Oracle Forms 10g Release 2 (10.1.2.x): Client Platform Support

Statement of Direction
22th May 2008

Purpose

This document describes Oracle Corporation's statement of direction to support Oracle Forms applications on multiple client platforms. The information below represents configurations which have been tested by the Oracle Quality Control team and have been deemed to be certified. Other configurations may be supported, although not certified. Please review this document carefully.

Broadened Certification Efforts

In general, the strategy for supporting Java UIs with Oracle Forms has been to provide Enterprise-level, 24x7 support to all Oracle customers, and out of this JInitiator has resulted as the primary solution for the Windows platform. In parallel, the Oracle Forms team, in conjunction with the Oracle Product Lines and Oracle Support, is promoting as many platforms as possible. For a platform to even be considered for certification, it must (at a minimum) be based on the JavaSoft 1.3 reference implementation. Our long-term direction is to partner with Sun, such that we share the Enterprise-level, 24x7 support for all Oracle customers, which will result in the certification of the JavaSoft standard Plug-in/JDK on Windows, as well as shorter certification paths to platforms like Solaris, Linux, and Macintosh.

Certification Model

The new certification model is based on three levels:

• Level 1, JVM certified with Oracle Application e-Business suite
• Level 2, JVM certified with custom applications
• Level 3, JVM certified with Forms functional tests.

With this change it will be easier to understand the way Oracle Corporation’s certifications work.

Level 1: Certified with Oracle E-Business Suite

The JVM has been tested in depth with Oracle Applications e-Business Suite. All Oracle Forms applications (either Oracle Applications or custom applications) deployed using the JVM are also deployable, unchanged, to wherever the JVM is ported. For the current list of clients certified with Oracle Applications see Metalink notes 389422.1 and 393931.1

Level 2: Certified with custom applications

This level means that the JVM has been tested with custom applications. Oracle Forms applications can be deployed without significant changes to all platforms where the JVM is ported. In the case of any platform limitations, some customers may need to slightly re-architect their applications to work around bugs related to the JVM. But the implementation is robust enough to support Web deployment of Oracle Forms applications.

Level 3: Certified with Forms functional tests

This level means that the JVM has been tested with a suite of tests used to certify Oracle Forms. This is a comprehensive suite of test which will prove the basic functionality and features but without testing to the extent of a fully functional application.

Oracle Forms 10g: Matrix of the current status of certified browsers/client platforms

The following matrix will give you an overview of the certified client platforms and browsers. When a client platform is certified with a specific patch release it is implicitly certified with all subsequent patch releases. Information in this matrix is always undergoing changes and you should always cross check this information with http://metalink.oracle.com

Client platforms	Browsers		Plug-in		Level	Forms version
	Name	Version	Name	Version
Apple Mac OS X(6)	Safari	1.2	Sun	1.4.2	2	Production(4)
		2.0.3(13)	Sun	1.5.0_06	3	10.1.2.2
Windows XP, 2003 & 2000 (1) (2) (10)(11)	Internet Explorer	6.0	JInitiator(7)	1.3.1.28	2	10.1.2.2
				1.3.1.22	2	Production
			Sun	1.4.2_06	2	Production
				1.5.0_06	3	Production
		7.0(8)	JInitiator	1.3.1.28	2	10.1.2.2
			Sun	1.5.0_06	2	10.1.2.2
				1.6.0_04	2	10.1.2.3
	Firefox	1.0	JInitiator	1.3.1.22	2	Production
		1.0.7	JInitiator	1.3.1.26	2	10.1.2.2
				1.3.1.25	2	Production
		2.0	JInitiator	1.3.1.28	2	10.1.2.2
			Sun	1.4.2_06	2	Production
				1.5.0_06	2	10.1.2.2
				1.6.0_04	2	10.1.2.3
	Mozilla	1.7(5)	JInitiator	1.3.1.25	2	Production
				1.3.1.28	2	10.1.2.2
			Sun	1.4.2_08	2	Production
				1.5.0_06	2	10.1.2.2
	Netscape	7.0	JInitiator	1.3.1.22	2	Production
			Sun	1.4.2_06	2	Production
		7.2	JInitiator	1.3.1.22	2	Production
			Sun	1.4.2_08	2	Production
				1.5.0_06	2	10.1.2.2
Microsoft Vista (9)	Internet Explorer 7.0 Firefox 2.0		Sun	1.5.0_06	3	10.1.2.3
				1.6.0_04	3	10.1.2.3 & upcoming version 11.1.1
Solaris 2.8, 2.9(3)	Netscape	4.7.x	Sun	1.4.2_06	3	Production
Linux(12)	Mozilla	1.5	Sun	1.4.2_06	2	Production

Notes:

1. Certification on Windows 2003 was done with Jinitiator 1.3.1.25. Later versions of JInitiator are supported. Sun's JRE has not been certified with Windows 2003 and is therefore not supported, but appears to work.«
2. See Metalink Note:357545.1 for information regarding applet activation fixes on Windows. «
3. Certified for running from Forms Builder using One Button Run and Debugger «
4. Known issues are documented in bugs 4184632, 4184550, 4184628 «
5. Running on Windows «
6. Webutil is currently certified only on Mac clients with Safari 2.0.3 and Sun's plug-in 1.5.0_06. «
7. JInitiator is based on Sun's JDK version 1.3.1.x «
8. Internet Explorer version 7 has been certified on XP only. «
9. JInitiator is known to not work with Vista and Sun is not planning to support 1.3 on Vista. Oracle therefore have no plans to certify JInitiator with Vista. Vista users should consider Sun's plug-in 1.5 once it is certified for Vista. That is planned for 10.1.2.3. «
10. Sun's plug-in 1.6 was certified with IE 7 and Firefox 2.0 only. «
11. JInitiator has only been certified on 32-bit Windows. «
12. See Metalink Note 266043.1 for a discussion on what Linux flavors are supported. «
13. Note that Safari 2.0 has received only level 3 testing. «

Sun's security update

Sun has relatively recently added functionality to their plugins to ensure that the latest version of the plugin that is installed on a given machine be used at all times. The functionality includes reminders to install the latest version, overrides of requests in the launching page of what plugin version to use to the latest version installed on the client machine and default settings in the preferences that automatically downloads and installs the newest version (after prompts).

This causes problems for Forms if a plugin with this functionality is used. For example if you install 1.5 on a client, it will automatically download and install 1.6 (after the user says Yes to a prompt) which Oracle has not yet certified. In 1.5.0_07 Sun introduced functionality that makes it possible to limit this behavior to the latest version in a version family (what Oracle calls a major version) rather than the very latest version (1.6 as of this writing). As an example, if the launching page requests 1.5.0_06, the latest version of 1.5 that is installed will be used rather than the very latest version which currently will be a version of 1.6. See Note 461257.1 for more information on how to achieve this.

This new functionality that makes it possible to specify a family classid, does not work in Mozilla-based browsers as of January of 2008. It only works in Internet Explorer versions 6 and 7. If you, using a Mozilla based browser, install 1.5 and then accept the automatic download you have two versions installed (1.5 and 1.6) but 1.6 will always be used regardless of what version you specify in formweb.cfg. With Mozilla-based browsers there is no way to run 1.5 in this scenario. To be on a certified version, you must uninstall both versions and then reinstall 1.5. It is not enough to only uninstall 1.6. See Mozilla bug 397965 for more information.

What does "certified" mean?

Certify or Certification is the result of a process where Oracle has performed a specific set of tests against a specific combination of products and product versions. There are three levels of certification test as indicated below. Minor differences in version numbers may still constitute a combination that is expected to work and on which Oracle Support can log service requests and bugs. Contact Oracle Support for guidance on these issues.

Additional Reading

Refer to the Metalink Web site - http://metalink.oracle.com - for information regarding which release of Oracle JInitiator is certified with which version of Oracle Forms. All information regarding client certification for Oracle Applications is also available on Metalink. Papers on related topics can be downloaded from Oracle Technology Network.