Setting the dynamicRender configuration in Designer

[Former Community Member]

Hi,



I'm trying to generate a dynamic PDF using Livecycle Forms. According to the documentation the "RenderAtClient" parameter in Livecycle Forms is set to "auto" by default which means it "instructs the Form Server Module to observe the form design's dynamicRender configuration value".



How do I set the form design's dynamicRender configuration value? I suspect it's a checkbox somewhere in the Designer UI with a slightly different wording, but nothing there jumps out at me as being obviously the correct property to change.



If someone can point me to how you can set the dynamicRender configuration value in the Designer, that would be helpful.



Regards,

Rob

4 Point Solutions

[Former Community Member]

So, the way it works is, with Forms 7.0 it will look for specific tags in the acrobat configuration setting that tells it whether or not to render at the client. Forms 7.1 actually looks for pre-processor statements instead of an actual tag.<br /><br />In Designer 7.1 you can set this under File->Form Properties->Defaults in the server section. But off the top of my head I'm not sure if this will set the necessary tags for Forms 7.0 to pick it up.<br /><br />In 7.0 there is no way to do this in the UI, you have to manually edit the XML. If you go to XML view, and do a find to get to the <acrobat> tag, what you want to see right under there is:<br /><br /><acrobat7><br /><dynamicRender>required</dynamicRender><br /></acrobat7><br /><br />Hope that helps.<br /><br />Chris<br />Adobe Enterprise Developer Support

[Former Community Member]

Hi Chris,<br /><br />Thanks for the help.<br /><br />I couldn't find an <acrobat> tag. I went into Designer 7.0 and created a new blank form. I then go into the XML Source view and can't find any <acrobat> tag. I suspect it should be somewhere down in <config><present><pdf> area, no? Can you tell me what the herarchy should look like?<br /><br />I'll have a look at Designer 7.1 at my earliest opportunity as well.<br /><br />Thanks,<br />Rob<br />4 Point Solutions

[Former Community Member]

Yeah, it belongs just below the <config> tag. Here's an excerpt from an XDP I have here. For your needs I think you'll only need the section I posted above, but if you have any trouble let me know and I'll look into it deeper.<br /><br />Chris<br />Adobe Enterprise Developer Support<br /><br /><acrobat><br /> <acrobat7><br /> <dynamicRender>required</dynamicRender><br /> </acrobat7><br /> <common><br /> <locale/><br /> <data><br /> <xsl><br /> <uri/><br /> </xsl><br /> <outputXSL><br /> <uri/><br /> </outputXSL><br /> <incrementalLoad/><br /> <adjustData/><br /> </data><br /> <template><br /> <base>F:\USERS\editedForPrivacy...</base><br /> <relevant/><br /> <uri/><br /> </template><br /> </common><br /> </acrobat>

[Former Community Member]

Super!



Thanks for the help,

Rob

[Former Community Member]

Is it true that you cannot merge data into a PDF(read-only) template that has dynamic interactive contents... For example, I used the Purchase Order example provided with Designer install. I used the one located in -> \Adobe\Designer 7.0\EN\Samples\Purchase Order\Dynamic Interactive\Forms\Purchase Order.pdf



I opened that pdf in designer and saved as an xdp, and then deployed to FormServer, and was unable to merge the sample data file with the xdp in PDF but was able to in PDFForm..



This is an issue for us because we want to be able to use the same template for PDFForm and PDF formats.

[Former Community Member]

If you use the PDF transformation, specify the option "RenderAtClient=false" and it should work.



Chris

Adobe Enterprise Developer Support

[Former Community Member]

Where do I specify this setting?

[Former Community Member]

You add it in the option string that gets passed into the renderForm() method.



Chris

Adobe Enterprise Developer Support

[Former Community Member]

I think I see where now... I pass this as part of the options key/value pairs



RenderAtClient=0



My question now is do I only want to set this when I'm rendering in PDF, and remove it or set to somethign else when I'm in PDFForm mode? Because I have dynamic interactive elements on the form that the user need to interact with in PDFForm mode.



Thanks again!

[Former Community Member]

If you need functionality of a dynamic PDF, ie: changing the layout at runtime (like clicking a button to add a line) then you'll need to remove it when you render as PDFForm.



Chris

Adobe Enterprise Developer Support

[Former Community Member]

Thanks much, I will give it a try!

[Former Community Member]

Where can I find detailed documentation on what all the options are and what they do. I seem to be getting significantly different behavior based on the sOptions I pass. I need the update 7.x API reference doc.



Thanks

[Former Community Member]

There are JavaDocs that describe them under the documentation directory where you installed LC Forms.



Chris

Adobe Enterprise Developer Support

[Former Community Member]

So if I render a PDFForm and propmt the user for data entry via a message pop-up/dialog, and then in turn want that data values they entered to be populated immediately on the form, will 'RenderAtClient=false' prevent me from doing that.. I ran some tests and it appears like that is the case. I guess I'm just having a hard time determining the exact setting I need to use in each instance.



Thoughts?



Thanks in advance!



Bob

[Former Community Member]

I wouldn't think so from the description, but it's hard to know without seeing exactly what's going on. The simplest answer, if you're seeing problems, would be to always use "RenderAtClient=false" with the PDF transformation and not with the PDFForm transformation.



Chris

Adobe Enterprise Developer Support

[Former Community Member]

If I specify "RenderAtClient=false" will the Javascript code I have specified and set to run on 'Client' not longer execute? Because I have some field values tied to javascript running on the Client? Do you want me to send you an example XDP, and data file?

[Former Community Member]

In general JavaScript will execute, but if it does something that requires a dynamic PDF it won't work. That's assuming you're using the PDFForm transformation, with the PDF transformation no JavaScript will execute.



Chris

Adobe Enterprise Developer Support

[Former Community Member]

Sorry, I'm still a bit confused, mainly because I have several fields in my template that are formatted via JavaScript e.g. Address field - I concat. several individual address elements into one. I do this via Javascript, and when I renderForm() as a 'PDFForm' it displays correctly, so I would assume the JavaScript executed correctly. So I guess I don't understand your statement "with the PDF transformation no JavaScript will execute"..



Am I misunderstanding something here?



Thanks!



Bob

[Former Community Member]

I'll try to clarify. No script that would normally run after the PDF has been created will run if you use the PDF transformation (not PDFForm). When you use the PDF transformation you are creating a flat PDF.



Chris

Adobe Enterprise Developer Support

[Former Community Member]

If I render a PDFForm and prompt the user for data via a message dialog(via -> app.response), and then in turn want that user entered data populated immediately on the form and visible, will 'RenderAtClient=false' prevent me from doing that.. I ran some tests and it appears like that is the case.



However, if I remove the 'RenderAtClient' option and render in PDFForm in Reader 7.x+ the values entered in the dialog's are populated on the form, however not if I use Reader 6.x.



Thoughts?