Issues with XDP rendered as HTML

[mmvidus]

Several issues have come up rendering an XDP for as HTML through a LC process.

1.) The images are not embedded in the form. The images are in the same level as the form and process in workbench. The images use relative URL's. In the HTML output,
the images are only placeholders, and the banner image is not even a placeholder. (see outDoc2.html attachment).


2.) When rendering an XDP as HTML, client-side validation scripts are not working. A simple validation to check if a box is empty does not pop-up a dialog box as expected.
When viewing the XDP as PDF, the validation works.

Using Adobe LiveCycle ES4 with SP1.

[Rob McDougall]

It looks to me like you are using the old form server approach to generating HTML.  This is rather old code (it dates back ten years or more) and I don't think Adobe has given it much attention lately.  We don't have many clients who are using this.

I would recommend switching to the HTML5 Mobile forms HTML.  The HTML is much more modern and is less likely to have problems.

The interface to generate Mobile Forms is much different than invoking LC Output, so there will be some development work required but the HTML is more likely to work, and if it doesn't, you have more likelihood of getting it fixed because this is an area that they are concentrating on at the moment.

Regards,

Rob

 

Rob McDougall | Senior Technical Architect | 4Point || www.4Point.com

[mmvidus]

Rob, have additional questions based on your response below.

What are the development tools you are using for HTML5 Mobile forms? I've imported all the modules to the Adobe Livecycle Application Server. The HTML5 jars are not accessible to Adobe LiveCycle Workbench. Adobe LiveCycle Workbench/Designer are using HTML4.

Is your development tool for HTML5 Mobile forms the CRXDE Lite?

http://dev.day.com/docs/en/crx/current/developing/development_tools/developing_with_crxde_lite.html to do your development?

[Darren]

The HTML5 forms are rendered using the CRX/AEM component within Livecycle ES4. You don't typically render HTML5 forms using processes within Workbench as you did with HTML4 forms.

Try using Forms Manager which should be available on your server: http://server:port/lc/fm

Log in and browse to your XDP within your application and you should be able to render the XDP as either a PDF or a HTML5 form. You don't need to do anything special to the XDP to render it as HTML5, but you do need to be aware that not all the PDF features are available in Mobile Forms (HTML5) http://helpx.adobe.com/livecycle/help/mobile-forms/feature-differentiation-mobile-forms-pdf.html

There are lots of more advanced examples (template selection, pre-population, submission URLs, etc) for HTML5 forms here: http://blogs.adobe.com/foxes/

Cheers,

Darren

[mmvidus]

My Designer is configured to use the Forms Manager when preview of XDP in HTML.

After alot of googling around I finally found the solution that I need to implement.

http://blogs.adobe.com/livecycle/2011/09/how-to-avoid-missing-xfasubset-js-error-in-adep-forms.html

[Darren]

The preview of HTML forms within Designer is HTML5 (Mobile Forms) not HTML4 (deprecated forms) so you will always see quite a large difference between how the two render. They are completely unrelated rendering engines other than they use the template XDP and its assets as a base.

Cheers

[mmvidus]

After importing mobile forms to LC, the Preview HTML in Designer the icon had a 5 in the tab. It looked like an 'S' which is why I ignored it. Later I googled the icon and found it was the HTML 5 icon in Preview which links to Forms Manager (Mobile Forms) like you mentioned.

The render will be different. I might need to do a custom component in Workbench, but I don't know how to parse XDP with data into HTML5 using the Forms Manager (Mobile) API? I googled around a lot and have some articles that mention something similar. 

Integrating Form Bridge with Forms Portal:

http://helpx.adobe.com/livecycle/help/mobile-forms/integrating-form-brige-forms-portal.html

-Melanie

[Darren]

Hi Melanie,

You will need to adjust how you approach Mobile Forms, as it is now accessed via the CRX component within ES4. I would suggest reading Raga's blog over here: http://blogs.adobe.com/foxes/ as this will go through how to render and parse the submitted data from a Mobile form. It also covers a lot of interesting topics on things like cache and the submission servlet (very useful if you are trying to write your own forms proxy)

Mobile Forms are online only** meaning the user must have access to the server to render and submit the form. This is because of how the xfaform rendering/submission engine works within CRX and is separate to the orchestration in Livecycle that you normally access via Workbench. 

Recommended reading

Rendering: http://blogs.adobe.com/foxes/lc-mobile-forms/ and http://blogs.adobe.com/foxes/hide-parameters-from-mobile-form-url/

Data Submission: http://blogs.adobe.com/foxes/submit-data-from-mobile-form/ and http://blogs.adobe.com/foxes/smart-submission-part-ii-livecycle-process-es4-sp1-new/

Cheers

Darren

** Offline forms can be done via Mobile Workspace application on Android or iOS but that is another very large rabbit hole