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Data connection, static PDF form, and presence

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Level 2

I've created a form with a dynamically populated dropdown of names. To get it populated, one step was to save it as a static PDF form. Then it worked perfectly. However, I soon found that my scripts to show hide elements no longer worked. Certain Action Builder actions still worked, but not show/hide. So I created a simple test form, and show/hide worked normally. I've tried both formcalc and javascript. So is it true that a form can be dynamic and all actions work or the form can be static and connect to a database, but a form cannot be both data-driven and change presence?

2 Replies

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Level 10

The only difference between static and dynamic forms is that the layout of a dynamic form can be manipulated at runtime.

You can change the presence or number of instances etc., but both versions can be feed with external data.

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Level 2

Thank you for this information, which may be true in theory, but my forms show that only the static form can show external data, and the static form can't change presence at runtime, although other actions (like reset all fields) will work. On the other hand, in a dynamic form, I can change presence, but data will not appear in the dynamic dropdown, which is grabbing names from SQL Server. Can you try an experiment yourself? Try a data connection and changing presence in the same form, and let me know what happens.