Oracle Apps Message Dictionary Page - 3

Required Parameters to Generate Messages Program

Language – Enter the language in which you want the messages to be generated. The normal value used is US.

Application – Enter the application name for which you have defined the message.

Mode – Following four values are possible for this parameter

a. DB_TO_RUNTIME – This will create a msg file under the application top directory.
b. DB_TO_SCRIPT – This will create a script(.msg file) that can be used to load messages to other database. This would be normally used in case of upgradation only.
c. SCRIPT_TO_DB This will take a script(.msg file) and load the messages in it to the database. This would be normally used in case of upgradation only.
d. SCRIPT_TO_RUNTIME – This will take script(.msg file) and load the messages in to the database and also create the msg file under application top.

Optional Parameters of Generate Messages Program

File Application Shortname (or Local) – Here we should enter the application short name of the application for which we want to generate the msg file. Generally this field is left blank and system automatically generates the file name.

Filename – Here we should enter the name of msg file to be generated. Generally this field is left blank and system automatically generates the file name.

Application Message Standards

Oracle Applications use messages to communicate with users. Typical messages include warnings and error messages, brief instructions, and informative messages that advise your user about the progress of concurrent requests, work done, and anything else of interest or helpful to users.

Forms–based applications display messages on the user’s screen; applications also print messages to output and log files. Messages are part of the product, and should be treated with the same amount of care and attention to the user interface as a form.

These message standards help you write messages that are brief, clear, and informative. When you follow these standards and use Message Dictionary, your application provides messages that are easy to understand, document, edit, and translate into other languages, resulting in an application that is easy to support and enhance.

Message Naming Standards

The following suggested standards provide a consistent naming convention for message names.

Message names are hard coded into forms and programs and should never change.

Use descriptive words and make your message names meaningful to other developers. Your name should clearly summarize the content or purpose of the message. • Message names can contain no more than 30 characters. • Make message names all uppercase. Although message names are case insensitive, this provides consistency so that messages can be searched for easily.

Do not use spaces in message names; use underscore characters instead to separate words.

Message names should not contain message numbers (or prefixes), because message numbers may change over time.

Include your two–to–three–character application short name or abbreviation as the first word in each message name (optional).

Message Numbering Standards

The following suggested standards provide a consistent convention for message numbers

• Use a number for all errors and warnings, but not hints, notes or questions.
• Do not put the message prefix or a message number in your message text.
• All errors and warnings now have message numbers to help developers trace a message if the problem comes from an installation running in a language other than English.
• Oracle recommends that you number messages using 400000 (400,000) and up (the largest possible message number is about 2 billion).

Message Description Standards

The following suggested standards provide a consistent convention for message descriptions.

• Description should include where and how the message is used (button label, form message, boilerplate, etc.). If it is a text fragment used to build another message (as a token value), include the text defined for the target message and the target message name so the translator can see the expected context of the fragment.
• Include what text is expected to replace the token.If your message contains a nonobvious variable token name, use your notes field to tell translators what your token represents.

Message Content Standards

Messages should never exceed about 1260 characters in English. This allows space for the messages to be translated to ”longer” languages such as German.