Answered
Are there new features in Livecycle Designer or just in Acrobat forms only? If there are new features in LCD, is there a list somewhere?
Are there new features in Livecycle Designer?
2008-06-03 11:19:57
2008-06-03 21:01:36
#2
i have a strong feeling there are no new features in Livecycle. It looks like they just add them to only the Acrobat Forms part.
2008-06-04 11:31:26
#3
Hi there,
There are a number of new features in LiveCycle Designer ES that comes with Acrobat 9. The big thrust of the release was to improve performance and address bugs, which is the focus of any release. But in addition, the following are highlighted in the documentation as "new" features worth noting:
- Hyperlinks (add hyperlinks (URL or email) to the text in static text objects and object captions, which link to external PDF or HTML documents)
- Hyphenation (added hyphenation options to give text a more appealing visual flow by automatically adding hyphens to words in a form to force line breaks)
- Page break controls (Set page break controls for text and text field objects, including Widow and Orphan, Keep with Next, and Page Break functionality.)
- Typography enhancements (Add leaders to text, as well as fine-tune text formatting by using new options in the Font palette for letter spacing, horizontal and vertical scale, and auto kerning. )
- Tab order (Enhanced to make it easier for you to view and change tabbing order in a form design. The new Tab Order palette displays a numbered list of all the objects on the form, where each number represents the position of the object within the tabbing order. The palette also displays visual markers in the list; for example, it displays a range of numbers to indicate objects within a fragment reference.)
- Web service authentication (Apply HTTP/HTTPS or message-level (SOAP) or both types of authentication to the WSDL data connection you are creating, as ell as select the types of credentials to accept for verification.)
- Importing (You can now import Microsoft® Word 2007 Document files. Script conversion for imported Acrobat forms also enhanced. )
- Workflow enhancements (Improved workflow between Designer ES and Acrobat. If you start the form design process in Acrobat, you no longer need to add an email submit button to a form design to distribute the form. When you close the form design, Designer ES automatically prompts you about distributing the form.)
Hope that helps.
- Alex
There are a number of new features in LiveCycle Designer ES that comes with Acrobat 9. The big thrust of the release was to improve performance and address bugs, which is the focus of any release. But in addition, the following are highlighted in the documentation as "new" features worth noting:
- Hyperlinks (add hyperlinks (URL or email) to the text in static text objects and object captions, which link to external PDF or HTML documents)
- Hyphenation (added hyphenation options to give text a more appealing visual flow by automatically adding hyphens to words in a form to force line breaks)
- Page break controls (Set page break controls for text and text field objects, including Widow and Orphan, Keep with Next, and Page Break functionality.)
- Typography enhancements (Add leaders to text, as well as fine-tune text formatting by using new options in the Font palette for letter spacing, horizontal and vertical scale, and auto kerning. )
- Tab order (Enhanced to make it easier for you to view and change tabbing order in a form design. The new Tab Order palette displays a numbered list of all the objects on the form, where each number represents the position of the object within the tabbing order. The palette also displays visual markers in the list; for example, it displays a range of numbers to indicate objects within a fragment reference.)
- Web service authentication (Apply HTTP/HTTPS or message-level (SOAP) or both types of authentication to the WSDL data connection you are creating, as ell as select the types of credentials to accept for verification.)
- Importing (You can now import Microsoft® Word 2007 Document files. Script conversion for imported Acrobat forms also enhanced. )
- Workflow enhancements (Improved workflow between Designer ES and Acrobat. If you start the form design process in Acrobat, you no longer need to add an email submit button to a form design to distribute the form. When you close the form design, Designer ES automatically prompts you about distributing the form.)
Hope that helps.
- Alex
2008-06-16 06:48:02
#4
Are there any language enhancements such as to the built-in formcalc functions or any new controls such as possibly tabs, or panels, etc. Since the version number is major as 8 to 9, you would think some big enhancements were introduced.
I'm really just trying to find a good reason to upgrade from version 8 and so far can't see any. I really want to. I only use Livecycle and can't give up the advantages to switch over to using acrobat forms.
I'm really just trying to find a good reason to upgrade from version 8 and so far can't see any. I really want to. I only use Livecycle and can't give up the advantages to switch over to using acrobat forms.
2008-06-16 07:03:28
#5
Hey there,
I don't know of any new FormCalc functions. There have not been many enhancements to FormCalc itself in quite a number of releases, although the overall scripting API changes slightly for each release (with now properties, methods, objects, etc). FormCalc itself is a fairly mature language that fits a very specific niche.
As for controls, I assume you mean form design objects; things you can drag and drop onto your form. I don't know of any new ones per se, and there doesn't seem to be anything new under the Standard accordion menu in the Object Library. There might be a new Barcode or two; I confess to not having memorized all of those ... yet ;-)
One thing to note, while Acrobat has moved to 9.0, for this release Designer ES moved up a "dot version" from 8.1 to 8.2. I don't know if that helps to explain why there are not as many "big" features as you may have been expecting. From the Designer ES perspective, the main focus was on stability and performance improvements, which I believe were things users had raised to the company as priority areas they wanted to see improved for 8.2.
I hope that helps. Let me know if you have more questions.
All the best,
Alex
I don't know of any new FormCalc functions. There have not been many enhancements to FormCalc itself in quite a number of releases, although the overall scripting API changes slightly for each release (with now properties, methods, objects, etc). FormCalc itself is a fairly mature language that fits a very specific niche.
As for controls, I assume you mean form design objects; things you can drag and drop onto your form. I don't know of any new ones per se, and there doesn't seem to be anything new under the Standard accordion menu in the Object Library. There might be a new Barcode or two; I confess to not having memorized all of those ... yet ;-)
One thing to note, while Acrobat has moved to 9.0, for this release Designer ES moved up a "dot version" from 8.1 to 8.2. I don't know if that helps to explain why there are not as many "big" features as you may have been expecting. From the Designer ES perspective, the main focus was on stability and performance improvements, which I believe were things users had raised to the company as priority areas they wanted to see improved for 8.2.
I hope that helps. Let me know if you have more questions.
All the best,
Alex
2008-06-16 11:30:13
#6
Thanks Alex, that helps clear up some things. I see now that for those of us that develop in Livecycle (rather than acroForms) should really be looking at the Livecycle ES product and I see how this product is really still in it's 8.0 version and not 9. thanks for that clarification.
Also, I found that they do plan to update ES after looking at this website:
http://gregorywilson.wordpress.com/2008/04/01/adobe-livecycle-es-update-1-now-in-beta/
Also, I found that they do plan to update ES after looking at this website:
http://gregorywilson.wordpress.com/2008/04/01/adobe-livecycle-es-update-1-now-in-beta/
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatproextended/features/
I must admit that I like the new standard form editing in Acrobat 9, but I wish they would make it easier to get to the JavaScript of form items. If there is an easier way, I can't find it.