Rules for deploying jar files for Forms Icons:
- Icons should be of the following dimensions: 17×17 or 16×16 pixels.
- GIFs should be used for icon files.
- Any GIFs manually uploaded to “$ORACLE_HOME/forms/java” will be used over any jar files containing the same gifs.
- When an application uses GIFs for icons, any GIFs loaded in jar files which are referenced in the “archive” setting formsweb.cfg will be used. However, any GIFs loaded into $ORACLE_HOME/forms/java will be used over the same GIFs present in a jar file.
- It is highly recommended to package all GIFs into jar files. For security reasons when deploying jar files for Forms icons, it is also recommended to sign any jar files with code signing certificates purchased from a third party vendor such as Symantec, Comodo, GoDaddy, etc. Please also keep in mind that each jar file’s manifest file must contain at least permissions and codebase attributes. More information may be found in https://pitss.com/us/2013/10/24/how-to-modify-custom-jar-files-with-permissions-and-codebase-attributes/.
- The jar file which is listed first in the “archive” setting will be used. However, if the same GIF is manually loaded into $ORACLE_HOME/forms/java, then the GIF will be loaded into the forms application instead.
- Example: You have the following archive setting in your formsweb.cfg: archive=icons1.jar,icons2.jar,share.jar, frmall.jar. Let’s say that icons1.jar and icons2.jar have a GIF named “myicon.gif”. In this example, myicon.gif from icons1.jar will be used in the forms application instead of icons2.jar.
- Also, if icons2.jar is listed before icons1.jar in the archive setting (archive=icons2.jar, icons1.jar, share.jar, frmall.jar) and myicon.gif is not present in ‘forms/java’, myicon.gif from icons2.jar will be used.
- Third, let’s say that myicon.gif is loaded into ‘$ORACLE_HOME/forms/java’ and in both icons1.jar and icons2.jar with archive=icons1.jar,icons2.jar,share.jar,frmall.jar. In this case, the myicon.gif which is loaded in $ORACLE_HOME/forms/java will be used instead of the version in the jar file.
NOTE: To deploy jar files, you will need to restart the WLS_FORMS server before changes can be seen.
For a free/open-source image editor, Gimp: http://www.gimp.org/
