What is Form Designer, Form Generator and Form Runtime in Oracle Forms?

Question

I am little bit confused about the following topics which are related to Oracle Forms

1. Form Designer
2. Form Generator
3. Form Runtime or Run Form

Form Designer: A forms designer provides design-time services and a facility for developers to design forms. The designer host works with the design-time environment to manage designer state, activities (such as transactions), and components. In addition, there are several concepts relating to the components themselves that are important to comprehend.

Now I am looking for the definition Form Generator & Form Runtime.

Answer 1

The Forms designer is the old name of the development environment For the Oracle Forms tool. It allows developers to design graphic user interfaces to connect to database tables to perform actions such as as insert, update and delete of records.

Once the Forms has been designed, one uses the Forms generator to convert the Forms binary design file (the .fmb file) into an executable the .fmx file. This is then run in Forms version 4.5 and 6 by the Forms runtime engine. From Oracle Form version 9 - 11g the .fmx file is run over the web on an application server and NOT via the Forms runtime.

Answer 2

As per my basic understanding of Oracle Forms, Form Generator is compiler which convert "source forms"(.fmb) into an "executable"(.fmx) and 'Forms Runtime' interprets *.fmx and displays data (for which Form has been created).