Control Oracle Forms with an external program

Question

I work for a company that uses Forms based on Oracle 11i. Many employees complain about redundant data entry, and I want to write a program that will alleviate some of this pain, since all attempts to ask IT to do this have failed.

The problem is that since Oracle Forms is Java-based, there are no "controls" as would be said in a Windows application or in an HTML-based form. Does anyone know a way to tell the PC (for example, only) to click edit field 3 in the RMA creation form and then enter the data? The only way I can programmatically navigate through Oracle is through keyboard shortcuts, and this is very unreliable.

I am not interested in the language or studying a new application to solve this problem. Currently, I know (from elementary to intermediate levels) Java, VB.NET and will accept C ++ at school. Is there any tool, bridge, spy element that will allow me to send commands to elements in the form?

change

APC sez: Oracle Forms over the Internet works as a Java applet. I mention this because it may be relevant to your answers.

Answer 1

I would have thought it would be easier to change the Oracle Forms screens themselves. You can add PL / SQL to triggers that should be able to accomplish everything you need to enter data.

Answer 2

I don’t know if Oracle Forms is a thick client, an installed application, a pure HTML web application, or a Java applet web application. Here are a few thoughts:

For applications with a thick windows client, WinBatch does a great job of simulating user interaction. I never used it to manage web applications, but it looks like he could have done it, just with less control.

For testing web applications, Selenium and HTMLUnit are two popular frameworks for simulating user input.

Answer 3

I think that you really need to do this using the integration methods described in this paper Integrating Oracle Forms into Oracle ADF Faces . Oracle Forms 11g includes a new JavaScript API that allows you to call it from a web page. Thanks to this, you could create some automated task flows in JS and let the end user select them based on criteria, etc.