More and more Oracle products are using something called Meta Data Services (MDS) to store metadata. Metadata is the data that describes other pieces of information—where it came from, what it means, or how it is intended to be used. An image captured by a digital camera might include metadata about where and when the picture was taken, which camera settings were used, and so on. In the case of an ADF application, the metadata describes how the application is intended to be used.
There are three kinds of customizations in ADF, as follows:
Seeded customizations: These are the customizations defined by customization developers and delivered together with the application. They stay with the application as long as it is deployed.
User customizations: These customizations (sometimes called personalizations) are changes to the aspects of the user interface by application end users. The ADF framework offers few user customization features—for example, an ADF...