Div | ||
---|---|---|
| ||
DO NOT EDIT THE CONTENT OF THIS PAGE DIRECTLY (EXCEPT INSIDE THE DIV BELOW WITH ID=DESCRIPTION), UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING. |
Div |
---|
...
| |||||||||||||
The PDF Forms plugin can be used to publish PDF Forms through the Application Server. User can open the PDF Form, fill in the fields and submit the PDF Form. The submitted PDF Form is sent to the plugin and the values of the fields are extracted from the PDF Form and stored in the database. For the plugin to receive the filled out PDF Form and to extract the data, the following is required:
The PDF Forms plugin is a 100% server side operating plugin and interacts directly with the database for retrieving the form and storing the filled in field values. Basic Workflow
Creating PDF FormsThe PDF Forms plugin supports PDF Forms (both FDF and XFA) created using Adobe Acrobat .
In order for the PDF Forms plugin to work with a specific PDF Form, it is required that the PDF Form has:
Uniquely named fields Submit button
For XFA form add the following JavaScript code to the preSubmit action on the button:
For XFA form the form must be submitted as XML using UTF-8 encoding. Also in this javascript code Form and Page must be replaced with the actual names present in the PDF document. Automatic submit button injection To enable automatic insertion of the submit button, the 'skip_placing_submit_button' field on the pdf_template record needs to be set to one ('1'). When set to zero ('0') the button will not be inserted automatically. Hidden fields For XFA forms, these hidden fields are also used in order to put the form to readonly. This is needed because the XFA form cannot be flattened out-of-the-box, just as the FDF form. So, this javascript must be added in initialize event of the form:
|
...
In this javascript code Form, Page and submiButton must be replaced with the actual names present in the PDF document. Also this code only works for PDF version 9 and later when access property was introduced for form. In order to support earlier versions all fields in form must be parsed and put to nonInteractive (in javascript code). Accessing the PDF FormsThe PDF Forms plugin exposes two dynamic url's for accessing the PDF Forms:
Redirect urlAfter submitting the PDF form, the browser will redirect to the redirect_url, if specified. If no redirect_url is specified on the specific action, the PDF Forms plugin will lookup the redirect_url on the pdf_template record linked to the pdf_action. If both the pdf_action and pdf_template do not specify a redirect_url, the browser will be redirected to a default page that displays the text 'Data successfully stored,close this window' and will attempt to close the window. Automatic pdf_action closingWhen the user submits a PDF Form, the related pdf_action record will be marked as closed. When the user would try to re-open a PDF Form that was previously submitted, thus the pdf_action record is marked as closed, instead a page will be shown in the browser, displaying the text 'Security violation, use the pdf system to edit pdfs'. Re-using dataWhen the PDF Forms plugin opens a PDF Form linked to an pdf_action, it will fill any field in the PDF Form with data that is already stored in the pdf_form_values table, related to the pdf_action record. As can be seen in the ERD below, the link between the data stored in the pdf_form_values table and the pdf_action table is not done based on the primary key of the pdf_actions table, but on a separate form_id column. This allows for the following:
Entity Relation DiagramThe ERD below is the minimum required by the plugin to operate. The data model needs to be present in one of the Database Servers. By default, the DataBase Server named 'pdf_forms' will be used, but this can be overwritten using the 'pdf_forms_plugin_servername' setting of the plugin, available on the Admin page under Server Plugin Settings .
pdf_templates
|
...
...
pdf_actions
pdf_form_values
PDF Template location optionsWhen a PDF Form is shown to the user a related PDF Form template is automatically retrieved. This PDF Form Template is by default loaded from the "actual_pdf_form" column from the pdf_templates table. There are two options to override the location from where the template is retrieved:
The overrideTemplateLocation can be any location that is accessible from the machine where the Servoy Web Client is running, for example ../application_server/server/webapps/ROOT/servoy-webclient/.. The order of precedence for PDF Form Template location is:
|
HTML Table | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
| ||||
|
...
|
...
|
...
|
...
|
...
|
...
|
HTML Table | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|