Raf,

That’s an interesting idea and I’m sure it would be very useful!

The fact is that there are still many field properties to which the Dynamic Properties feature could be applied. We just didn’t have time to implement them all the first time around.

I’ll submit an enhancement request for using the Dynamic Properties feature to set the caption of a radio button and will update this post if it ever gets implemented.

Bob,

By definition, a list box has two types of items: text and value.

If only text items are supplied, then the value of the list box is set to the text item which gets selected and which is also displayed.

If both text and value items are supplied, the text items are visible and the value items are always invisible. When an item is selected, the list box’s value is set to the value item which corresponds to the text item that was selected.

If you want to see the value items in the list using the Dynamic Properties feature, you would either have to map the value data to the text items and use only text items in the list box (where the list box’s value is the same as the selected item’s text) or the application generating the XML data would have to combine the text and value data nodes into a single data node so that you could map it to the text items.

Another alternative would be to write a script in the list box’s Initialize event which would re-arrange the list items such that the text items contain the text and value combination and the value items remain unchanged. Since the Initialize event occurs after the data has been merged with the form, the list will be populated with your XML data when the Initialize event occurs.

You could achieve this using the new List Object Properties and Methods if you’re using Designer 8.0.

Aaron,

In response to your questions:

1. Using Dynamic Properties, there isn’t a way to automatically combine, if you will, the item text and value data. If you need it displayed that way, you’ll have to use the traditional method of loading data into a list (using “xfa.data”) which will give you more flexibility and therefore the ability to set whatever you like for the item text data.
2. The reason why you’re only seeing the item value data is because that’s what’s stored in the drop down list’s value when an item is selected. You would be better-off scripting the drop down list’s Change event such that you set the text field’s value to the selected text in the drop down list. You can do this by using the “xfa.event.newText” property in the Change event which will be set to the selected item text data:

   TextField1.rawValue = xfa.event.newText;

Michael,

Unfortunately, even if I explained to you how to import items from XML data into your drop down list without the use of the Dynamic Properties feature in Designer 7.1, you still wouldn’t get anywhere if you’re only using Reader to “run” your form. Reader, on its own, cannot import data. The PDF form that it opens must be extended using Adobe LiveCycle Reader Extensions ES in order to enable Reader’s hidden “data import” feature when that PDF is being used. The reason why you can get this to work in Reader using Designer is because when you specify a preview data file, Designer manufactures a PDF with the data already merged into it prior to giving it to Reader to preview (which means Reader isn’t part of the data import/merge process which it can’t do on its own). When you distribute this form to other users who only have Reader, they’ll have to use Reader to import/merge the data and they won’t be able to do it. That is, unless you’ve extended the PDF.

Acrobat Standard and Professional can import data into a PDF without requiring the PDF to be Reader-Extended.

If you’re able to Reader-Extend your form or if you can use Acrobat Standard or Pro instead of Reader, let me know and we can work at importing the data using script.

Mike,

If you aren’t using any kind of data connection, it implies that you’re loading all these list using script. I would recommend you use the Change event of the checkbox objects to execute some script that would populate the right drop down list. To populate a drop down list, you simply use the addItem() method:

myDropDownList.addItem("Item 1");

You can do this either in FormCalc or JavaScript. I strongly recommend you get used to using JavaScript.

As for populating the second drop down list when a selection is made in the first one, I would script the Change event of the first drop down list, check what the user selected and populate the second drop down list accordingly:

var newSelection = xfa.event.newText; // text value of the item that was selected in the drop down list

if (newSelection == "Item 1")
    myOtherDropDownList.addItem("Item 1a");
else if (newSelection == "Item 2")
    ...

Rob Baptiste,

I dont’ quite understand what you mean by having “text and a hidden text box appear in a text field”. If you’re just trying to get text to appear in a text field, you just need to set the text field’s rawValue property:

MyTextField.rawValue = "text";

Satish Janardan,

You’ll need to script the drop down list’s Change event in order to accomplish this. Using the “Window menu > Script Editor” command to show the Script Editor palette, choose the “Change” event from the “Show” property and set the language to “JavaScript”.

First, you’ll need to get the new selection in the list:

var newSelection = xfa.event.newText;

Then you’ll need to figure-out what it is:

if (newSelection == "Person 1")
{
    // user selected "Person 1" so fill-in the street, city, state and zip fields with information about "Person 1"
    Street.rawValue = "123 Main St";
    City.rawValue = "Los Angeles";
    State.rawValue = "CA";
    Zip.rawValue = "12345";
}
else if (newSelection == "Person 2")
{
}
else if...

Of course, this assumes that you have fields named “Street”, “City”, “State” and “Zip”.

Ronnie,

It’s definitely possible. You could use a table with a repeatable row (select the row and in “Object palette > Binding tab” set it to “repeat for every data item”). Making it repeatable will give you the ability to add/remove instances of the row using its Instance Manager. Once that’s setup, the Click event on a button associated to a product image would add a new instance of the row, get a reference to that new instance (remember, the Instance Manager’s addInstance() method returns a reference to the new instance) and set the instance’s article number, description and price fields with the information pertaining to the related product:

var newRow = MyTable._MyRow.addInstance(0);
newRow.ArticleNumber.rawValue = "123";
newRow.Description.rawValue = "product description";
newRow.Price.rawValue = 199.99;

Ronnie,

Tables are actually just nested subforms. If I recall correctly, tables were introduced in Designer 7.1 but the Instance Manager has been around since the beginning.

A table is essentially a flowed subform that contains other subforms which may or may not be flowed themselves. Each subform in a flowed subform can be repeated and so my sample from comment # 16 would apply to a repeatable subform inside a flowed subform. (Don’t forget to set the “Object palette > Binding tab > Repeat Subform for Each Data Item” property to make the nested subform repeatable.)

Hi Stefan,

I forgot something-How do I reference the repeatable subform in the Table object, if the button with the addinstance method is on another page (see #15-I wanted to make a Purchase Order with the images of the products and the ‘Buy’ button just beneath it- the user clicks on the button and the product details are automatically entered into the Purchase Order form at the end) ?
Thanks

Ron