Define your application messages before your routines can call them from a form and before your users can request detailed messages from a form. You should define your messages according to the Oracle Applications message standards.
Once you leave the Messages window, after you make and save your changes, you should submit a concurrent request for the Generate Messages program to build your message file. Your new messages take effect as soon as your concurrent request finishes successfully and you have placed the new file in the appropriate directories.
When you upgrade, any customizations you make to Oracle Applications messages will be overwritten. However, an upgrade does not overwrite messages you define using your own application.
Before defining your messages, do the following:
Register your application.
Create a mesg directory (or some other location if your operating system does not support directories) directly under your application's base directory where Oracle Application Object Library can store your message files. You need a mesg directory on both the Forms Server machine(s) and the concurrent processing server machine(s).
Application name, message name, and language uniquely identify your message.
Your message name can be any combination of letters, numbers, hyphens (-), underscores (_) and spaces, up to 30 characters in length. Message Dictionary names are not case sensitive (for example, MESSAGENAME is the same name as messagename).
You use this message name in your forms or concurrent programs when you invoke the Message Dictionary.
Enter the language code for this message. Oracle Applications displays the message in the correct language based on the user's current language.
Enter the name of the application for which you wish to define message text.
When you upgrade, any customizations to Oracle Applications messages will be overwritten. However, an upgrade does not overwrite messages you define using your own application name.
Enter a message number, if appropriate. If you define a non-zero message number for your message, Message Dictionary automatically prepends your message with the prefix APP:<application short name>- (or its translated equivalent). Message Dictionary treats 0 and null as the same (and does not display the APP:<application short name>- or the message number).
Use the message type to classify your messages. The message type does not affect how your messages can be called in your code.
In Oracle Applications, the message type is used to help translators translate messages within length expansion constraints that vary by message type. For certain message types, this form enforces message byte length limits smaller than 1800. The message length limits (in bytes) are 60 for Menu Entry, 250 for Hint, and 80 for Title (note that these limits are for translated messages, so messages in English should be 30% shorter if they will be translated).
In Oracle Applications, the maximum length (in bytes) is used to help translators translate messages within length expansion constraints imposed by the form or program that uses the message. Specifying a maximum length is particularly important where the expansion constraint is tighter than would otherwise be expected for a particular type of message. If your message is in English, the maximum length you specify should be at least 30% longer than your actual English message to allow for expansion during translation.
You may optionally specify a maximum length for messages of type Error, Note, Token, Other, or for messages with no message type. If you do specify a maximum length, it must be between 10 and 1800 (inclusive), and it must be equal to or greater than the actual (byte) length of the message text you specify.
You should enter information in this field that would help explain the context of this message to translators. This field is required if the message is of type Token or Other.
Oracle Applications Message Dictionary messages can appear as alerts in Oracle Applications Manager or written to log files. For more information on using these features and setting these fields, see the Oracle Applications Supportability Guide.
Enter a message that describes the problem and its resolution. You can include variable tokens (in uppercase) preceded by an ampersand (&) to indicate the location of substitute text. You supply the substitute text or field references in your form's message calls. For example, you could define an explanation for a message you call "Value Less Than Or Equal" like this:
Please enter a value that is less than or equal to &VALUE.
Your user sees the message explanation as:
Please enter a value that is less than or equal to $30.00.
You can specify your own variable tokens using numbers, uppercase letters, and underscores (_). Your variable tokens can be up to 30 characters long. You can use the same token more than once in your defined messages to repeat your substitute text.
Some uses of messages (such as entries for the Special menu) use an ampersand character to indicate an access, power, or accelerator key. In these cases, you should use a double ampersand (&&) to indicate the letter for the key. Message Dictionary returns only a single ampersand to the calling routine. Words with embedded double ampersands should be mixed case or lowercase (to distinguish them further from tokens).