Date Field Popup issues

You are going to have to write the validation script using either FormCalc or JavaScript that eveluates to true for passing the validation test or false if the test is failed.

Since dates are a special character string, you will need to convert the date strings to the numeric value from the Epoch date for comparison using the "Date2Num()" funciton.

Thanks ... but surely good practice is to hide the invalid dates in the popup calendar, which prevents the user from selecting.

Don't you find websites that popup errors telling you the data the field let you enter is invalid? Best Practice is to prevent entry in the first place if possible.....

And they write a validation script.

There are always compromises in designing systems. If you do not like the popup calendar, you can create your own. There are Acrobat JavaScripts that provide this capability, but it requires around 40 form fields and 900 some lines of code.

Firstly - thanks for taking the time to answer this, I do appreciate the effort that you put in to support users

Regarding validation scripts in websites - yes they do use these sometimes - but there are plug ins available for Websites to use which make things better: e.g. [url=http://www.peterblum.com/DES/DateAndTime.aspx]this[/url]

For Acrobat out of the box, you can't plug in a Flash control or HTML that overrides the default behaviour. Yes you could write a really complex custom control - but then that still using xfa to do the job that should be available in the underlying framework. As it turns out, that is what we have to do - provide a custom control with 3 separate dropdowns for day, month, year..

Where the current OOB behaviour (such as the date popup) has shortfalls, it's really important we tell Adobe (Adobe are asking us to tell them).

And how much code is behind the examples?

Your example requires licensing of the code and it has to be purchased. Does this product allow redistribution to others.

PDFs are downloaded to the local machine in its entirety before being opened even when in a web browser. If additional code is needed that is not part of the PDF, then that code also needs to be downloaded and installed on the local machine, this would be folder level JavaScripts or plug ins. Because of this download and Adobe's privacy and security standards, you do not have a lot of exits to system routines from Acrobat or LiveCycle Designer forms. Acrobat even includes options to restrict local caching and auto completion of forms on a form by form basis and an application basis.

This is a user to user site and there are very few Adobe employees here. I am not an employee of Adobe. I would suggest that you contact Adobe with your suggestions on how to improve their product.

Hi,

Firstly - I did contact Adobe, and they requested that I log this as an enhancement request, which I have done.

I think in future realeases you will see the ability to have more flash plugins (or similar) into forms. My customer would gladly pay a license cost for a redistributable to embed if it improves end user experience.

Adobe have said they are especially keen to hear from user groups, as they represent a worthwhile base of people who know the product well. I really think these forums could be a powerful medium to discuss the possible enhancements and future directions people would like to see in the products....

Thanks