Logging into the Forms based applications directly

Back in the good old days, before Oracle decided that HTML based applications was the way to go - you used to log directly in to the Forms based application.

You can still accomplish this - even I believe in R12 - but certainly all the way up to 11.5.10.2.

Simply use a URL like:

http://myappsserver.mycompany.com:[apps port number]/dev60cgi/f60cgi

This will take you directly to the forms version of the application. I've used this approach for years and the only problem I've really found is that, once logged in this way, you can't use any menu options which would jump you back out a HTML bit of the Application. (e.g. Workflow Administrator stuff).

I often just need to login to the Apps to make a targeted small change (e.g. change a system profile option). Having one desktop shortcut for each environment in the above format lets me dive in and out of the application much quicker than having to trawl through the web based login procedure.

Something else that is useful I find is to colour my environments by