Preface

Welcome to Oracle9iAS Discoverer!

This guide explains how to configure and customize Discoverer Plus and Discoverer Viewer after they have been installed as part of Oracle9i Application Server.

This guide does not explain how to install Oracle9iAS Discoverer. For information about installation, refer to the Oracle9i Application Server Installation Guide.

To use this guide effectively, we recommend that you are already familiar with HTTP servers and database concepts.

For the latest information, please read the Oracle9iAS Discoverer Release Notes in conjunction with this guide.

Intended Audience

This guide is intended for Discoverer Services tier (also referred to as Discoverer middle tier) managers and application server administrators.

Conventions

In this manual:

EUL, the End User Layer^TM, refers to the metadata interface between the database and Discoverer.
<ORACLE_HOME> refers to the directory where the Oracle HTTP Server and the OC4J servlet engine software are installed, along with the Oracle RDBMS.

Other conventions used in this manual are shown in the table below:

Convention	Meaning
. . .	Vertical ellipses in examples indicate omitted information not necessary for the example.
. . .	Horizontal ellipses in statements or commands indicate omitted material not necessary for the statement or command.
boldface text	Boldface type in text indicates a field label on a Discoverer graphical user interface or internet page.
italic text	Italic type represents a variable.
< >	Angle brackets enclose user-supplied names.
[]	Brackets enclose optional clauses from which you can choose one or none.
Menu name \| Command	Text in this format conveys a sequence of choices, i.e., choose the menu, then the command under that menu.
`Courier text`	Text in this format indicates a command line to be typed.

Note that Oracle9iAS Discoverer is supported on Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Unix (Solaris, 4P, AIX, Linux). Instructions for the Windows platform in this manual assume you are using Windows NT (unless stated otherwise). If you are using Windows 2000, replace Windows NT Start menu options with the equivalent Windows 2000 Start menu options. For example, to display the Services dialog:

on Windows NT, you select Start | Settings | Control Panel, and double-click on the Services icon
on Windows 2000, you select Start | Programs | Administrative Tools | Services

Prerequisites to run Discoverer Plus and Discoverer Viewer

To run Discoverer Plus and Discoverer Viewer, you must have installed in the database a Discoverer End User Layer (EUL) version 5.1. The Discoverer manager must have created or upgraded the End User Layer using Oracle9i Discoverer Administrator (which is shipped as a component of Oracle9i Developer Suite Release 2).

Oracle9iAS Discoverer Navigation and Accessibility

Keyboard Navigation

Oracle9iAS Discoverer supports standard keyboard navigation. Standard keyboard navigation includes the use of the tab key, mnemonics (using the Alt key and the underlined character), and accelerators (such as Alt+F4 to exit a window).

Using the JAWS screen reader with Discoverer

If users will use Discoverer with a screen reader (e.g. JAWS), you might do the following to maximize usability:

display Discoverer Plus in a separate window by deploying Discoverer Plus with the framedisplaystyle configuration value set to 'separate' (for more information, see Section 8.6, "Discoverer Plus URL arguments").
make sure that the screen reader has sufficient time to read a page before the page is refreshed by delaying the query progress page. You can do this in two ways:
- on a per-user basis by deploying Discoverer Viewer with the qpd URL parameter value set to a number of seconds delay (for more information, see Section 8.7, "Discoverer Viewer URL arguments").
- on a global basis by using Oracle Enterprise Manager to specify a number of seconds delay (for more information see Oracle Enterprise Manager Help).
  
  Note: You can also specify a number of seconds delay on a global basis using the query_progress_delay configuration value in the configuration.xml file (for more information, see Section A.4, "List of configuration settings in configuration.xml").

Documentation Accessibility

Our goal is to make Oracle products, services, and supporting documentation accessible, with good usability, to the disabled community. To that end, our documentation includes features that make information available to users of assistive technology. This documentation is available in HTML format, and contains markup to facilitate access by the disabled community. Standards will continue to evolve over time, and Oracle Corporation is actively engaged with other market-leading technology vendors to address technical obstacles so that our documentation can be accessible to all of our customers. For additional information, visit the Oracle Accessibility Program Web site at http://www.oracle.com/accessibility/.

Accessibility of Code Examples in Documentation

JAWS, a Windows screen reader, may not always correctly read the code examples in this document. The conventions for writing code require that closing braces should appear on an otherwise empty line; however, JAWS may not always read a line of text that consists solely of a bracket or brace.

Accessibility of Links to External Web Sites in Documentation

This documentation may contain links to Web sites of other companies or organizations that Oracle Corporation does not own or control. Oracle Corporation neither evaluates nor makes any representations regarding the accessibility of these Web sites.