I see. What you need to do is handle the Change event on the drop down list. In the event, look at the xfa.event.newText property which will be set to the new selection. Note that if you list items have text and value data that differ and you need the value data, you’ll need to use the boundItem list function on the newText value to get it:

var newSelection = xfa.event.newText;
var boundValue = this.boundItem(newSelection); // to get the value data associated with the new selected item, if you need it

if (boundValue == "yes")
    this.fillColor = "255,0,0";
else
    this.fillColor = "255,255,255";

I looked over your article; however I am still unsure as to how to only fill the field when ‘Yes’ is selected. If ‘No’ is selected, I do not want the field to appear as colored.

Maybe I am just having “a blonde moment”.

Thanks!
Melissa

Have a look at my article on setting the field background color.

I have an issue with coding a background color into a specific selection on a drop down menu within LiveCycle Designer 8.0. Could you please point me in the right direction?

No
Yes

Upon selection of “Yes”, I would like the field background color and/or font color to change. I have tried several solutions, and I am unable to find any answers.

Thanks!!

Unfortunately, validations in XFA forms don’t really work the way you would expect them to. At the moment, you’re still better-off implementing your own script to validate the fields you care about unless you only care about mandatory fields being empty or filled. If it’s that simple, then setting a field’s “Object palette > Value tab > Type property” to “User Entered - Required” will prevent the form from being submitted if that field is empty. If you want to prevent printing, saving or web service execution if form fields aren’t filled, then see my article on preventing a form from being printed.

If you need to do something more complicated than that, then you’ll need to implement your own solution. I would start by implementing the two button submit technique on your form. Once you’ve done that, you’ll just need to iterate through all the fields on your form and make sure they’re filled. My Invalid Flashing Fields 2.0 tutorial is a great example of looking at all fields in a form and highlighting (flashing red) the first one found that isn’t valid filled.

Do you know how to validate all the fields in JavaScript when the user clicks the Submit button so that if any required fields are empty, nothing (submission, JavaScript code, execute menu items, etc.) will be executed? I found something about execValidate() but it didn’t work for me. It wouldn’t do anything. I am using Adobe Acrobat Professional 8.0. Thank you!

Awesome!

THANK YOU! I tried your ’sanity check’ and that worked fine. I then tried entering the code via the Script Editor rather than the XML Source and it worked perfectly. Clearly I must have missed something when entering the code on the XML Source tab. I appreciate your response!