Adding Tooltip or PopUp Message to form

Setting the tool tip text in the accessibility tab should work - see the attached form, for example. Does this work for you?



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SteveX

Adobe Systems

You want to add your text to the tooltip box in the accessibility tab. The custom reader text is text that will be read by a reader program (ie: JAWS) used by visually impared users.



Chris

Adobe Enterprise Developer Support

stevex - Thank you! That's what I'm needing, where the message pops up. Only, I guess I should clarify further. It's not a text field that I'm using, just a regular, unmoveable text box that I would like to have a tool tip pop up. It's still not working for me....

Regardless of which property you use on the Accessibility palette, the text you enter will likely only show-up when the mouse is over the field's value area.



By default, the precedence is set for the Custom Screen Reader Text (by using the Screen Reader Precedence) which means that if you specify both a tooltip and custom text, the custom text will show instead of the tooltip text. To get the tooltip text to be used, set the Screen Reader Precedence property to
Tool Tip.



One thing comes to mind: You mentioned you tried to specify custom text on a "text box". Is the text box a "Text" object from the Library or is it a "Text Field" object? If it's a "Text" object, then I doubt anything will ever show-up because you can't set focus to a "Text" object in Acrobat and therefore, no tool tip or custom text will be displayed. If you want something that looks like a text box to have a tool tip, you could use a text field and remove its caption (using the Layout palette).



Stefan

Adobe Systems

Stefan - Thank you! That certainly answers my latest post. Yes, I was indeed using a "Text" object instead of a "Text Field", which is why nothing was popping up. I didn't realize that "Text" didn't allow it (why does the accessibility tab show then?) I'll go back through and swap everything out with "Text Fields" and clear out the captions like you suggested. THANKS again!

The decision not to support custom reader text and tool tip information on a text object is specific to PDF which renders text objects statically (basically like an image rather than text, even though Acrobat may let you select it with its Text Selection Tool).



XFA, on the other hand, doesn't target only PDF and print: It targets HTML via LiveCycle Forms and can target various other output formats (we just don't support formats other than PDF and print in Designer 7.1).



That's why you can still set tool tip and custom reader text on text objects in Designer even though they aren't supported in PDF (Acrobat).



Stefan

Adobe Systems

I have an easy alternative solution for this. May be you need to tweak a little bit.<br /><br />1. Add a TextField Object.<br />2. Set it to accept multiple lines and Appearance to 'None'<br />3. On the Object--Value tab select 'Calculated -User Can Override'<br /> and add the Default text value.<br />4. On the Layout pane set the caption position to 'None'<br />5. One Accessibility pane select Tool Tip and '<add your Tool Tip text>'<br />6. Select the text object and add the following code to it's events.<br /> enter: $.access = "protected"<br /> mouseEnter: $.access = "protected"<br /> mouseExit: $.access = "open"<br /> exit: $.access = "open"<br />7. Check the results.<br /><br />Good Luck,<br />SekharN<br />www.lawson.com

What should the results be? This does nothing for me. Also, for the 'Calculated-User Can Override' seeting, how do you add a Default text value? I don't see this property when you select the Calculated option.

I believe the intended result is a text field which is half-way between being totally editable and read-only.



In this case, you would specify the default value by using script like this on the field's Calculate event (in FormCalc):

"default text here"

Personally, if you're just wanting a tool tip on a field, I would stick to using the Accessibility palette as indicated earlier in this thread.



Stefan

Adobe Systems

I have an enhancement to this question. I have a form that is quite interactive. While tooltips are fine for easy descriptors, in a few cases I need some context-sensitive help. This help is more detailed and really should have some formatting (like step-action tables).



I remember with AcroForms, there was a way to display particular formatted PDF information within a PDF. Now, I'm sure this is not possible with Designer, but is there another solution or work-around?



Process:

User clicks an icon

Icon opens the help content for that area

User can click an area to close the help text



Thanks in advance for your ideas,

Lisa