InteractiveForm API

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.

• dataSource

  You use this property 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 typeWDInteractiveFormMode.

  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 the pdfSource property is not inserted into the structure of the context node that is to be used for the data of the PDF form. Otherwise the structure of this context attribute is also displayed in the tab Data View of the Adobe Designer:

• 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.

• 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.

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