|
The
forms for use with Forms are typically created in Designer. Forms
also supports Acrobat forms. The form author can deploy the form
designs for use with Forms either as XDP files or PDF files, depending
on the requirements of the business process. Forms can render an
XDP file as an HTML form or a PDF form. A PDF file is rendered as
a PDF form.
The end-user environment consists of a web browser (for HTML
forms) together with Adobe Reader (for PDF forms). Forms can detect
the browser type and dynamically generate a PDF form or an HTML
form based on the following input:
When end users request a document from Forms, the request initiates
a series of specific processes and interactions among the web application,
Forms, and the web browser. The request can be initiated by clicking
a button or an image on a web page, After receiving the form, end
users can interact with it online. When end users are finished with
the form, they submit it, along with form data, back to Forms.
The following illustration and the list below provide an example
of how Forms processes a request from an end user.
The end user accesses a web page and requests a form.
The web application invokes Forms and requests the form.
Forms retrieves the form design from a repository and data,
and then merges the form design with the data to prepopulate parts
of the form. The data can come from a variety of sources, such as
an enterprise database, another form, or another application.
Forms determines the format to render the prepopulated form
as based on the browser information that is passed with the call.
The format of a form can also be set programmatically by using the
Forms Service API.
Forms transforms the form design into PDF or HTML and then
returns the prepopulated form to the end user.
The end user completes the form and then submits the form
data back to Forms. Before form data is submitted back to Forms,
applicable client-side scripts are run. For example, a user may
be prompted to provide a value for a mandatory form field.
Forms extracts the submitted data, runs server-side scripts
associated with the button that was clicked, and then executes the
calculations and validations on the form.
Forms returns the results. If validations fail, the result
may be a form that is returned to the end user. However, if validations
are successful, the result may be XML data.
|
|
|
