Advice on type of 'data connection' please...

[Former Community Member]

Hi

I need a form to populate dropdown selections upon form initialisation and then pull additional data accross to the form from a simple table located 'somewhere'. The data is fairly simple and there is no requirement to 'write' to the table or database from the form. The diagram below attempts to describe what  I need to do.

My question is this - what are my options for the source of the data? It will be relatively small amounts of data <2000 lines and could be 'embedded' into the form if required (would this be an array? If so how do I get the data in?) or perhaps sent with the form as an excel that it links to (I will be emailing the form to very few users (<50) ). I have looked at full database connections however believe this will require users to have Acrobat or Reader Extensions (both of which are not an option).

I hope this makes sense - please yell if not - any advice or thoughts on my options here and the pro's and cons I need to consider would be most appreciated folks!

Thanks

Ellis

[_Bruce_Robertson]

Hi Ellis,

You can add a "customs dataset", which is really just some XML data under the xfa:dataset node.  You do have to use the XML Source view.  But this does mean that you can use very similar code to reference the data.

There is an example in the comments of this post, Adobe LiveCycle Designer Cookbooks by BR001: Drop-Down List Control with auto-complete (Searchable D...

Regards

Bruce

[Former Community Member]

Many thanks Bruce - I'll take a look

Any other options welcome everyone!

Cheers

Ellis

[_Bruce_Robertson]

Hi Ellis,

One other way would be to load the XML from a webserver, there is an example of that in this thread Currency Conversion which picks up exchange rates and adds them to a drop down list.

Bruce

[Former Community Member]

Thanks Bruce

The webserver solution looks ideal - nice and simple - do you know if this will require Acrobat or will users with Reader be able to connect? I thought I'd read that Reader would not allow external connections? If my helpful IT department hadn't removed Reader when they installed Acrobat on my laptop I'd be able to check!

Thanks again

E

[_Bruce_Robertson]

Hi,

It can work in Reader, they will get a "do you trust this document" type message but that should be a one off thing, but that depends what is set under Edit ... Preferences .. Trust Manager ... Change Settings.  These settings can be set with a custom install so can be set to block access, allow access or ask,

Bruce