Forms system potential migration questions.

Question

We have a forms and reports based system built in 10g.
We are considering migrating to 11g forms and reports but long term moving to ADF or APEX.
We are generally a data entry system run on intranet so my prefernence has always been APEX but management are trying to follow the Oracle roadmap which is pushing ADF.
We are a small outfit so the solution we choose will probably be the one which offers the quickest development times.
I have signed up for apex.oracle.com to have a play but seems to be taking forever to get approval!
A few questions re APEX (apologies if these are really simple)
1) How is user access controlled. Currently all our users login via one SYSDBA user. Our current system has a logon box which then allows access to the screens they can amend. I assume APEX uses the DB user access rights?
2) How easy is it to deploy fixes etc? We have upwards of 200 customer sites. We currently distribute fmx an RDF files on a monthly basis.
3) Can you use key strokes? Many customers like the F Keys to be used as quick keys? i.e. in forms F10 can be save, F3 can be clear etc
4) Can we use our existing database? Although this is many years old and all the correct constraints may not be in place (ie. a few FK/indexes may be missing - but we could try and tidy up pre migration) would it be possible to use this. We are consdiering rewriting the database but most customers will want to bring through their old data and have custom reports built on these so would struggle to rewrite)
5) How is inheritance handled? In our forms environment all our items are inherited from one point so if we change that one point it follows through the system
6) I have seen online demo were by people are creating mini databases from spreadsheets. Can it be setup so the users can create things like this without affecting other areas of the system?
7) Any pros/Cons when comparing to ADF
8) Any people any fedback from migrating from Forms
Any feedback at all is greatfully recieved.
Im looking forward to the online demo.

Answer 1

Sure Oracle pushes ADF, because it has cost them $$$$$$ and they want to get that back. Apex is part of the database, and as such you already have a license for it. No need for a Weblogic or OAS license.
seems to be taking forever to get approval!Went pretty fast for me a few years ago. 1-2 days if I remember correctly.
1) There are pre-built authentication methods, but you can also create your own method (which most people do).
I assume APEX uses the DB user access rights?As in most web applications, there is only one user that actually accesses the database. And I would never ever make that a SYSDBA user!
Other users may log in via username/password that can be stored in Apex tables or your own tables. They can also be actual database users. However, since they do not connect to the database, their roles are irrelevant. You may use these roles to check authorization in your application, though.
2) Apex exports applications in a sql file, so you can deploy applications via sqlplus (or via the Apex administrator page).
3) The keys are actually browser keys, so you are very limited. You can use some Javascript, but forget about something like F7-F8 combination. It doesn't matter what technology you use, web is different from client/server (or the Forms Java applet). You have to rethink GUI concepts coming from Forms and going to browser applications.
4) Yes. But like Forms, good database design makes thinks easier (like using wizards).
5) There are all kinds of places where you can set defaults, templates etc.
6) Yes.
7) Google for discussions on ADF vs Apex.
8) We use it side by side. No plans to recreate Forms as an Apex application.
Depending on the size of your Forms app, it may take a long time to re-create it in Apex. There are some Forms migration tools in Apex, but I wouldn't use those. They cannot migrate the Forms code anyway, since a browser doesn't understand pl/sql code. As said, you really have to rethink your GUI when moving to a web app.