Explore event handling in Lotus forms, Part I: Form support for computing functions

Lotus forms manages business processes by building dynamic electronic forms, collecting user information and passing it to other application systems. One of the biggest advantages of electronic forms, compared with paper forms, is the ability to respond dynamically to user activities. For example, dynamically changing the background color according to user input, responding to mouse click events, sending a message or submitting a form, and so on. This article will provide you with some examples of the support for computing functionality in Lotus Forms. As a basis for complex event processing, the computational function allows the designer to programmatically implement the form's response to user activity.

Lotus Forms Overview

Lotus forms provides a way to collect user information and pass it to other application systems in the form of an electronic form. It can serve as a front-end to the business process, such as applying for insurance claims. When the user completes the form submission, the user information is transmitted as input to the business process, the database, or other types of application systems. Lotus Forms is a product family that consists of three products:

Lotus Forms Designer: This product is a graphical design tool based on Eclipse for creating and editing XFDL forms.

Lotus Forms Viewer: This product helps users view, fill in, and submit forms. The viewer can be embedded in the browser as a plugin, or it can be run independently of the browser as a separate application.

Lotus Forms Server: This product contains four components, respectively

Api– provides a collection of functions for applying and extending the Lotus Forms feature.

Deployment server– helps users automatically install the required software, such as Viewer, through Applet technology.

The Forms Services platform– provides a library of functions for implementing the integration of Lotus Forms with other systems.

WebForm server– is used to translate XFDL form files into Html/javascript documents, allowing users to fill out and submit forms in a browser without the need for additional software support.

The main products of this article are Lotus Forms Designer 3, which focuses on how to inject rich event-handling functionality into a form during the design phase of the form. The entire article contains the following: The second part briefly introduces the description language used in the Lotus Forms form (XFDL) to better understand the sample form code referenced in this article; Part three discusses the support for computing in the lotus Forms form, including the Designer The use of the tool and the implementation code, and the last part is the closing. In the second article in this series, we will discuss the primary function support that is provided for the form design in Lotus forms and the support for event and activity handling in the Lotus forms form.

form definition Language –XFDL

Forms that are designed and processed in Lotus forms are defined using an extended Form Description Language (XFDL). XFDL uses Extensible Markup Language (XML) to provide a standard method for defining data fields and enterprise or Government complex form design for easy digital storage and display, combining the previously developed global table Definition language (UFDL) and XML.

In this section, we'll start with an example of the actual XFDL form code (shown in Listing 1) to introduce you to the basic structure of the XFDL form, giving you an emotional understanding of XFDL forms. Next, we'll abstract the organizational structure of the XFDL form into a data model that will introduce you to the basic elements of the form in more detail.

Start with a simple XFDL form

Listing 1. A simple XFDL form

0 < XML version= "1.0" encoding= "UTF-8"
1 <xfdl xmlns= "http://www.ibm.com/xmlns/prod/XFDL/7.5 "
2 xmlns:xfdl=" http://www.ibm.com/xmlns/prod/XFDL/7.5 "
3 xmlns:xforms=" Http://www.w3.org/2002/xforms ">
4 <globalpage sid= "Global"
5 <global sid= "global"
6 <xformsmodels>
7 <model xmlns = "Http://www.w3.org/2002/xforms"
8 <instance>
9 <data xmlns= ""
<a>3</a>
One <b></b>
</data>
</instance>
<bind nodeset= "B" calculate= ". /A *.. /a "/>
</model>
</xformsmodels>
<bgcolor>lightgrey</bgcolor>
18 </global>
</globalpage>
<page sid= "PAGE1"
<global sid= "global"
22 <label>square area form</label>
<bgcolor>cornsilk</bgcolor>
<fontinfo>
<fontname>times</fontname>
<size&gt24</size>
<effect>plain</effect>
</fontinfo>
</global>
< Field sid= "side"
to <xforms:input ref= "a"
<xforms:label>length of Square side: </xforms: Label>
</xforms:input>
<labelfontinfo>
<fontname>Times</fontname>
<size>24</size>
<effect>bold</effect>
</labelfontinfo>
< /field>
<field sid= "area"
<xforms:input ref= "B"
<xforms:label>area of Square : </xforms:label>
</xforms:input>
<labelfontinfo>
<fontname>times</ Fontname>
<size>24</size>
<effect>bold</effect>
</labelfontinfo
</field>
</page>
Wuyi </xfdl>