How to configure Forms to use Sun JPI

16 June 2005 at 11:23 CEST | In Forms, Oracle, SUN JPI/JVM |

I just got a question from a blog visitor how they can get Forms to use Sun JPI and not Oracle JInitiator. I’ll try to explain the exact steps in this post. First of all, I have to warn you that Sun JPI is not (yet) certified. This is also stated in the Oracle Client Platform Support statement. However, they are targeting for the next patchset to support it.

We have a lot of external users in Europe. We found that getting their sysadmins to accept Oracle JInitiator can be a challenging task. Getting the to install the well known Sun JPI is much easier. I do not always agree with them, but that’s just the situation we have to live with.

Here are the changes we made:

  • In formsweb.cfg change baseHTML, baseHTMLjinitiator and baseHTMLie to “basejpi.htm”. You could also make a copy of basejpi.htm to create your own custom base file and point to that file.
  • The setting of IE=native or IE=JInitiator is no longer relevant. Basically, what this does is determine if the setting for baseHTMLjinitiator (IE=JInitiator) or baseHTMLie (IE=native) should be used. Since we changed both base-parameters to point to the same file, this is no longer relevant.
  • The basejpi.htm uses several variables from the formsweb.cfg in the EMBED and OBJECT tags. These are: jpi_download, jpi_classid, jpi_codebase and jpi_mimetype. I’ve played around with these parameters for quite a while. I’ve explained in a previous blog posting about these settings and which values we eventually used.

14 Comments

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  1. Is it possible to run Forms9i applications without JInitiator.
    I tried the steps what you have mentioned, but its failed.

    Can you help me to solve this problem ASAP.

    Thanks.

    Comment by Jayaraman — 22 June 2005 #

  2. If you can’t get any more specific then “it fails”, then I’m afraid I can’t help you. What happened? Did your computer blow up completely, did it evaporate or did you get a useful error message?

    Comment by Wilfred — 22 June 2005 #

  3. Hi Wilfred,
    I have done the same as you sadi to configure the SUN JPI. But the applet does not get loaded and everytime i try the URL it asks for installing the JRE

    Comment by Anand — 16 September 2005 #

  4. Anand: Which version of Sun’s JRE is it trying to download and from where? That might give you a hint on what is going wrong. I assume you also read the other blog article I’m linking to. That explains in quite some detail which settings we are using. We’ve been using those for three months now and have 1000-2000 users all over Europe using Sun JPI using very different versions of Windows and Internet Explorer (some are even using Firefox or Mozilla browsers or other operating systems). Please check your settings in formsweb.cfg again and otherwise send me a copy of that config-file and the URL you are using at wilfred (at) eurotransplant dot nl

    Comment by Wilfred — 18 September 2005 #

  5. It looks like Sun is having problems with its download sites. If I try to download any of the CAB files mentioned at http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/guide/deployment/deployment-guide/autodl-files.html I get an error.

    Perhaps this is also what you are running into, Anand.

    Comment by Wilfred — 19 September 2005 #

  6. Hey,
    Anand probably you’re not reading this anymore, but it ain’t a problem as you download the JRE from sun place it into a virtual directory of your AS (eg /Jinitiator to keep it easy) Then adjust the Jpi settings in your formsweb to get the same release as you’ve just dowloaded and set the download directory the same as the one for Jinitiator.
    So if your client has adifferent version he will get the same version as you are publishing from your AS.
    If you need the code to do it just leave me a mail.

    greetz

    Comment by Erwin — 11 February 2006 #

  7. Hi Wilfred,
    How can I specify the directory where JRE 1.4 is located because browser wants to access internet to download JRE.
    Thanks and Regards.
    Khawar

    Comment by Khawar — 24 December 2006 #

  8. See this blog entry for a more detailed instruction of setting up Sun JRE with dynamic versioning and automatic downloads.

    Comment by wilfred — 24 December 2006 #

  9. Hi:
    I am using forms 9.0.4 with IE 7.0. One of the requirements that I have is to use native jvm instead of jinitiator. Users must have administrative privileges in order to install the jinitiator. I tried to follow the instructions that you have on this site, however, I still get prompted to install jinitiator. A user that does not have administrator privileges, will never see the prompt. Can you please advise.
    Thanks!
    Mayra Silva

    Comment by Mayra Silva — 13 March 2007 #

  10. I appreciate the promp info. I finally got it to work with IE, however, going through the different blogs at sometime I read someone having trouble with firefox because it kept asking for a plug in. I don’t remember if there is a solution for that. I can’t find where I read it. Can you point me the right direction.
    Thanks again.

    Comment by Mayra Silva — 16 March 2007 #

  11. I’m also unable to run the Forms application using the Firefox browser. It gives me the “Additional Plugins are required…” error, just wondering how you are able to run the Forms application under Firefox..
    This is the configuration I’m using:
    jpi_classid=clsid:8AD9C840-044E-11D1-B3E9-00805F499D93
    jpi_codebase=https://java.sun.com/update/1.5.0/jinstall-1_5_0_11-windows-i586.cab#Version=1,5,0,11
    jpi_mimetype=application/x-java-applet;jpi-version=1.5.0
    jpi_download_page=https://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/download.html

    I have installed 1.6 sun plugin on my client, since I’m using dynamic versioning I thought this configuration should work. Please let me know if we have to enable/disable any Firefox browser options.

    Thank you for your help and for a great informative site.

    Comment by Sudhakar — 23 March 2007 #

  12. yes it is very much possble in Forms9i applications without JInitiator. I did it i will post my code and link in next post but this blog change my thinking to see java in way.i will apply these code.

    Comment by Steve Mac — 22 September 2007 #

  13. Hi,
    Is there any possibility to run Forms10g as “Thin Client” - Without installing JavaRuntimeEnv or Jinitiator on Client machine?
    If not what about future release 11?

    Many Thanks
    Regards
    BoBa

    Comment by Forms Thin Client — 8 November 2007 #

  14. Hi BoBa,

    No there isn’t. You always require some sort of Java Virtual Machine. By default Oracle supports their own JInitiator and Sun’s JRE running in a browser.

    I know people have been successful in deploying Forms as a Sun Java webstart application, but this is not officially supported by Oracle. I guess you could also collect all the necessary JAR files and start it command line with java.exe. This is also not supported by Oracle.

    As far as I know, Oracle has no plans changing this in future versions. They might add support for the webstart or stand-alone scenario, but I’m not sure. I think the chance of them moving away from Java are absolutely non-existent.

    Comment by wilfred — 8 November 2007 #

Trackback/Pingbacks:

  1. OraTransplant - Wilfred van der Deijl » Oracle Forms and Sun JVM 1.6

    [...] This blog will describe a workaround to get Oracle Forms to work with the newly release version 6 of Sun’s Java SE. When we moved Forms to the web we decided not to use Oracle’s own JInitiator but opted for Sun JPI. I’ve blogged before about the step needed to configure Oracle Forms to use Sun JPI in stead of Oracle JInitiator. [...]

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