Adobe LiveCycle ES: Designing Forms

The intent of this course is to illustrate how, both conceptually and technically, Adobe© LiveCycle™ Designer ES can be used to create static, interactive and dynamic forms as interfaces to an intelligent automation platform. Adobe® LiveCycle™ Designer software enables organizations to intelligently capture information to streamline form-driven business processes through automation. Whether users are online or offline, internal or external, Adobe LiveCycle Platform lets organizations deploy secure XML-based forms as Adobe PDF or HTML over any platform or device — from PCs to handhelds — without requiring any new software or plug-ins. This course introduces and describes various techniques for using Adobe LiveCycle Designer ES to create electronic forms that can complement, or supercede, other means of collecting and presenting enterprise data. After the completion of this course, you will be able to create static and dynamic interactive forms that can reduce data collection and processing errors, and enhance the user experience. The course first introduces the basics of form design and describes how to design your forms for efficient data exchange. As the course progresses, more advanced techniques are covered that enable you to add intelligence to your form and to create dynamic layouts that react to the data or to user interactions.

• Form Designers
• Form Developers

• An understanding of form design processes and form-based business processes
• Familiarity with Javascript
• An understanding of computer programming concepts and XML
• Basic understanding of web services and Service Oriented Architecture

• Create a static interactive form, that includes master and body pages, using Adobe Designer ES, and manually configure appropriate Designer objects.
• Describe how data sources are used for data handling and form design, and create an interactive form from at least two different data description types.
• Describe the relevant XFA-based object models and implement business logic in a form design by creating scripts, in two scripting languages, that execute client-side.
• Create a dynamic form that adapts to accommodate varying amounts of data, or to user interaction.

Introducing the Course

Designing Print Forms

• Understanding Forms in Adobe LiveCycle ES
• Navigating the LiveCycle Designer interface 
• Creating a New Form in Designer ES
• Adding, aligning, and positioning form objects
• Designing form appearance

Designing Interactive Forms

• Designing interactive forms
• Previewing an Interactive Form
• Controlling tab order, presence and accessibility
• Creating and using tables
• Organizing forms using subforms and object naming
• Submitting interactive data using email

Controlling User Input and Data Display

• Formatting and validating user input
• Setting and Using Locale Information
• Applying display and edit patterns
• Applying validation patterns

Scripting Form Interactions

• Adding business logic with scripts
• Creating conditional form interactions
• Validating user input using scripts
• Sharing data and controlling focus 
• Creating scripts for calculations

Working with Flowed Layout

• Understanding subforms in dynamic forms
• Using expanding tables in dynamic forms
• Flowing tables to flow over multiple pages

Creating Shared and Reusable Form Content

• Creating and using custom objects
• Creating and using form fragments
• Using master pages and global field bindings
• Creating and organizing form templates

Designing XML Relationships in Designer

• Designing forms using data connections
• Using XML Schema to create a form
• Working with data bindings in a form 
• Using explicit data binding in a form
• Binding tables to repeating data
• Binding subforms to repeating data
• Using SOAP based web services

Using Barcode Data in Forms

• Using paper forms barcode objects
• Managing barcode data capacity

Appendix A: Student Setup Guide

• System requirements
• System instructions