introduction to ibm lotus forms viewer

© 2009 IBM Corporation

Introduction to Lotus Forms Viewer

Lotus Forms Technical EnablementAugust 2009

IBM Software Group

IBM Confidential | September 2007

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Viewer 3.5.1 | Training | IBM Confidential © 2009 IBM Corporation

Outline

What’s new in 3.5.1 Using the Viewer Setting the Preferences Smartfill Form-based Viewer Settings

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What’s new in 3.5.1

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What’s new in 3.5.1

Improved Performance– The speed increase is most noticeable when rendering forms with many items or

forms with items that are refreshed such as tables and panes

Added support for Business Spaces 6.2.0.1 Numerous bug fixes

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Using the Viewer

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What is the Viewer?

Client-side application for viewing and filling Lotus Forms– Installed on the end-user’s computer

– Draws the visual form based on the XFDL source code

– Allows user to interact with and fill form

– Enforces and maintains the internal logic of the form

Works in two modes: as a stand-alone application or as a browser plug-in

– Stand-alone – Viewer opens by itself to show form

– Plug-in – Viewer opens embedded in a web browser to show the form

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Stand-alone Viewer

Viewer opens by itself to display form

Default behavior when double-clicking form on local file system

Can email and submit forms across the network, even though browser is not open

Viewer Toolbar

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Plug-in Viewer

Viewer opens embedded in a browser

Default behavior when opening a form from a website

Viewer Toolbar

Browser Toolbar

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Using the Viewer Toolbar

Provides quick access to commonly used features

Some buttons may be missing or grayed out, depending on the form– Some buttons are not always active

– Font and Paragraph buttons only available if page contains rich text– Check spelling button only available if focus is in a field or combobox– Help mode button only available if page contains help messages

– Form itself can dictate which buttons are available (discussed later)

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Toolbar Buttons Open

Save

Save As

Print

Email

Preferences

Font (rich text only)

Paragraph (rich text only)

Check spelling (current item)

Check spelling (all items)

Zoom out

Zoom in

Zoom Factor

Context Help

Help

About

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Filling Forms: Dates

To enter today’s date, type an asterisk and tab out of the field

The asterisk is automatically replaced with today’s date

– The date is retrieved from your computer’s system clock

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Filling Forms: Mandatory Input

Mandatory input is shown by a yellow color

If you don’t enter something, you will be prompted when you try to tab out of the field

Tab a second time to leave the field without entering anything– You can change this through a preferences setting

Users who try to submit/save/sign/print without all mandatory information are warned, and asked to confirm their action

– You can override this behavior on a form-by-form basis (discussed later)

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Filling Forms: Input Checking

You can set the Viewer to use predictive input checking

When predictive input checking is enabled (default) the Viewer checks for errors as you type

You can turn off predictive input checking by de-selecting the Do Predictive Input Checking checkbox in the Input panel of the Viewer Preferences

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Filling Forms: Predictive Input Checking

This means the Viewer checks your input as you type

A field may restrict data entry to numbers that follow a phone number pattern

In this case, the Viewer will not let you enter invalid data

– Typing “250 asd” will only enter “250”

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Filling Forms: Regular Input Checking

The Viewer checks your input when you try to tab to the next item

For example, consider the same phone number field

You can type invalid data, but it is flagged when you try to tab out

– You can’t tab out the first time

– You can tab a second time to leave the field with bad data

– Number of tabs required can be configured in preferences

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Filling Forms: Help Messages

Each item in a form can have a help message (depends on form design)

To see the help message, you must:

– Enter help mode by clicking the Help Mode button in the toolbar

– Move the pointer over an item with help

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Help Messages

Help messages are also shown with error messages– Shown even if you do not have Help Mode turned on

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Setting the Preferences

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About the Preferences

The Viewer Preferences set default behavior for the Viewer

The Preferences are divided into four sections:– Basic – browser accessibility setup

– Input Options – type checking, date format, tabbing, and Smartfill

– Printing Options – page layout and other options

– Advanced – locale setting, security options, and others

Some changes are applied as soon as you save the Preferences; other changes are applied once you close then re-open your form

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Preferences: Basic (1/4)

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WWW Browser Configuration– Network access – sets how submitted forms are handled:

– Online – forms are submitted and closed.

– Online with backup – forms are submitted, backed up locally, then closed.

– Offline – you cannot submit forms.

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Accessibility Configuration– Enhanced Focus Indicator

– Viewer uses a small black square in addition to the normal cursor to show the location of the focus on the form

– Square appears at top left of item that has focus

– Operating System Colors

– Viewer uses the colors defined by the OS

– This does not affect the form itself, only the windows and dialogs around it

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Preferences: Input Options (1/3)

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Type Checking Options– Predictive Input Checking

– When on, Viewer checks input as the user types and prevents bad input

– When off, Viewer checks input when the user tabs out of the item and alerts user if input is bad

Date Formats– Sets the format the user prefers to use when typing in a date

– Viewer will automatically convert user’s input to field’s format, if different

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Tabbing Options– When on, stops user from tabbing out of invalid or empty items; user must tab a

second time to leave item

– When off, user can leave item normally (with single tab)

Smartfill– Enables/Disables Smartfill feature

– Discussed in more detail later

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Preferences: Printing Options (1/3)

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Conversion Options– Use these options to print items differently than they show on-screen

– Includes:

– Radios as check boxes

– Radios without values

– No scroll bars on fields

– Fields as blank lines

– Border around entire form

Page Layout Defaults– Sets default page layout for printing (eg. Fit to page, tile, etc.)

– The printsettings option in individual forms can override this

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Miscellaneous Options

– Print each page as a separate job

– Used for printers that do not have enough memory for the whole form as a single print job

– Print black and white (excluding images)

– Corrects problems printing color forms

– Prints the form in grayscale

– Images remain in color

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Preferences: Advanced (1/4)

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Form Appearance Options

– Show boundary

– Draws a boundary around all items (bounding box)

– intended to help when designing forms

– Use ‘X’ style check boxes

– Check boxes display an X rather than a check when selected

– Scroll fields on zoom

– Zooming sometimes makes small changes to word-wrapping, which can cause a few words to extend beyond bottom of field

– Adds scrollbars to zoomed fields when required to show all text

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Viewer Language

– Locale

– Sets the default locale for the Viewer

– Affects the Viewer’s dialogs, tooltips, and so on

– Does not affect the form itself

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Security Options

– Identity filter

– Filters digital certificates on the local computer based on the user’s identity

– Check CRL Distribution Points

– Checks certificate revocation lists online to be sure latest lists are used

– Can slow down signing process

– Must be connected to network

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Smartfill

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What is Smartfill?

Automatically completes sections of the form for the user– Simple pre-population

– Loads information from the user’s computer

– Must be built in to the form the user is completing

Useful for adding commonly used information to the form– Name

– Address

– Telephone

– Etc.

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How Smartfill Works

When you first save or submit a form that uses Smartfill, it will offer to save your information

This information is saved to a file on the user’s computer– Written as an XML fragment in a text file

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How Smartfill Works

The next time you load a form that uses that information, the Viewer will offer to load the information for you

If you accept, the Viewer reads this information from the file already stored on the user’s computer

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Smartfill: Uses and Limitations (1)

Smartfill has some limitations– Each form must be individually set to use Smartfill

– Each form must use the same data structure for common information

Because of this, Smartfill is most useful for:– A set of forms from the same organization (such as a corporation or government),

where you have centralized control over data re-use between forms

Because data is written to a file on disk, Smartfill is not suitable for:– Sensitive data, such as credit card information

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Smartfill: Uses and Limitations (2)

Smartfill requires XML Data Model– Only forms with an XML Data Model can use Smartfill

XForms forms can simulate Smartfill by using an XForms submit– Can write data to/read data from disk just like Smartfill

– Does not show the load/save dialogs to the user

– User has no warning that data is being read from or written to disk

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Form-based Viewer Settings

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About Form-based Viewer Settings

Individual forms can control the Viewer in various ways. For example, they can affect:– The color used for error messages

– Whether the user can submit a form with a formatting error in it

– Which toolbar buttons are available in the Viewer

– And others…

These settings are specific to a single form– The form itself controls the Viewer

– The next form in the sequence can make different settings if desired

Can include as many settings as needed

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Adding Form-based Settings

... <globalpage sid="global"> <global sid="global"> <ufv_settings> setting1

setting2 ... </ufv_settings> </global> </globalpage>...

Settings are placed within the ufv_settings option

Each setting is a child of the ufv_settings

option

ufv_settings is a child of the global item in the global page (or the

global item of any page)

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More on ufv_settings

Pages inherit ufv_settings from the form global

ufv_settings on individual pages override any form global settings– Note that ufv_settings acts as a single option for inheritence – either all settings are

inherited or no settings are inherited

– This means that a single setting on a page will override all settings in the form global

Not all settings are valid at the page level

See the product documentation for descriptions and examples of the various ufv_settings that affect how the form is handled in the Vieiwer

introduction to ibm lotus forms viewer

Technology

predictive input checking

viewer opens embedded

viewer checks input

based viewer settings

check spelling

input options

mandatory input

individual forms