This is the first part in a multi-part post series for Adobe MAX 2008 designed to show you how extend a form guide to import data from a website without using FlexBuilder. If you haven’t seen it already, I recommend you have a look at the demo on last Friday’s tutorial preview post to get a sense of what we’re going to be building. In this first part, we will build the form necessary to provide the print/archive capabilities for the Movie Catalog.
Throughout the tutorial, I will assume that you’ve used Designer already and you know about things like flowed vs positioned subforms. I will also assume that you’re familiar with Guide Builder’s interface for designing Form Guides.
Software Requirements
Before we get started, make sure you’re using Designer 8.2.1 SP1 and Guide Builder 8.2.1 SP1. You can download an evaluation version of Designer and Guide Builder when you download the Acrobat 9.0 Pro trial. If you haven’t installed SP1 yet, you can download it from here (note that you only need to install the Designer SP1 update — you don’t need Workbench or even LiveCycle ES to run through this tutorial).
If you already have Designer but you don’t have Acrobat, you can use Reader 9.0 to go through the tutorial.
Continue reading…
Posted by Stefan Cameron on November 17th, 2008
Filed under
Conferences,
Data Binding,
Designer,
Scripting,
Tables,
Tutorials,
XFA
As I mentioned earlier, I’m working on a tutorial in the spirit of the Adobe MAX 2008 conference which I’ll make available next week. There will be 3 posts, one for each day of the conference.
This tutorial will show you how to (1) design a form with a table that has a repeating row, (2) add some Flex code to it that will enable the use of the mx.rpc.http.HTTPService class for retrieving data from my Movie Service and (3) design a form guide that will capture the data from the service and transfer it into the PDF which could then be used to print or archive the movie listings.
In an effort to wet your appetite, I thought I would get the ball rolling by showing a little preview of the final solution.
Be sure to come back every day, Monday to Wednesday next week (November 17-19, 2008), to get the full tutorial.
Posted by Stefan Cameron on November 14th, 2008
Filed under
Acrobat,
Conferences,
Designer,
Form Guides,
Tutorials
There’s less than a week to go and I don’t have a ticket to MAX 2008 yet. It’s unfortunate since I was hoping to catch-up with a few colleagues, meet some of my readers and get a chance to present a couple of things: For one, the work we’ve been doing on Adobe’s new Correspondence Management Solution Accelerator showcases some pretty cool PDF/Flex interaction. Thankfully, you can at least see a demo by attending the LiveCycle ES and Adobe Solution Accelerators session while you’re there. I also would’ve liked to demonstrate a different way to import data into a dynamic PDF form using Flex via a Form Guide without using FlexBuilder (assuming you know your Flex syntax and the mx.rpc.http.HTTPService class).
But why hold back? Christmas will soon be here and in the spirit of giving, I figured I would still do my part remotely and write a series of posts over the course of the conference next week that will show you how to do the data import via Flex. I hope you’ll find it useful.
Stay tuned…
Posted by Stefan Cameron on November 11th, 2008
Filed under
Conferences
Just a quick note to let all of you know I’ll be attending BFMA Symposium 2007 in St. Louis, Missouri, over the course of the next few days. I’m looking forward to meeting many of our customers to get some feedback on Designer 8.0 and answer some questions in person for a change.
I’ll also be giving a demo of all the new and exciting features available in Designer 8.0 along with a sneak peak at what’s in store for the next release during Adobe’s “Product Tutorial” session (#09 at 9:45am on Monday, May 7, for those of you attending) led by Alain Roy, one of our Product Managers. Please join us if you can!
If you’re attending, you’ll also want to make sure you check-out Adobe’s “E-Forms Come of Age” session (#40 at 3:00pm on Tuesday, May 8 ) where Alain will demonstrate a new feature we’ve been working-on that will completely change the way your users/customers interact with your forms — you won’t want to miss this!
Posted by Stefan Cameron on May 5th, 2007
Filed under
BFMA Symposium,
Conferences
Mike Potter will be giving a training session on LiveCycle Designer at Adobe MAX 2006 next month.
As he prepares for his session, I’d like to give you an opportunity to influence what he’ll talk about so that his session is as valuable to you as possible:
- Are there specific features you’d like to see a demo for? Dynamic Subforms? Conditional Breaks? Data-Nominated Subforms? Data Binding?
- Should he talk about form design methods like why and when to use repeating (dynamic) subforms, how to validate your form prior to submission, etc.?
- Anything else?
Posted by Stefan Cameron on September 20th, 2006
Filed under
Conferences,
MAX 2006
