Integrating Forms

For Web Dynpro user interfaces, forms can be created and used in the context of SAP Interactive Forms by Adobe. Adobe LiveCycle Designer is provided for form-based processing of business data. The integration of the Adobe LifeCycle Designer into the Development Workbench enables a high-performance and continuous development of forms.

There are many reasons for including forms in a Web Dynpro application.

Many embedded forms are used for printing and archiving and therefore do not have to be made available in interactive form.

The Web Dynpro framework also allows you to use embedded PDF forms interactively.

Using a form as an input template for a Web Dynpro application can be especially useful when a user is familiar with the appearance of a form and, for reasons of recognition, you would like to also make this form available in the system. An example of this is a tax return form.

It may be necessary to store not only the data content of a form, but retain the form and the data together as a unit for future reference.

The Adobe-specific UI elements, called standard objects, are provided in a UI library in Adobe LifeCycle Designer.

These standard objects are subdivided into field objects and text module objects.

• Field objects represent layout elements like text fields, time fields, push buttons, checkboxes, or dropdown list boxes. They can be inserted into the PDF form template.

  The field objects are similar to the Web Dynpro UI elements in their function, they enable interaction through the user and are bound to the form context in the designer.

  In the standard system the form context is predetermined by an XML schema, which is generated at design time on the basis of the Web Dynpro context.

• Text module objects like circles, rectangles, or static texts are static in character and are used only for presentations with static content.