At runtime, Oracle Forms always keeps the item that currently has focus visible to the end user. To make the target item visible when a navigation event occurs, Oracle Forms will invoke, raise or show windows that are currently hidden or are currently behind other windows.
When a navigation event occurs, Oracle Forms first determines which canvas the target item is on, and then displays the window to which that canvas is assigned. For example, at form startup, Oracle Forms identifies the item that is the first navigable item in the first navigable block in the form, and then displays the canvas and window to which that item is assigned.
You can take advantage of this behavior by using navigation events to invoke windows, without having to write code to display them explicitly.
Examples of navigation events include Next Item, Previous Item, Next Block, and Previous Block. The end user can issue these commands by pressing keys or selecting commands on the Default menu. You can also initiate navigation programmatically by calling the appropriate Built-ins, including GO_ITEM and GO_BLOCK.
When an end user or the application navigates out of a modeless window, the window's Hide on Exit property determines whether the window remains displayed or is closed automatically.
If Hide on Exit is set to Yes, Oracle Forms closes the window automatically when the end user or the application navigates to an item in another window. If Hide on Exit is set to No (the default), Oracle Forms does not close the window when navigation to an item in another window occurs.
Note that the Hide on Exit property is ignored for modal windows (windows with the Modal property set to Yes).