How to extend Oracle Apps?

Question

Hi, All
I am new to OAF. I just finished the tutorials from the OA Extension patch. My goal is to be able to extend the Internet Expenses application. Unfortunately, the tutorial tell you very little about how to bring the existing Oracle Apps into the your project. In other words, how to set up the development envrionment. I'm hoping someone can answer some of my questions or point me to the right direction. I thank you in advance.
1) Where do you find the java files? Under the $JAVA_TOP, I only find class files? Do you bring the class file into the project?
2) Where do you find the PAGE files? Under the $JAVA_TOP, I do not find any PAGE files? If these files are hidden somewhere, how do I extract them out?
3) Do you bring the whole apps into the project or just the region you want to extend? If you don't bring the whole apps, how do you test your extension?
Thanks again in advance.
MC

Answer 1

I definitely sympathise with NewKidOnTheBlock - as a recent new kid myself, I found it difficult to find specifics on what files to copy from/to where.
In answer to the specific questions asked:
1) Oracle does not provide java files for their class files - the only way to find out "exactly" what is going on for a specific class is to use a Java decompiler
2) The Page/Region definition files are under the module top's mds directory (ie $ICX_TOP/mds)
3) The JDev OA patch has all of the framework, so you only need the module specific components to be able to run a page. I went with the module level approach and copied all of the files for the module I was working on (iProcurement). I am not sure how Internet Expenses compares with iProcurement, but I had difficulty testing a page in isolation and ended up running the iProcurement home page through JDev and set the Optional URL Parameters for the Project to match the parameters passed to the home page by the menu function that started it.
What I ended up doing in terms of file copying is below, which was enough for what I needed to do (and maybe more than what is actually required :) ).
•     Copy contents of $JAVA_TOP/oracle/apps/<module> to JDEV_USER_HOME\myprojects\oracle\apps\<module>
•     Copy contents of $<Module Top>/mds to JDEV_USER_HOME\myprojects\oracle\apps\<module>
•     Copy any custom or product specific images from $JAVA_TOP/oracle/apps/media to JDEV_USER_HOME\myhtml\OA_MEDIA
•     Copy all of the files you have just copied into JDEV_USER_HOME\myprojects\oracle\apps\<module> to JDEV_USER_HOME\myclasses\oracle\apps\<module>
•     To save some space, you could now delete all of the class files from JDEV_USER_HOME\myprojects\oracle\apps\<module>
You then need to add the server.xml files to your project (I would suggest adding all of the server.xml files as there can be dependencies). You will also need to add the page files for any page that you will be running/extending.