Use CUSTOM.pll for forms customization

What is the CUSTOM Library

- Standard oracle liabrary supplied with Oracle Applications

- Allows customer to enhance standard functionality of the oracle Applications

- Every forms based screen will access CUSTOM.pll

- Ideal point to create business rule which affects entire organization

- This is the Only method supported by Oracle for Oracle Applicaitons enhancements

How to Use the CUSTOM Library

Since the CUSTOM library is a typical Forms PL/SQL library, it can include standard PL/SQL logic, Oracle Forms

built-in commands and may have other Forms PL/SQL libraries attached to it. The base CUSTOM library is located

in the $AU_TOP/resource directory on your forms server.

Explore the CUSTOM.pll using the Oracle Forms Designer module to examine the sample code that exists in library. Once any enhancements are made, the library must be generated into an executable library (CUSTOM.plx) that then can be used by the Oracle Applications Forms runtime module. Since the CUSTOM library is loaded once for a given session, a user must log out of the application and sign-on again before any changes will become apparent. It is suggested that you also place a copy of the CUSTOM library in your customization directory as a safety precaution.

Since the CUSTOM library’s standard location is in the $AU_TOP/resource, it can be

overwritten during an upgrade of the Applications. Once enhancements are implemented, the CUSTOM library is accessed by the Oracle Applications based upon ‘events’. The ‘events’ define the occasions when the Applications will look into the CUSTOM library for additional code to execute.

Some events are generic:

        WHEN-NEW-FORM-INSTANCE – initially entering a form

        WHEN-NEW-BLOCK-INSTANCE – entering a zone (or block) within a form

        WHEN-NEW-ITEM-INSTANCE – moving into a new field within the form

        WHEN-NEW-RECORD-INSTANCE - creating a new record

        WHEN-FORM-NAVIGATE – navigating thru a form using the mouse

        WHEN-VALIDATE-RECORD – saving (committing) the information to the database

        EXPORT – triggered by using the Export feature

Some events are field specific

        ZOOM – Pre -11 feature for moving to another form and querying up specific records

Some events are form specific

       SPECIALn - (where n is a number between 1 and 45) used to generate entries in the ‘Special’ menu of the

                         tool bar and the code is triggered by selecting a menu choices from the ‘Special’ option on the toolbar

       KEY-Fn – (where n is a number between 1 and 8) triggered by pressing the corresponding function key

Some events are application specific:

       Application Object Library

           WHEN-LOGIN-CHANGED – when a user logs on as a different user

           WHEN-RESPONSIBILITY-CHANGED – when a user changes responsibilities

           WHEN-PASSWORD-CHANGED – when a user changes their password