oracle_d2k_to_oa_transformation 3 / 4 The views expressed on this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Oracle. Terms of Use | Your Privacy Rights | Cookie Preferences Welcome to My Oracle World 6/2/2014 https://blogs.oracle.com/prajkumar/tags/oracle_d2k_to_oa_transformation 4 / 4