drop down list population from a local database

[joe_an_lcd_user]

Platform details:

Windows 7(x64)

Adobe Livecycle Designer ES2 V9.0.0.0.20091029.1.612548

SQL Server 2008 R2 (on (local))

I appear to have exactly the same problem described in this post: http://forums.adobe.com/message/2874408

I've developed a very simple PDF form in the above version of LiveCycle designer that includes a single drop down list data bound to a table in a local MSSQL database. The best I've been able to achieve with this setup is to get the first row value from the table to appear in the drop down list; the other values might be there but the list cannot be dropped down.

I've tried various OLE DB provider types including the SQL Native Client, the SQL Server Native Client 10.0 and the MS OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers but the result is always the same.

Does this work? I can provide the PDF XML if it will help find cause of the problem.

[Former Community Member]

Did you bind the List Items property to the Data Connection node that you want it to populate or did you simply bind drag and drop the node in the DataConnection onto your form?

Paul

[joe_an_lcd_user]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the response. Yes I've bound the list items to the data connection - it looks like this:

I've also tried the drag/drop approach but it didn't work because it simply creates a couple of data bound text boxes to the first row in the source table. Do you have any other ideas?

[Former Community Member]

Looks like you have done it correctly ....I assume that there is more than one record in the DB?

Are you using Acrobat or Reader to display the file?

Paul

[joe_an_lcd_user]

Thanks, it's good to get confirmation on what I've done.

Yes there's definitely more than one row in the source table for the drop down list:

SELECT [Id],[StrValue] FROM [Utilities].[dbo].[TestTable]

Id          StrValue

----------- --------------------------------------------------

1           Str1

2           Str2

3           Str3

4           Str4

5           Str5

(5 row(s) affected)

In development on local where I'm seeing this problem, I have Adobe Reader v9.3.0 and Adobe Livecycle Designer ES2 v9.0.0.0.20091029.1.612548 installed. I experience this behaviour when viewing the PDF file both in Adobe Reader and in the Livecycle Designer PDF preview.

[Former Community Member]

I think that Reader is your issue .....you need to Reader Extend the form to allow for access to a database. The Reader Extensions bit is only in the LiveCycle server version NOT in Acrobat. I suggest that yo download the free Acrobat trial version to validate that this assumption is correct.

Paul

[joe_an_lcd_user]

Ok thanks I'll give it a try. In fact I think there might be a license of CS4 somewhere in this organization so I'm going to try and find out what's included in that package.

[joe_an_lcd_user]

My original problem is partially solved. In the end I located our CS4 DVDs and installed both Adobe Acrobat 9 and Adobe LiveCycle Designer ES 8.2.

After this was done it was very easy to create a form in LiveCycle Designer ES 8.2 that included a drop down list populated from a database. It worked without pain so I assume the original problem was indeed related to Acrobat not being installed.

I consider this problem partially solved since the trial version of Adobe LiveCycle Designer ES2 still refuses to work probably due to another dependency I don't yet have installed. In my opinion the LiveCycle Designer ES2 trial should be better documented to clearly advise what works, what doesn't work, and what dependencies need to be installed to get databound forms working.