LOOKING DID HELP AND I USED THE FOLLOWING ===
WITHIN THE ACTUAL FORM MODULE I ADDED AN ADDITIONAL PROGRAM UNIT OF FUNCTION AN ATTATCHED IT : ( the function is named HelloFile and uses a BOOLEAN return type with the TEXT_IO to test if it can actually open the file.
FUNCTION HelloFile (p_filename VARCHAR2) RETURN BOOLEAN IS
-- p_filename variable will hold the value of the directory specified in the trigger IF statement
fileID TEXT_IO.FILE_TYPE;
BEGIN
fileID := TEXT_IO.FOPEN(p_filename, 'r');
TEXT_IO.FCLOSE(fileID);
RETURN TRUE;
EXCEPTION
WHEN others THEN
RETURN FALSE;
END HelloFile;
- THE FUNCTION ABOVE GETS CALLED FROM A BUTTON TRIGGER THAT USES THE IF STATEMENT OF:
-- START WORD
IF :GLOBAL.APPLICATION_ID IS NOT NULL THEN
MESSAGE('Application is already running.');
ELSE
IF HelloFile('C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\WINWORD.EXE') THEN
-- the above directory is then stored in the (p_filename) of the function HelloFile
-- to see if it can be opened, IF SO then open the directory as below
-- IF NOT then go to the else statement and process the next directory to open word.
appl_name := 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\WINWORD.EXE';
:GLOBAL.application_id := DDE.APP_BEGIN(appl_name, DDE.APP_MODE_MAXIMIZED);
ELSE
appl_name := 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\WINWORD.EXE';
:GLOBAL.application_id := DDE.APP_BEGIN(appl_name, DDE.APP_MODE_MAXIMIZED);
END IF;
END IF;