Sergio,

Unfortunately, the setInstances method doesn’t return a list of references to the new set of instances that remain after the call so, unlike addInstance which gives you a reference to work with, you have to go looking for them.

Let’s say you’re creating instances of a subform named “sub” and each sub object has a field in it named “f”.

First, you set the number of instances like this:

_sub.setInstances(5);

This statement creates 5 instances of the sub object.

Now, you need to find the instances (get references to the m) so you can access the f object inside of them (in JavaScript here, within the context of the sub object’s parent subform):

for (var i = 0; i < _sub.count; i++)
{
  // get a reference to the sub[i] object
  var oSub = this.resolveNode("sub[" + i + "]");
  // set the value of its f object
  oSub.f.rawValue = "hello";
}

The loop simply obtains the number of instances using the count property of the sub object’s Instance Manager and, for each instance, gets a reference to it in order to set its f object’s value.

Palani,

I had to do a little investigating to see what the situation was with batch-converting XDPs to PDFs.

Unfortunately, neither Designer nor Acrobat ships with a tool that would let you do this. While there are command line programs to convert IFD, Word and PDF documents into XDP, there isn’t one that’ll take an XDP and convert it into a PDF.

I’ve grown with JetForm/Acellio/Output Designer/Adobe Designer since the mid-90’s but find myself in need of quickly converting a PDF or Word file to an IFD. I simply must find a quick and easy way without jeopardizing the integrety of the document. Is there a tool out there to accomplish this?

Thanks for any help.
~Deb

Hi Stef,

Firstly a quick note to say thanks for running this blog, I started using LiveCycle about 3 days ago, and it’s totally invaluable to a novice.

I had a specific problem to solve, mainly to do with dynamic forms (that alter the number of rows depending on a drop down list) but also are capable of changing the text in each row; I have now solved this problem, and wanted to post this here for others that might be trying to achieve this – hence it will be all in one place. I tried the little routine you gave Sergio up there, but could not get it working, although the point that if you use setInstances(x) it becomes tougher to address each new row (instance) made an impression, so I decided to use ‘addInstance’ to make it simpler for me :).

I started a new global array to reference the new rows, in order to avoid nested if-else statements. The variables NumOfRows (Integer), var1, var2 and var3 (text) are globally declared within the form properties. DropList is the value returned when a selection is made form the drop-down list. I used setInstances(0) to reset the dynamic table before iterating the if statement to stop the table growing if a wrong srop-down list selection is made.

I think the main bit which makes the code a little clunky is there is no checking that there are the same number of elements in ‘NewArray’ as the integer in ‘NumOfRows’.

*script*

var NewArray = new Array(var1.value,var2.value,var3.value);

if (DropList.rawValue == 1)
{
Table1._Row1.setInstances(0);

for (var i = 0; i < NumOfRows.value; i ++)
{
var oNewText = Table1._Row1.addInstance(1);
oNewText.TextField1.rawValue = NewArray[i];
}

}

This now works exactly how I want it to – I hope others find it useful!

Do you have any tips on how I could further improve the code?

Ian

Ian Simons,

I don’t have anything to add. Your script seems just fine for resetting a table’s rows and then adding a set number of rows (based on the “NumOfRows” form variable) each with pre-determined text (based on the “varX” form variables). I’m glad to hear that you were able to get to a solution that works for you.

Thanks for sharing!

KX,

Thanks for the feedback and encouragement!

Actually, the initial property is behaving properly in this case. A subform’s initial property is only meant for the case where there’s no data (or not enough) being merged into the form but doesn’t impose any limits on the amount of data that gets merged into the form. The min and max properties are the actual hard limits.

Since the movieData.xml file contains 16 records, the merging algorithm will attempt to merge-in all 16 however the hard-stop is the subform’s max property which limits this to 10 records.

If you set the initial count to 2, min to 1 and max to 10 and merge-in the movieData.xml file, then you would still end-up with 10 rows filled with movie data (the 10 first ones). If you previewed the form without any data, then you would see 2 empty rows (because of the initial count). If you set initial to 0 but kept min set to 1 and previewed without data, you would see 1 empty row.

Stephan,
I noticed that a couple of readers have asked about how to merge part of repeating data in a form, display some other content or pages, then display the rest of the repeating data. This is actually pretty common in real-life forms. I experimented with it a little bit using the form you provided in this example.

I defined two subforms movie1, and movie2. Both binding to $record.movie[*] and are set to repeat subform for each data item. Movie1 subform also has max set to 3, while movie2 subform has no such restriction. I have movie1 subform on page 1, followed by some additional pages and then movie2 subform on last page.

movie1 number field has the same script you provided:
movieData.MoviePage1.movie1.number::calculate – (JavaScript, client)

var nNumMovies = 16;

if (this.parent.index

KX,

Unfortunately, your second question got cut off, probably at the point in your script where you had a < bracket. You must use the HTML character code “&lt;” for those otherwise it’s interpreted as HTML code…

In any case, I don’t believe there’s an easy way to do what you’re asking for simply because of the greedy nature of the merging algorithm (the second it matches the “$record.movie[*]” binding on the movie1 subform, it will merge all movie data into that subform and only that subform).

You would have to do the merging manually by looking at the Data DOM, as I explained in my previous response, and then using the Instance Manager to create and populate instances of the movie1 and movie2 subforms. Not easy, but possible.

Stephan,
Thanks for the script to access DataDOM. It’s exactly what I was looking for.

KX,

My colleague just confirmed that this is, in fact, expected behaviour so you should be able to expect this to keep on working in subsequent releases of LiveCycle.

Hello everybody

I’m trying to use your example in my own PDF but I have a bit problem. I add a new subform but I can’t see it. My PDF structure is like this (maybe translation would be wrong, i’m using spanish version):
Form
-(page format)
–page1
—(Area content without title)
-(subform without title)
–subformulario
—field1
—field2
—field3
-button
-(objects referenced)

I have a script in button, like this:
xfa.host.messageBox(“Nº de campos”+xfa.record.nodes.length);
subformulario.occur.max += 1;
_subformulario.addInstance(true);
xfa.host.messageBox(“Nº de campos”+xfa.record.nodes.length);

and when executed this action, I have two messages. First “Nº de campos 1” and then “Nº de campos 2” so I suppose the new subform is added but, I don’t know why, I can’t see it on my PDF. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

Hi Stefan

At first, thanks for your answer. I have resolved my problem. The error was my form wasn’t saved as a dynamic form so I couldn’t see the new subforms added. But now I have another problem.

If I have a subform called “subformulario” with 3 fields and I add a new subform, this new subform will be name “subformulario”, isn’t? so…how can I get a value of this new subform? I have this new code but it doesn’t work ok

#subformulario[1].contador.rawValue = subformulario.instanceManager.count;

and i haven’t found any solution about how to resolved it. Any idea about this error?

Thanks again.

Dani,

When you use the addInstance(0) method of the Instance Manager, you get a reference to the new object as a return value. Therefore, you would do this:

var newSubform = _subformulario.addInstance(0);
newSubform.contador.rawValue = _subformulario.count;

If the instance already existed and you wanted to access it (say the 2nd instance of subformulario) using JavaScript, you would have to use the resolveNode method:

var secondInstance = parentOfSubformulario.resolveNode("subformulario[1]");
secondInstance...

As for the error you’re getting, I suspect it’s due to the fact that you’re using “#” in an expression with JavaScript set as the script language. “#” is not a legal JavaScript token.

Chris,

I’m having some difficulty understanding the structure of your form but bindings that start “$record” are anchored to the root data node rather than being relative to the parent’s binding. So you could try to bind the “r2” table row to “$record.item[*]” and then bind the fields inside to “OrderMult” and “ItemDesc1” (no “$record.item[*]” prefix) which would make those field’s bindings relative to the instance of the <item> data node that gets bound to the instance of the “r2” row.

Dani,

I think what has happened is that you imported your Excel worksheet with the “fixed pages” (“artwork”) option. This creates a form with high-fidelity layout towards your original document however it prevents you from using objects that involve subforms (subforms themselves as well as tables). There are also other restrictions such as not being able to use text, rectangle, circle and line objects amongst others. The benefits of importing your form this way is that the original layout (from Excel) is preserved and you’re meant to overlay fields on it.

You may also import a form with “flowable layout”. This will give you the ability to use subform-based objects however the import utility will translate every last piece of the original document into an XFA object. In certain circumstances, this can yield forms with 100s of objects.

There’s a third option you may with to use, since you’re importing an Excel spreadsheet and that’s Designer’s ability to paste cells from an Excel spreadsheet. I believe this was introduced in Designer 8.0. Simply copy and paste cells from your spreadsheet right into Designer. You should get a special “paste from Excel” dialog when you paste into Designer that will guide you through the process. I think the end-result is a table object in your form.

Amit,

It sounds like your form is configured to populate the drop downs in the first instance however not in the new instances. The addInstance() method actually returns a reference to the new instance which you can use to access the drop down lists and populate them as required:

var newInstance = _repeatableSubform.addInstance(0);
newInstance.DropDownList1.addItem("item 1");
...

Another way to do it is to use the repeatable subform’s Initialize event (you can access it using the Script Editor palette, “Window menu > Script Editor”) to populate the drop down lists. When you add new instances, their Initialize events are triggered and they’ll automatically populate the drop down lists that pertain to them.

Saran,

Are you giving the proper reference to the xfa.host.resetData() method? You should be giving it the SOM expression to your table. For example,

xfa.host.resetData(myTable.somExpression);

If that doesn’t work, you can always use the table row’s Instance Manager to remove all instances and add a blank one (assuming you’ve set the row to be repeatable and you’ve set a minimum instance count of 0 (zero) using the “Object palette > Binding tab”):

myTable._Row1.setInstances(0); // remove all
myTable._Row1.addInstance(0); // add a new blank row

@sha,

Adobe LiveCycle Designer can open (import) .ifd files since the very first version, I believe. Once imported, you will have an XFA form which you can save as a PDF file.