Editing Oracle Forms (section)

==Version Summary==

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Name
! Version
! (*1) Database
! Character/GUI
! Comments
|-
| IAF
| 
| 2
| Character
| No IDE
|-
| FastForms+IAG
| 
| 4
| Character
| 
|-
| SQL*Forms
| 2
| 5
| Character
| New IDE, No PL/SQL, User Exits, INP ASCII File, FRM Runtime File
|-
| SQL*Forms
| 2.3
| 5
| Character
| Runtime improvements
|-
| SQL*Forms
| 3
| 6
| Character
| Major Rewrite, Improved IDE, PL/SQL included, X Support, Generate code to enforce constraints
|-
| Oracle Forms
| 4.0
| 6-7
| GUI / Character
| Major Rewrite, New IDE, FMB source binary file, FMX Runtime, optimized for Client-Server. New interface is slow, buggy and not popular with client base.
|-
| Oracle Forms
| 4.5
| 7
| GUI / Character
| Major Rewrite, New IDE based on Object Navigator & Property Sheets. Good release, fast, popular with client base.  Oracle wanted customers to upgrade from v4 quickly because v4 was very buggy and Oracle was contracted to support v4 for a period of time for some large, important customers.  So, Oracle named this release 4.5 (rather than 5) which allowed Oracle to claim continued support for v4.  This allowed some customers who were locked into v4 for the life of their project to upgrade from v4 to v4.5 by claiming that this was a patch release even though it was clearly a major release.
|-
| Oracle Forms
| 5
| 7
| GUI / Character
| 
|-
| Oracle Forms
| 6
| 8
| GUI / Character
| Forms Server / Web Forms introduced. Client-Server still available and used by most clients.  Forms Server mode is slow, buggy and uses a lot of memory per session.
|-
| Oracle Forms
| 6i
| 8
| GUI / Character
| 
|-
| Oracle Forms
| 9i '''(*2)'''
| 9i
| GUI
| Client-Server runtime removed leaving Forms Server (Web Interface) as only runtime option. Major Changes at the Server Level, more effective communication between user browser and the server.
|-
| Oracle Forms
| 10g
| 10g
| GUI
| This is a Forms 9 release (9.0.4.0.19).  Renamed externally to indicate support for 10g database. Menu-Help-About displays v9.0.4.0.19. Not [[forward compatible]] with 10gr2 (can't open 10gr2 forms in 10g/904)
|-
| Oracle Forms
| 10gR2
| 10gR2
| GUI
| version 10.1.2.0.2 - registry home key moved. Max NUMBER length reduced from 40 to 38
|-
| Oracle Forms
| 11g
| 11g
| GUI
| version 11.1.1.X External Events, JavaScript<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/forms/new-features-134509.pdf | title=Oracle White Paper: New Features in Oracle Forms 11g | publisher=Oracle | date=25 June 2009 | access-date=18 May 2016}}</ref>
|-
| Oracle Forms
| 11gR2
| 11gR2
| GUI
| version 11.1.2.X Oracle Access Manager Integration, Performance and Monitoring, Real User Experience Interaction<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/forms/forms11gr2newfeatures-497502-en-gb.pdf | title=Oracle White Paper: Oracle Forms 11g Release 2 (11.1.2) New Features | publisher=Oracle | date=26 September 2011 | access-date=18 May 2016 | author=Ronald, G}}</ref>
|-
| Oracle Forms
| 12c
| 12c
| GUI
|
|-
| Oracle Forms
| 14
| 23ai
| GUI
| Adds modernised widgets and support for accessing REST data sources.<ref name="RN14" />
|}

(*1) Each version of Oracle Forms can connect to numerous versions of the ORACLE database and is sold and released separately from the ORACLE Database. Oracle Forms is generally forward and backward compatible with the Oracle database - for example: Oracle Forms 9 can connect to at least Oracle 8,9, 10 and 11. The database versions listed here are the primary version that was available at the time of the Form release.

(*2) Oracle products have historically followed their own release-numbering and naming conventions. This changed with Oracle RDBMS 9i release when Oracle Corporation started to standardize Oracle Forms (and Reports and Developer) to use the same major version number as the database. This explains the jump in Oracle Forms versions from 6i to 9i (there was no v7 or v8). With the 2024 release of Forms 14, the linkage between Forms and Database versioning has been discontinued again.