FAQ

Over past few years, we have received quite a few questions about InPowerForms. Below is just a sampled list. More will be coming. Please check back frequently.

What is InPowerForms?
InPowerForms is a Rich Internet Application development platform that accelerates database driven application development. It provides the best of Oracle Forms-like functionality, but is implemented in GWT as front-end and EJB3 as backend. InPowerForms provides an appropriate level of abstraction such that any database-driven application can be developed in a fraction of time compared to using any technology stack currently available. InPowerForms uses a three tier architecture and will work will major EJB3 compliant application servers and all major databases. In addition, InPowerForm does will also work with any structural data that are non-relational database centric.

What are the business benefits of using InPowerForms?
The most critical benefits that InPowerForms provides are increased speed, reliability, and robustness for developing database-driven RIA applications. InPowerForms saves developers the traditional tedious and error-prone process of wiring UI components to work with data sources particularly relational database bases. Another huge benefit is the cost savings. InPowerForms can increase developer productivity by at least 2 to 4 times and therefore preclude the need to outsource development to a different country seeking cheaper labor at the expenses of poor manageability and business intelligence exposure.

How is InPowerForms different from traditional Java client technologies?
We have researched various Java Swing Eclipse RCP based-component frameworks that claim to have a data access binding for generic database application development. NetBean has an impressive array of component offerings that provide data binding service similar to .NET, but all operate at a lower level of abstraction than Oracle Forms. The missing link in Java community is having an infrastructure with the right level of abstraction akin to Oracle Forms for the sole purpose of constructing database-driven applications effectively. A developer is still far more productive using Oracle Forms than a Java developer armed with Swing/Eclipse and JDBC. InPowerForms brings to the Java community the right level of abstraction and tools what Oracle Forms brought to the last generation of application development. In addition, InPowerForms is a web 2.0 framework that runs in any major browsers and behave like a desktop applications for the users.

How is InPowerForms different from traditional web frameworks?
There has been a few web frame that has database binding capabilities. All exception Oracle’s ADF web framework implements the data binding at a very low level of abstraction which means a developer still has to wired substantial logics to doing basic database CRUD operations. These customizations ultimately creates maintainability, uniformity and quality issues for large scale development and incur substantial development cost. In addition, most web framework adds only incremental improvement to web 2.0 technologies and many often still require pages to refresh. Moreover, most require extremely good knowledge of Javascript which is proven difficult to scale. In contrast, inPowerForms allows developer to use GWT and therefore all the familiarity, tools and discipline of Java language made available to an average developer to be productive immediately. InPowerForms based application acts like a desktop top version with full client interactivity and yet runs within a browser to access corporate data.

Does not .NET already has what you have?
No. We explored the .NET platform, which we hope to find many infrastructure support possibly sufficient to creating Oracle Forms-like features. Our experience indicated that, as we suspected from the beginning, .NET is just as flexible as any rich-client platform. However, .NET's productivity is not comparable to Oracle Forms when it comes to developing database-driven applications. With .NET, developers still have to struggle with gluing various parts into a cohesive framework, and that is what we are attempting to solve once for all developers. The .NET data access layer (ADO), is reasonably matured as a straight tabular mapping tool. However, ADO lacks many robust features such as automatic version checking found in most object relational (OR) mapping layers (e.g., Hibernate, JDO, and EJB3). ADO .NET is restrictively tabular in nature that maps user interface controls to tables in simplistic ways. For more details read this document DotNetComparison.pdf

Does Oracle already provide ADF/JClient in JDeveloper suite?
Oracle's JClient provides the same level as most vendors data bound components do. It has not achieved at the same level of abstraction as Oracle Forms and thus suffered the same productivity lags. However, Oracle’s ADF layer offers significantly more features in many aspects when compare to .NET's ADO, including sophisticated transaction control and integration with J2EE application server containers. ADF utilizes a business-object layer on top of a tabular model that provides the ability to perform data validations at the business-tier level. Applications built on ADF can choose to be deployed in a multi-tier environment transparent to the front-end tier. In addition, ADF objects are meant to be UI presentation neutral such that the same set of business objects can be reused by a JSP or other rich-client layers. Oracle indeed has enhanced their web offering to provide a web front end solution that talks to ADF in the middle tier to replace Oracle Forms. However, the addition of web 2.0 is incremental, user cannot experience the same level of desktop experience as a GWT based application will offer. In addition, ADF is a proprietary data access layer that in many ways is a functional ancestor, and in many ways slightly outdated when compare to the open standard and platform neutral of EJB3. ADF is also know to have a tremendously steep learning curve and the documentation is far less available than EJB3. One huge benefit that InPowerForms has over Oracle’s Web ADF is if you want to deviate from InPowerForms user interface patterns or add new widgets you created from scratch, InPowerForms like any GWT base application allow you to do that.

If I am using Oracle Forms and want to do Java, what options do I have?
Oracle already retired Oracle Forms years ago. You can either learn Web ADF on JDeveloper in Java or learn Swing and ADF both the hard way. JDeveloper for WEB ADF application framework is far more matured than JClient. If you need to deliver a more interactive application akin to Oracle Forms in Java, InPowerForms is probably the only commercial viable and production worthy solution in this space. Another possibility is using Oracle APEX. It is a very restrictive and simpler way to create a web application that does CRUD operations.

Does InPowerForms auto-migrate Oracle Forms to Java?
No. Several companies offer tools in migrating old Oracle Forms to some sort of Java implementations. InPowerForms is not such tool. The benefits of a migration tool is to expedite your entrance into Java world. However, there are set backs of auto-migration. First, the migration is hardly a push button adventure. Many companies take months with semi-manual aids to assist the migration procedure in order to guarantee the correctness of translation. Second, very often the translated code becomes far more foreign to developers and relearning the translated code is as time consuming as redevelopment. Third, the generated Java code is mostly more procedural than object oriented. These vendors put more emphasis on mimicking Oracle Forms' look and feel at the expense of more rigorous object oriented design and extensibility which are at odd with procedural programming constructs in Oracle Forms. The benefits of auto-migration could be negated from maintainability and extensibility. In short, we recommend company to re-implement the old Oracle Forms in InPowerForms. At the end of the re-implementation, your developers have intimate knowledge of the applications for future expandability and thus brings further longevity to your investment.

I am a Oracle Forms developer, how much training do I need to use InPowerForms?
Our companies hired Oracle Forms developers originally for other projects. After InPowerForms was developed, we naturally has to do some retraining. The average retraining time last for about 6 weeks and that include training programming in GWT/Java, many often from scratch. This may sound too good to be true.The secrete is, InPowerForms has been heavily templatized into a collection of about 30 different types of Forms style. The majority of the programming needs are a mixture of these templates.Training somebody to use these templates is far easily than training someone who create the templates at first place.

I am already a Java developer, how much training do I need to use InPowerForms?
If you are already a Java developer with good database experience. In less than a week, you will be comfortable and be able to produce amazing Forms. If you have no database programming experience, the majority of your time will be spent on learning programming database and very little else related to InPowerForms in comparison. If InPowerForms look and feel meet your need, it also will shield you from the need of learning details of GWT. A developer is, however, expected to have some fundamental knowledge of GWT development, debugging and deployment processes, and that will take a week or so.

How much productivity gains I can expect from using InPowerForms?
We do not have a scientific benchmark. But a rough quantitative measure is our experienced developer can build 2-3 Forms including testing within a single day. These Forms are of moderate complexity having several Sections per Form. One can actually build a super Form that has 10-15 Sections as some prefer and it will take proportional longer. But in general do expect to be more productive than using Oracle Forms and probably few times more productive than an average Swing/JDBC developer. Using InPowerForms when compared to Oracle Web ADF, its development time is substantially shorter. InPowerForms based application enjoy a more interactive user experience and the code is much easier to customize and maintain.

How many editions of InPowerForms?
There are a basic edition and an enterprise edition.

What are the differences between enterprise edition and basic edition?
The enterprise edition includes many tools that we found essential in developing most database driven applications. The most notable feature is a built-in security features that can provide point-and-click runtime assignment of capabilities for various InPowerForms objects by role and by user. This is particularly useful to provide or deny access to various components within your application without reprogramming. Please check out our web site for more detail.

What is the pricing of InPowerForms and how do I buy them?
See the pricing page.

If InPowerForm is so simple to use why would I use your service?
Great question! InPowerForms comes with a subscription model that is used to cover some basic support and maintenance upgrade every year. As productive as using InPowerForms, any new developer may not acquire most features of InPowerForms deeper APIs in a short period of time. Particularity if you are big a company and have complex need for building state-of-art RIA applications, the chances are your needs of customization will require more in-depth use or even modifications of InPowerForms that would not be cost effective to your internal resources. Using InPowerSoft’s service will certainly further ensure the success of development and deployment of InPowerForms based applications,

What Java IDE should I use?
InPowerForms is a set of Java library and a collection of database schema (for enterprise version). So you can use it in any Java IDE you already are using. However, it is recommended you choose Eclipse IDE 3.4 or above because GWT also provides pluggin for it. In addition, there are Eclipse pluggins for EJB3 will ease the management of database mapping the same way JDeveloper wizardry does for ADF edition.

I am an European company, how to use your service?
We normally will send analyst per client's request for a short period of time in order to gain understanding on the scope and achievability of the project. After that we work with the client to establish procedures and all necessary instruments for effective project management. Most deliverable can be tested and verified using a replicated database or VPN connection on a daily basis such that the client can keep track of the progress of the project. At production deployment time and if the client requests, we will send experienced engineer to assist in the final steps.

We are a consulting company, how do we arrange to use your product if we need consulting assistance?
We will work under a sub-contract perspective, as far as InPowerSoft concerns; the general contractor is our immediate client. We will sign a non-compete contract prohibiting us from working directly with the general contractor's client without a written permission.

I am an IT sales individual/organization, do you give commission for business referral?
Absolutely. We set aside a percentage of gross revenue that derived from the first year for commission. Please contact us for details. An agreement will be executed prior to commencing any work.

I am an independent consultant, can I use your product for development for my client?
Our experience found it is very difficult to work with independent contractors as their budget is very low and and unwilling to pay for any support. Unless you are doing a big and well funded project for your client, we will not be able to help you evaluate our product at this time.

Is InPowerForms open source?
No, InPowerForms is not an open source product. We however want to hear from you if you like to see InPowerForms become open source. Send us an email. If we have enough interest, we can seek bigger corporate sponsor to open up a significant part of InPowerForms as open source in the future.

Can we license the source code?
Yes. For companies that are concerned about the longevity of InPowerSoft and committed to using InPowerForms with sizable investment, we will license InPowerForms at the source code level. Or, InPowerSoft will deposit the InPowerForms source code in an escrow account for accessibility in the unlikely event that InPowerSoft dissolves in the future. InPowerForms is meant to be licensed to companies doing their internal IT development and not to other tool vendors that will compete with InPowerSoft's core business. Note, we only will license the source code in U.S.A., Canada and European Union where intellectual property protection laws are stronger.

How do I get started?
You can start by downloading our example. Look at the source code and send us email if you come across questions. Please look at the Major Features and then Tutorial.

How does InPowerForms compare with Oracle APEX?
Oracle APEX allows a developer to use a web application to design a web application that performs simple CRUD operations. Customization on APEX is often very difficult, limited and ad-hoc in nature for those features that can be customized. Customization requires knowing many little pieces of APEX, a good Javascript skill , APEX Javascript API, PLSQL skill and others hooks to make various customizations possible. In addition, APEX uses a HTTP server directly taps into Oracle Database bypassing application server. If an organization has a need of utilizing a J2EE compliant application server and its many known advanced features and benefits, APEX does not offer this configuration. APEX is also very PLSQL centric in its architecture and construction. Even the use of source code control is impossible with APEX. APEX based installation is massive in size. In contrast, firstly, InPowerForms is based on GWT and therefore a developer has the most advanced web 2.0 development platform in Java, with all the discipline and tools available such as Java IDE, debugger and profiler. This makes a tremendous difference in terms of productivity, scaleability of code size and maintainability. Google has openly confessed without GWT, creating large scale complex web 2.0 application will be next to impossible. Secondly, InPowerForms is built for extensibility. A developer will code in Java for both front end and back end and can integrate InPowerForms with any widgets that even have different look and feel created outside InPowerForms or by a third party vendor. This freedom is unavailable in APEX. Thirdly, InPowerForms has far more features than in APEX. These patterns of constructs in InPowerForms many are practical and unique will enrich a CRUD application even more quickly, functionally and inexpensively. Fourthly, if you desire a system that can run on all EJB3 compliant application servers and run on all major databases, InPowerForms is the only choice.