Oracle Forms..An Introduction and Brief History

•A software product for creating screens that interact with an Oracle Database.
•Has a typical IDE including an object navigator, property sheet and code editor that uses PL/SQL.
•Primary focus of Forms is to create data entry systems that access an Oracle database.
•Originally sold as standalone product , now bundled into a package suite called Oracle Developer Suite.

•Interactive Application Facility (IAF)
-Block Mode
-Oracle Database 2

•FastForms
-Character Mode
-Oracle Database 4

•SQL*Forms version 2, 2.3
-Character Mode
-Oracle Database 5

•SQL*Forms 3
-Character Mode
-Oracle Database 6
-New IDE, PL/SQL

•Oracle Forms 4.0/4.5
-4.0 was the first “true” GUI based version
-Oracle Database 6/7
-Optimized for client server.
-4.0 interface was slow, buggy and un-popular with client base.
-4.5 was a popular one with enhanced GUI.

•Oracle Forms 5
-Oracle Database 7

•Oracle Forms 6/6i
-Forms server and web forms were introduced.
-Oracle Database 8/8i

•Forms 7 to 8 did not exist. These numbers were jumped over in order to allow the Oracle Forms version number to match the database version.

•Oracle Forms 9i
-Oracle Database 9i
-Stable one with many bug fixes.
-Three-tier, browser based delivery

•Oracle Forms 10g
-Oracle Database 10g
-Actually a Forms release (9.0.4.0.19)

•Oracle Forms 11g
-Oracle Database 11g
-Latest One.