A few weeks ago one of my customers told me that he lost a sales opportunity because the customer who he was trying to sell his software too had problems convincing his system administrator to install JInitiator. And as we all know it’s often quite a challenge to convince a system admin to install something he does not know and doesn’t want to know. In the real world it is much easier to convince them that the SUN JPI is needed to be installed for your application. In my opinion a loss which was not needed since you can run Webforms without JInitiator using the SUN JPI. How did I know? Well I had read the blog of Wilfred van der Deijl. He has a good blog site called OraTransplant in which he had posted an article on how to use dynamic versioning of Sun JPI and Oracle Forms.
My goal was to use the static version of the Sun JPI version 1.5.0.11 My customer sells validated software which complies with FDA regulations therefore I did not think it would be a good idea to use dynamic versioning since JPI 1.6 is not supported yet by Oracle.
So what to do:
Make a backup of your formsweb.cfg file just to make sure you never know.
Make sure that the baseHTML, baseHTMLjinitiator and baseHTMLjpi parameters point to your basejpi.htm
EG:
# System parameter: default base HTML file
baseHTML=basejpi.htm
# System parameter: base HTML file for use with JInitiator client
baseHTMLjinitiator=basejpi.htm
# System parameter: base HTML file for use with Sun’s Java Plug-In
baseHTMLjpi=basejpi.htm
Change the jpi_download_page to the proper URL. The different download sites can be found here
Change the jpi_classid to the proper version of the Java Plugin
Change the jpi_codebase to the proper place the file is located. In my case I used the download URL of sun but this could also be your local server.
As last make sure that the jpi_mimetype points to the correct version
EG:
# Page displayed to users to allow them to download Sun’s Java Plugin.
# Sun’s Java Plugin is typically used for non-Windows clients.
# (NOTE: you should check this page and possibly change the settings)
jpi_download_page=http://java.sun.com/update/1.5.0/jinstall-1_5_0_11-windows-i586.cab
# Parameter related to the version of the Java Plugin
jpi_classid=clsid:CAFEEFAC-0015-0000-0000-ABCDEFFEDCBA
# Parameter related to the version of the Java Plugin
jpi_codebase=http://java.sun.com/update/1.5.0/jinstall-1_5_0_11-windows-i586.cab#version=1,5,0,11
# Parameter related to the version of the Java Plugin
jpi_mimetype=application/x-java-applet;version=1.5.0.11
Save the file and you are up and running. Note that when you do not have JPI 1.5.0.11 installed on your machine you will be prompted to install it the first time you launch your application in the same way you are prompted to install JInitiator the first time you launch your application.
Just for the record, I tested this using Oracle forms 10.1.2 running in IE60 a bit and as Wilfred noticed that there are known issues with 1.5.0 I will see if there are issues running 1.5.0.11.
Very informative and timely too.
Hi folks,
Has anyone encountered any issues with webforms with Sun JRE 1.6.0_01 ?
Regards,
Will Mehigan
Thank you both (Marcos and Jacco) for the input. I now have some work to do 😉
As an apple user I have to work with the JPI option in my safari browser. This is also the preferred method for linux workstations. I can confirm jpi works with headstart too. (this feature has been working since 9R2 for me 😉 )
Hi Mark,
I am not sure. I do not use headstart so I can not tell. I am testing at the moment and spotted some minor things when running the application through a Webex meeting. So at the moment I did not check yet if this issue was related to JPI or Webex. If I know more I will post a new blog with my findings.
Does this also work on a iAS with headstart installed? I’ve tried using the java runtime, but had some problems using i.e. the LOV button. When entered a LOV it wasn’t filled correctly or it wasn’t even filled at all.
Hi Wilfred,
Thanks for this information, I will update my post and point to the 1.5.0_11 version. Best to have the last release of the JPI which is certified by Oracle.
If you insist on using 1.5.0, please use at least 1.5.0_06 since that is the minimum required version for IE7/XP support. See then Client Platform Support statement at http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/forms/htdocs/10gr2/clientsod_forms10gr2.html#fn8
Thanks for the compliment! But if I was you I would not go for version 1.5.0_0 (the base release). If you really want to use the 1.5.x series, you’re better of with the latest version 1.5.0_11.
In my opinion you’re even much safer with using 1.4.2_13. There are a number of issues with Sun JPI 1.5 and Forms. There are numerous issues where you lose focus or mouse navigation. Also, there is a documented issue in the Forms 10gR2 release notes that states your Internet Explorer might hang every now and then when closing the browser window with Oracle Forms when using JPI 1.5. All of these issues do not seem to occur in 1.4.2_x.