Answered
I have created several interactive forms in LiveCycle. I need to combine these forms and have them auto-populate. I also have forms created by someone else in Adobe Acrobat that need to be together with my forms. If I need to re-create those forms I can do that. I would also like to have those little pop-up thingys that tell the person what to enter in a certain form area....and if that is not enough I would like a recipe for a great chocolate cake that will console me while trying to figure this out! Thanks. :)
1. There is no easy way to combine LiveCycle forms so that thier data can be shared. It can be done, but the forms have to be set up for it and the JavaScript that actually does the data sharing is not simple.
You can't append LiveCycle forms together and Acrobat doesn't allow a LiveCycle form to be the cover doc for collection. So I suppose the simplest way to use this technique is to create a regular PDF form that has all the controls and JavaScript on it to do the data transfer. Place the master form, which has the data that will be transfered, as the first form in the collection. Then the code copies the data from the first form to all the others.
There are several problems with this. Data is associated with form fields by the field's internal name. If the names of fields with equivilent data are named differently you need to map them somhow. There are also several other things about names that can be problematic.
2. Automatically Populating form data can be done in several ways. The most common methodology is to use a database on a server, and then either combine data server side or transmit a data file to Acrobat(for LiveCycle docs this would be an XDP fiel), which then populates the associated form in Acrobat on the client side. This techique is mostly for mass form processing.
To do this on individual systems the best method is to create a folder level script. The script should put a button on the toolbar that when pressed acquires data from some source, like an existing form, a database, a data file, and then loads the data into the current form.
For example, your script could do something as simple as export data from one form and then import it into another form. Of course this method suffers from the same field naming problems discussed above, and the scripting is not trivial.
Scripting popups is much easier. The LiveCycle scripting model has a function that displays an alert box. "xfa.host.messageBox()". Look it up in the XFA Scripting Object Reference
Thom Parker
The source for PDF Scripting Info
www.pdfscripting.com
Very Important - How to Debug Your Script