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Object documentation InteractiveForm API  Locate the document in its SAP Library structure

Definition

You can use UI element InteractiveForm to insert an interactive PDF form into a view. This enables you to create and design a form from scratch. The layout of the PDF form is designed using the tool Adobe Designer (a software product by Adobe). The required Adobe-specific standard objects are provided by a library. These standard objects are subdivided into field objects and text module objects. They represent layout elements like text fields, time fields, push buttons, or checkboxes. They can be inserted into the PDF form template. Field objects like push buttons, radio buttons, checkboxes, and dropdown list boxes enable the user to interact with the application. On the other hand, text module objects like circles, rectangles, and static texts have a static characteristic and can only be used for presentations with a static content. The function of the field objects is similar to that of Web Dynpro UI elements and, like Web Dynpro UI elements, they can also be bound to context attributes of the context of the corresponding view that takes the data. However, the standard objects are not displayed in SAP Standard Design 2002 on the PDF form. For information about using Adobe Designer, refer to Adobe Designer online help.

Adobe Designer is automatically called whenever you edit UI element InteractiveForm. You edit the InteractiveForm UI element by selecting Edit in the UI element’s context menu.

Note

You must install Acrobat Reader 7.0 or a full version of Adobe Acrobat 7.0 if you want to use UI element InteractiveForm. In addition, the required Adobe component in the SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio must be installed. This component is not installed by default. However, it is very easy to install it if you want to use interactive PDF forms.

Caution
Note that when using UI element InteractiveForm, you can only display one UI element of this kind at a time in the browser window.

For detailed information on the forms based on PDF, refer to the SAP Library under

SAP NetWeaver → Application Platform (SAP Web Application Server) → Business Services → PDF-based Forms.

Description of UI Element Properties

·        dataSource

This property is used to specify the data source. You can use it to specify the path to the context node providing the data. The structure of this context node is displayed under the Data View tab in Adobe Designer. The context attributes of the node can be bound to the Adobe-specific layout elements defined in the form. These elements are the standard objects and provide the data at runtime.

·        height

Specifies the height of the UI element that you can specify in CSS sizes, such as em, ex, pixels or percentage values.

·        mode

Describes the mode of the UI element. At design time, you can specify how the PDF document is created. The mode property can be filled with the following values and is represented by the enumeration type WDInteractiveFormMode.

·        generatePdf

·        This mode value is used to generate a new PDF document from the data source and the template.

  • updateDataInPdf

·        This mode value is used to update a PDF document with the data provided by the data source or to create a new PDF document from the data source and the template if no PDF document exists.

·        usePdf

·        This mode value does not change the original PDF document. The data source and the template for the creation of the PDF document are ignored.

·        pdfSource

Path to the context element containing the PDF document. You must bind this property to a context attribute of type binary. The application development can then access the binary file and download it to the local hard disk or read and send the data to a back-end using a Remote Function Call (RFC) and data type XSTRING.

Caution

Make sure that the context attribute bound to property pdfSource is not inserted into the structure of the context node to be used for the PDF from data. Otherwise, this context attribute’s structure will also appear under the Data View tab in Adobe Designer:

·        templateSource

templateSource
Specifies the unique name of the template. The name is automatically generated when UI element InteractiveForm is inserted into the view. The element contains the name of the view and the ID of UI element InteractiveForm.

·        width

Specifies the width of the UI element that you can specify in CSS sizes, such as em, ex, pixels or percentage values.

Overview of Inherited and Additional Properties

Name

Interface

Type

Initial Value

Bindable

Value Required

dataSource

IWDInteractiveForm

Object

 

bindable_mandatory

Yes

enabled

IWDUIElement

boolean

true

bindable

No

height

IWDAbstractActiveComponent

String

300px

bindable

No

mode

IWDInteractiveForm

WDInteractiveFormMode

updateDataInPdf

bindable

No

pdfSource

IWDInteractiveForm

Object

 

bindable

No

templateSource

IWDInteractiveForm

String

<ViewName>_<FormUIElement_Id>.xdp

not_bindable

Yes

tooltip

IWDUIElement

String

 

bindable

No

visible

IWDUIElement

WDVisibility

visible

bindable

No

width

IWDAbstractActiveComponent

String

300px

bindable

No

Events

·         onCheck
Describes the action to be executed when the user selects the Check pushbutton.

·         onSubmit
Describes the action to be executed when the user selects the Submit pushbutton.

Data Binding

For an example of data binding of the UI element properties, refer to Example of how to use an Interactive PDF Form.

 

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