Oracle Application Framework Features in Oracle R12

The new features are:

1. Service Interface
2. Service Tester
3. “Swan” User Interface
4. Personalized SPEL Bindings
5. Oracle JDeveloper 10g Release 3 (10.1.3)
6. Personalization Administration
7. Improved About Pages
8. Administrator Personalization Usability Enhancements
9. External Content in OA Framework Pages
10. Read-only Required Items
11. Favorites
12. Configurable Start Page
13. Attachment Security
14. SQL Component Extensibility
15. Flexfield Enhancements

Service Interface
The service interface is a Java interface that is designed to support both web services and local Java APIs. The service interface provides consistent APIs and error handling behavior across the different application products. Included is support for the new Service Data Object standard to increase interoperability in a Service Oriented Architecture. Service data objects are used to represent business objects in a standardized manner. See the Oracle Integration Repository for more information on how to register and discover services, and optionally configure a service as a public Web service.
Service Tester
The service tester user interface is used to create unit and integration tests. The tests are recorded in documents as structured XML data. For integration testing, each test file can contain multiple test suites, and each test suite can have multiple test cases. As part of periodic system tests, service tests can be played back from either JDeveloper or from the operating system command line. The service tester supports the following features: Field masking, so that variable data such as the current date does not cause a test failure Pipelining, where the output of one test is used as the input of a subsequent test An option to suppress the commit of test data
“Swan” User Interface
The new “Swan” user interface (UI) greatly improves the look and feel of the Oracle E-Business Suite, significantly enhancing usability and productivity. The “Swan” UI brings together some of the best UI concepts from Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, and JD Edwards applications. Oracle E-Business Suite will use only the “Swan” look and feel for Release 12.
Personalized SPEL Bindings
SPEL (simple expression) bindings can be used to substitute or override the base SPEL bindings for rendered, required, and read-only properties.
Oracle JDeveloper 10g Release 3 (10.1.3)
Release 12 leverages Oracle JDeveloper 10g Release 3 (10.1.3). This release of JDeveloper is a J2EE development environment with end-to-end support for modeling, developing, and debugging applications and Web services. Oracle JDeveloper 10g Release 3 (10.1.3) allows existing Oracle Application Framework applications and services to be extended, or entirely new applications and services to be built easily.
Personalization Administration
Release 12 extends the existing command line personalization capabilities with HTML pages included in the Functional Administrator responsibility. This feature also allows you to replicate personalizations across database instances.
Improved About Pages
The About page has been extended to include the following: Last 10 patches applied on the instance Flexfield definitions on the page, and whether they use unsupported features specific to the Forms stack The ability to launch Admin Personalization from the About page
Administrator Personalization Usability Enhancements
Usability enhancements to the Administrator Personalization UI include: Ability to bypass the Choose Context page when the current context is known. A minimal page hierarchy, eliminating the need for hidden layout containers. Personalization error messages include a link to launch the “About page,” where the associated personalizations can be reviewed and edited.
External Content in OA Framework Pages
Administrator Personalization now supports the inclusion of any URL in OA Framework pages
SQL Component Extensibility
View objects can now be modified by using SQL components to extend an existing object, rather than by replacing the view object definition. SQL component extensions are designed to persist across upgrades of the underlying object.
Flexfield Enhancements
Flexfield errors are handled more gracefully. Warnings are raised if an OA Framework flexfield uses incompatible features