Adobe Livecycle Designer ES4 (eBook)

Alexandra Brand (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF | EPUB

2016 | 1. Auflage
331 Seiten
albran Verlag
9783000549885 (ISBN)

Infos

The objective of this book is to give the user a good understanding of the software in a comprehensible and systematic way. This book includes all relevant topics from form creation to script programming. The main focus is on interactive dynamic forms, which are created using subforms and in the content area and are illustrated using several examples. Using scripts, forms can be provided with more intelligence than is possible with the standard Designer functions alone. With Action Builder, users without any programming knowledge can store a multitude of scripts in their forms with only a few mouse clicks.

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Chapter 2: Form template managed

To create forms, you need form templates. Designer offers a selection of finished templates you can use, as well as finished forms with form objects and »empty« form templates for which only the page size has been defined. In this chapter, you will learn how you can repeatedly access predefined form templates and manage them.

Selecting form templates

Forms are based on form templates that can be reused to create forms. Form templates are saved as *.tds files. Several users can use the template. When the template is opened, the template itself is not edited, but only a copy thereof.

You have two options to view all available form categories. One is to use the command New in the File menu. This will open the Form Assistant dialogue box, where you have to choose the option »Based on a template«. The other option is to use the drop-down list of the New symbol in the toolbar. In this case, the following list with the available standard form categories opens.

Fig. 2.1: Available standard form categories

Here you can choose from the following options, which are divided in three sections:

First section: Standard form template

The Letter form template, a blank form in Letter format, has already been defined as the standard form template. Therefore, it is offered in the first section of this list. This allows you to quickly access the standard form template you would like to use without having to search for it within the available template categories. Nevertheless, you can change this at any time, as you will learn in more detail in the course of this chapter. If you click the New symbol instead of its drop-down list, the standard form template is automatically opened in the Layout Editor.

Second section: Available template categories

For each of the template categories Blank, Forms and Forms - (vanilla, beige, blue), you have different predefined form templates available. The template category Blank only contains blank form templates in the formats A3, A4, B4JIS, B5JIS, Legal and Letter.

Fig. 2.2: Blank form templates

In contrast, the form categories Forms and Forms - ... already contain different predefined forms in specific formats for different topics, for example order form, survey, request for leave, etc. The form categories Forms and Forms - ... contain the same templates, only with an either white, vanilla-coloured, beige or blue background. These form templates are therefore very helpful as a guidance.

The category Other is greyed out at first, as it does not contain any templates yet. You can place your own or predefined templates in this category. You can also create your own categories. These will then be added to the drop-down list.

Third section: Creating form templates

You can also create your own form templates with the command New..., which you can find in the selection list. For all further details needed to create a new form template, please refer to chapter 3: Form templates.

Template Manager

To manage form templates, you need the Template Manager, which you can access in the menu Tools | Template Manager. You can use the Template Manager to manage form template and their settings.

You can find all available categories in the Template Manager dialogue box – only that this time, you will find them as tabs. Each one of these categories contains the form templates that have already been defined. In the preview area on the right, you can see the currently selected form template as well as information on page size, width, height and page orientation. In the figure, you can see an example of the »Check Request« form template with the corresponding data.

Fig. 2.3: Template Manager: Predefined forms

You can use the palette menu of the Template Manager to manage the template categories and their form templates. To open this palette menu, click on the arrow in the upper right corner of the tabs.

This chapter will describe how you can manage your form templates using the available commands in further detail.

Fig. 2.4: The palette menu of the Template Manager.

Default form template

In the following example, you can see the still empty form template in format Letter, here shown as Letter, in the Default Template section. If, however, you want a different form template to be the default template, select the form template you want in the Template Manager tab and click the Select button to define it as the default. In this example, we want to define the »Check Request« form template as the new default template. When a new form template is selected as the default template, then the Set Selected As Default button becomes active. By clicking the Set Selected As Default button, the form template you selected becomes the default template and is shown in the Default Template section.

If the form template already is the default template, the Set Selected As Default button remains greyed out. If you now click the drop-down list of the New symbol in the toolbar to see all available form templates in the different form categories, you will also see the »Check Request« form template listed as default template:

Fig. 2.5: Default templates

Palette menu of the Template Manager

A number of functions to manage form templates is available in the palette menu of the Template Manager. Apart from the Help and View sections, you can group the functions in the following categories:

• •Functions to manage form templates
• •Functions to manage template categories
• •Restore default templates

Functions to manage form templates

Use these functions to add, delete, rename and move templates. You can also right-click one of the form templates in the Template Manager to manage the templates in an alternative menu.

Fig. 2.6: Alternative menu to manage form templates

Function: Add Template

There are several methods of creating form templates:

• •Creating form templates
• •Importing form templates

Independently of the method you choose, you will have defined a new form template, but it has yet to be added to a template category. In this section, you will also learn how you can add templates to a category. Select the template category in which you want to place the new form template. Then, first click Add Template... in the palette menu of the Template Manager. The dialogue box Import Template will open.

Select the »*.tds« template, which you had already saved beforehand, and click the Open button to import it into the template category you had previously selected. In our example, we want to import the form template »MyTemplate.tds«. In the end, you will find the newly added form template MyTemplate in the selected template category (MyCategory).

Fig. 2.7: New template in new category

You can also find the form template you just added, MyTemplate, in the MyCategory template category in the Templates menu.

Fig. 2.8: Example – new category with new template

Function: Delete Template

In the example, the MyTemplate form template was deleted. The MyTemplate form template that was just deleted is no longer available in the MyCategory template category. You will also no longer find the form template you just deleted, MyTemplate, in the MyCategory template category in the Templates...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 17.11.2016
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Mathematik / Informatik ► Informatik
• ISBN-13: 9783000549885 / 9783000549885