Multi page flowed subforms - help/resources

[legallogic-DqvA]

Hi,

Im having trouble with "flow" and multi pages subforms.

I got a copy of JP Terry's book and also purchased the PDF bible - neither seem to have what i need.

My forms are about 6 pages long each, and i want them to expand a contract based on user interaction (ie they are asked to tick a checkbox to add another beneficiary etc on a number of occasions).

I can get the individual pages to expand and contract within themselves, but can not get subforms to flow properly over multiple pages.

This is really a problem for us, as we dont want big white spaces if the client does not tick yes for example.

Can anyone recommend a book, article or whatever on flowing multipage subforms

i am setting allow page breaks and expand to fit etc and still not working. im on ES 8.2 (acrobat 9 pro)..........

I tried to get the forms "finished off" by a contractor but they wanted 125 US (270 NEW Zealand dollars, or about 3 days average wages here) an hour which is a killer for a startup.....so any help or guidance much appreciated as were stuck... and have been for a month now......

happy to send a file for people to see what im on about...........

thanks

[Jono_Moore]

Do you have one master flowed subform that all the other subforms are inside?

MainSubform - Flowed

     ASubform - Flowed/Positioned

     BSubform - Flowed/Positioned

     etc.

Also, take a look at the examples that come with LiveCycle - they're installed under C:\Program Files\Adobe\LiveCycle ES\Workbench ES\Designer ES\8.2\EN\Samples\

The books you got are good - the J.P. Terry books is excellent, and there are samples you can download for that as well.

If you still can't figure it out attach the file to a post here.

[legallogic-DqvA]

Hi Jono,

Thanks for the reply...I've had a look at the samples and books again and am still lost. Most of them do not deal with multi-page subforms.... I have uploaded the form... you will see where the 3,4 and 5 (and subsequent) trutees add in in response to the checkbox leaves the next part (power to add an remove trustees) floating on the next page and the form does not expand/contract. What im trying to achieve is the following part following on directly after the last visible trustee details section, whether that be trustee 2,3,4 or 5+ depending on selections - it will no doubt put people off/look pretty amature (which to be fair we are -- just a little stratup) if we have huge gaps everywhere the forms have options..... any help/pointers/explanation as to my errors whould be great - im fairly lost (and a bit slow) with Livecycle.

I have to get my head around doing this myself as there are many more forms to go....

Thanks heaps for the help

[Ben_Walsh · Accepted solution]

Please see a working version of your form attached.

I used the following concepts to fix your issue:

1. "invisible" versus "hidden"  - Setting a subform to invisible will hide all the subform's objects, but will preserve the whitespace. For a form to expand and contract you must set subform visibility to "hidden"
   
2. Positioned subforms have fixed height - Setting a positioned subform to "visible" will result in whitespace when some/all of its content is hidden
   
3. Flowed hierarchy - For a Flowed subform to collapse and expand correctly all of its parent subforms up the hierarchy to the root node must also be Flowed. A good test is to click on an object within the subform that is not flowing correctly and navigate up the hierarchy using the left arrow key whilst keeping an eye on the Subform pallet. Any content that is Positioned needs to be changed to Flowed
   

This resulted in the following changes in your form:

1. Change the initialise event on more_trustess from this.presence = "invisible"; to this.presence = "hidden";
2. Moved tee4-sub out of the positioned tee3-sub
   
3. Set p2 to Flowed

Ben Walsh

www.avoka.com

P.S. I reduced your filesize by 550KB by turning off the Save Options: 'Generate Accessibility Information (Tags) for Acrobat' and 'Embed Fonts'

[legallogic-DqvA]

Ben,

Thanks heaps for the help, it's brilliant to have users like you who are willing (and able) to help out Livecycle newbies. I'll sit down and work through the changes and pointers/corrections you made and hopefully will be able to get my head around this issue, by looking at you working copy.... (a bit of reverse engineering kind of)

Anyway thanks heaps for the help, its really appreciated. And also the pointers on reducing file size, thats a real plus too.

Cheers

[SnookerDJ]

Sorry to be critical but I have had a look at your form and I think that you will need to have an option to delete when the boxes are unchecked as well to help with usability.  It should be fairly straight forward to sort out using the code behind the boxes but if you are unsure just reply back.

Darren