5. Items in OA Framework

Items are the components to which user interacts directly. For example if a user wants to enter some data on a page, he will perform this through some text field which is an item. This text item might be inside some region. Similarly for performing different actions on a page, different items are there.

OA Framework offers a large set of UI components that make the building of applications easier. These consists of simple componenets (like buttons, fields) and complex components (like tables, hierarchical grids etc..)

Below are some of the items provided by OAF:

MessageStyledText

If we want to display the text but that should not be editable, then we can use MessageStyledText.

Bean: oracle.apps.fnd.framework.webui.beans.message.OAMessageStyledTextBean

MessageTextInput

It is a simple text field where users can enter data.

Bean: oracle.apps.fnd.framework.webui.beans.message.OAMessageTextInputBean

MessageLovInput

Instead of entering data manually, this item provides users a list of values 

and users can select any value from that. This will open a popup window where user can search/select values from the list. 

Bean: oracle.apps.fnd.framework.webui.beans.message.OAMessageLovInputBean

MessageChoice

This item also provides a list of values but in a drop down manner. This is mainly used when the list of valid values is very small in number.

Bean: oracle.apps.fnd.framework.webui.beans.message.OAMessageChoiceBean

MessageDownload

This item enables user to download a file from the server to a local machine. It appears as a linked text. When we select this link, a small window opens in browser through which we can open/save that file.

Bean: oracle.apps.fnd.framework.webui.beans.message.OAMessageDownloadBean

MessageFileUpload

Using file upload item, we can easily upload a file from local/client machine to the server. It appears as an input field, followed by a browse button.

Bean: oracle.apps.fnd.framework.webui.beans.message.OAMessageFileUploadBean

MessageRadioGroup

This item can have many radio buttons but we can select only one at a time. This is mainly used when we want to select a single choice from a list of choices.

Bean: oracle.apps.fnd.framework.webui.beans.message.OAMessageRadioGroupBean

MessageCheckBox

As radio button is used for only single selection, message check box on the other hand is used for multiple selection.

Bean: oracle.apps.fnd.framework.webui.beans.message.OAMessageCheckBoxBean

Button and SubmitButton

Submit button (also known as action button) submits the page when selected by a user. i.e. HTTP POST will be performed.
Bean: oracle.apps.fnd.framework.webui.beans.form.OASubmitButtonBean

Simple button (also known as navigation button) acts simply as a link and is only used for navigation purpose. On selecting this, HTTP GET will be performed. Bean: oracle.apps.fnd.framework.webui.beans.nav.OAButtonBean

Link

This bean is simply used to navigate from one page to another. This item creates a HTML link tag to redirect to some other page.

Bean: oracle.apps.fnd.framework.webui.beans.nav.OALinkBean

FormValue

This item is used when we want to store some information or save that to DB but do not want to display on the screen. We can think of it as hidden fields used in simple HTML tags.

Bean: oracle.apps.fnd.framework.webui.beans.form.OAFormValueBean

Spacer

This bean is used to add spaces between items/regions. It has properties for height and width. So we can have horizontal or vertical spacing as per our requirement.

Bean: oracle.apps.fnd.framework.webui.beans.layout.OASpacerBean

Flex

By using flex item, we can create both KFF and DFF in OA framework.

Bean: oracle.apps.fnd.framework.webui.beans.OADescriptiveFlexBean
Bean: oracle.apps.fnd.framework.webui.beans.OAKeyFlexBean

UrlInclude

If we want to embed HTML content from external source, we can use UrlInclude bean. It has a property for 'URL source' where we can specify the complete URL path for that HTML content.

Bean: oracle.apps.fnd.framework.webui.beans.include.OAUrlIncludeBean

Tip

Tips are used for providing hints to users. We can associate tips with lots of items by using a property: 'Tip Type'. For that we have to create a message in application message dictionary.
However, OAF provides a separate item for tip. We can either type the tip text directly in the text property or we can define a message in application message dictionary and then attach with the tip bean.

Bean: oracle.apps.fnd.framework.webui.beans.OATipBean