Level: Introductory Jane Rizhanovsky (rizhanov@ca.ibm.com), Information Developer, IBM
02 Oct 2007 This article describes the exciting changes for IBM Lotus Forms, formerly IBM Workplace Forms. The Lotus Forms suite of products provides a server, a form designer, and a user interface product that allow you to create forms customized specifically to your users from concept to implementation.
IBM Lotus Forms V3.0 is now available. This article discusses the changes to the product overall as well as the new features for each specific product:
- IBM Lotus Forms Designer
- IBM Lotus Forms Viewer
- IBM Lotus Forms Server – Forms Services Platform
- IBM Lotus Forms Server – Webform Server
- IBM Lotus Forms Server – API
What's new in Lotus Forms
Figure 1 shows examples of the new Lotus Forms icons.
Figure 1. Lotus Forms icons
Pop-up windows such as Preferences windows now have a more consistent Microsoft Windows look and feel. Options are easy to find in the pane on the left, and details are displayed in the right pane. Figure 2 shows an example of the Preferences window from the Lotus Forms Viewer.
Figure 2. The new Preferences window
Launchpads and First Steps guides
Lotus Forms V3.0 is more user friendly than previous releases. Installation Launchpads and post-installation First Steps guides provide prerequisites, system requirements, a summary of the new features in the release, and additional information sources such as the IBM Lotus Forms Information Center. For the Lotus Forms Viewer First Steps, example forms are provided so that you can test whether or not the installation worked properly. The Lotus Forms Server Launchpad contains information for all server products: the API, Webform Server, Forms Services Platform, and Deployment Server. You choose which installation file to run, and the Launchpad automatically displays the appropriate First Steps guide after the installation is complete. Currently, the Launchpads and First Steps guides are available only in the IBM Lotus Forms Express versions of the products.
Figure 3 shows the Launchpad, and figure 4 shows the First Steps guide.
Figure 3. Lotus Forms Launchpad
Figure 4. Lotus Forms First Steps guide
Bidirectional language support
Lotus Forms products support bidirectional languages, such as Arabic and Hebrew, which read from right to left. The design canvas is mirrored when the form locale is set to either Arabic or Hebrew. This allows you to use the Lotus Forms Designer in English while setting the form items to read right to left. The form can be viewed using either the Lotus Forms Viewer or Lotus Forms Server - Webform Server and appears properly with right-to-left configuration.
What's new in Lotus Forms Designer
Lotus Forms Designer V3.0 has several areas of improvement:
- Performance improvements
- The new XFDL Compute Editor
- Instructional movies
- Schema support
- Better user experience
- Forms Conversion Tool
- Accessibility
Performance
A number of internal performance enhancements have improved the responsiveness of Lotus Forms Designer, specifically with regard to large forms. Working with large forms was previously difficult due to long load times. Wait times for switching between the Source and Design modes have been greatly reduced. You now have the option of displaying only a single page of XFDL in the Source view. Additionally, you can set the minimum number of pages a form must have before the single-page filter is implemented. Figure 5 is an example of the Preferences window in Lotus Forms Designer that shows the options for the Source Panel.
Figure 5. The Preferences window in Lotus Forms Designer
To decrease the time it takes for a form to load, Lotus Forms Designer has a new feature, On Demand Page Loading. This feature lets you specify how many pages of a form load when the form opens. For example, a 30-page form could take several minutes to load. Using On Demand Page Loading, you can set the first three pages of the form to load initially. This allows the user to receive the first three pages quickly rather than waiting for the entire 30-page form.
XFDL Compute Editor
Previous versions of the XFDL Compute Editor did not provide enough user-required features, such as:
- Allowing the editing of an existing compute
- Supporting all aspects of XFDL and computes
- Supporting different levels of complexity
The new Compute Editor allows you to create both simple and complex computes through an easy-to-use interface. You can add the compute to any of the options or suboptions for the selected item. The Quick Start menu provides templates and descriptions for commonly used computes. You can add your own compute templates through the Preferences window. Figure 6 shows the Compute Editor with the Quick Start menu displaying the available formula templates.
Figure 6. The Quick Start menu in the Compute Editor
In creating a compute, you can choose items directly from the form, or you can select items from the list of Available Form Items as shown in figure 7. After an item is selected, it appears in the Selected Form Items pane. You can then specify which option of the form item is to be modified. The improvements to the Compute Editor give you more flexibility in creating both simple and complex computes.
Figure 7. The Select Form Items window
Instructional movies
Four interactive instructional movies were created for Lotus Forms Designer; three demonstrate various computes in the Compute Editor, and one shows how to set constraints on a field. These movies provide step-by-step examples for creating a Summation compute, an If/Then/Else compute, setting a function so that a button changes color upon user click, and setting a field to accept only valid five-digit zip codes. The instructional movies are inserted in the documentation directly with their corresponding print instructions so users can view and follow the instructions simultaneously.
Schema support
Improvements have been made to the drag-and-drop functionality from the Instance View to the Design canvas. If the instance fields were generated from or are related to an enclosed XSD schema, Lotus Forms Designer examines the schema to determine and create the most appropriate presentation item. For example, if a date is required, a date picker is displayed rather than a text field.
Dropping XML elements into form panes or boxes now creates children rather than binding data to the pane. This enhancement allows fields to be inserted within the pane or box. For example, if you have a form pane and if you drag and drop the Name field, Lotus Forms Designer inserts a field with the label Name rather than setting the form pane as Name.
Lotus Forms Designer now supports relative URIs, which allow data models to point to an external schema file. Prior to this release, the schema was internal to the form itself. Storing a schema in a central location and referencing it in a form allow multiple users to access the same schema. Having an external schema also makes it easier to share the schema with external tools or applications.
Better user experience
The toolbars and menus of Lotus Forms Designer have been improved to assist in faster and easier form creation. Previously, users had to set the location of the workspace and decide on a number of options before a blank form opened. Now, when users want to open a new form, a wizard guides them through three simple steps to provide them with a form. Figure 8 shows the New Lotus Form Wizard, which lets you choose a blank form or a predefined template. You can add your own templates if required.
Figure 8. New Lotus Forms Wizard
Forms are no longer restricted to a predefined workspace. You can save files to any location on the local machine or network.
The wizard also lets you set the locale for the form. Setting the locale affects the object libraries available. For example, setting the locale as English (Canada) brings up menus with Canadian postal code and Social Insurance Number (SIN) options. If the locale is set as English (United States), the object library displays zip code and Social Security Number (SSN) options. Because Lotus Forms also supports bidirectional languages, such as Arabic and Hebrew, by setting these locales, the options on the screen read from right to left rather than from left to right.
There are many new options in the Preferences window to assist in form design. There are now 11 option panels in Lotus Forms V3.0, up from the five that were available in IBM Workplace Forms Designer V2.7. Figure 9 shows the new menu options on the left side as well as specific options on the right side.
Figure 9. The Preferences (Filtered) window
Workplace Forms V2.7 let you preview and test forms in Lotus Forms Viewer only. Lotus Forms Designer V3.0 adds Webform Server to test forms. If you use Lotus Forms Server – Webform Server, you can now insert your Webform Server URL in the Preferences window to test forms using Lotus Forms Server – Webform Server. Figure 10 shows the old Preview panel renamed to Viewer and the addition of the new Webform Server panel.
Figure 10. The Webform Server tab added to the view options
Lotus Forms Conversion Tool
Many users have existing paper forms that they need to convert to electronic format. To help them, a beta version of the Forms Conversion Tool was introduced and is available for download from the Launchpad. The Forms Conversion Tool converts Portable Document Format (PDF) files into Extensible Forms Definition Language (XFDL) and also transforms Lotus Forms. Once it is installed, two new menu items are available in the File menu in Lotus Forms Designer: Convert to Lotus Form and Transform Lotus Form. As figure 11 shows, you can now convert multiple forms at once to the Lotus Forms format.
Figure 11. The Convert Forms window of the Forms Conversion Tool
After the user picks the forms to be converted and sets the rules to apply to the forms, the PDF files are converted to XFDL. The Forms Conversion Tool can also be used to apply rules to existing forms, such as applying a standard border or background color.
Accessibility
Lotus Forms Designer is fully accessible and allows the use of:
- Screen readers, such as JAWS
- Full keyboard accessibility with shortcuts
- High-contrast screen mode
What's new in Lotus Forms Viewer
Lotus Forms Viewer has the following major changes:
- A new JavaScript API
- New look and feel to the Preferences window
- Removal of the Advanced button from the signature ceremony
- Accessibility
JavaScript API
You can use the new JavaScript API to interact with a form when it's embedded in HTML. The JavaScript API lets you use familiar JavaScript tools to create HTML pages that interact with an existing form. You can insert scripts to control how data is inserted to and extracted from forms.
Preferences window
The Preferences window has changed its appearance to allow for easier navigation and a more consistent Microsoft Windows look and feel. Main sections are now listed in the left pane, and specific preferences are shown in the right pane. Figure 12 shows the Input Options section of the Preferences window.
Figure 12. The Input Options of the Preferences window
Removal of the advanced button in the signature signing ceremony
The Advanced button is now removed from the signature signing ceremony. Users were often confused by the Advanced button, assuming they were required to complete advanced functions prior to signing the form. Clicking the Advanced button showed users an XFDL markup of the form parts covered by the signature, which required no action on the part of the user. The Advanced button can be enabled through the preferences configuration file; however, the default is to hide the Advanced button. Figure 13 shows the signature ceremony with the Advanced button removed. Should the Advanced button be enabled, it appears to the right of the Delete button.
Figure 13. The signature window with the Advanced button hidden
Accessibility
Lotus Forms Viewer V3.0 is fully accessible and allows the use of:
- Screen readers such as JAWS
- Full keyboard accessibility with shortcuts
- High-contrast screen mode
- Both Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox browsers
What’s new in Lotus Forms Server – Forms Services Platform
Lotus Forms Server - Forms Services Platform has the following new features:
- Platform Java access
- Integration with Webform Server
- Simplified packaging
- New pipes and sample pipes
- Improved debugging
Platform Java access
Previously, Lotus Forms Server - Forms Services Platform was available only as a prepackaged servlet/WAR file. This restricted the environments where it could be used. Now, Lotus Forms Server - Forms Services Platform is accessible as a Java library and a simple Java API known as the Java Access API. The Java Access API allows Lotus Forms Server - Forms Services Platform to be accessed directly from any Java application rather than a servlet.
Integration with Webform Server
You can use Lotus Forms Server – Forms Services Platform to automatically translate XFDL to HTML using Lotus Forms Server – Webform Server. This way, you do not need to extend the IBMWorkplaceForms ServerServlet class to connect your application to Lotus Forms Server – Webform Server.
Simplified packaging
Lotus Forms Server - Forms Services Platform now uses only three JAR files and two configuration files:
- ibm.fsp.core, ibm.fsp.java, and ibm.fsp.standard
- equinox.properties and fsp.properties
There are three JAR files and one other configuration file that contain the minimum third-party libraries:
- commons-io, commons-logging, and log4j
- log4j.properties
This is greatly reduced from the 72 JAR files of previous releases. Reducing the number of JAR files and directories makes Lotus Forms Server - Forms Services Platform much easier to deploy and manage.
New pipes and sample pipes
Each release of the Lotus Forms Server - Forms Services Platform adds more pipes. In this release, there are three new pipes:
-
PrintXFDLPipe. This pipe communicates with Lotus Forms Server - Webform Server to create a printed version of a form.
-
RepoStorePipe. This pipe stores data into a repository as byte[], String, Document, Form, or InputStream.
-
ViewerDetectionPipe. This pipe detects the version number of an installed Lotus Forms Viewer. It returns a version number or none if no Lotus Forms Viewer is installed.
A new set of sample pipelines is also available that demonstrate how to extend the form functionality by adding extra pipes to an existing pipeline.
Improved debugging
A new set of debugging messages is available to help you troubleshoot pipe and pipeline development. Previously, a problem within the Lotus Forms Server - Forms Services Platform was difficult to debug because there weren’t many reports generated when a pipeline was run. There are now seven debugging messages to help you find and solve problems in the pipeline.
What's new in Lotus Forms Server – Webform Server
Lotus Forms Server - Webform Server has the following new features:
- Caching
- Form templates
- On Demand Page Loading
- Large attachments
- Signature support
- JavaScript API
- Printing to PDF
Caching
Caching throughout Lotus Forms Server – Webform Server V3.0 decreases the number of requests made to the Translator Server. Formerly, requests went from a user’s browser to the application server, to the Translator Server, and back again. Form resources are now cached at both the browser level and the application server level so that multiple users can quickly access the form resources. Users no longer have to wait while requests are passed to the Translator Server to retrieve form resources.
Form templates
System administrators can create and store form templates for frequently used forms. These form templates are cached on the application server to allow for much faster load times. Form resources such as data instances and images are also stored in the cache to decrease load times and to provide a better user experience.
Form templates work well with very large forms, but you must ensure that your system has adequate memory available for caching and storage. Test the template/cache configuration thoroughly to determine the best balance of load time to memory usage. If you run applications that require prepopulation of form data, they must use XForms data instances to use the form template feature.
On Demand Page Loading
On Demand Page Loading (ODPL) is a feature that reduces the amount of memory used by large forms and that increases the speed of form loading and processing. You can specify which pages to load to the user when the form is initially opened. As stated in the Lotus Forms Designer information, this substantially lowers load time as a user needs to wait for only two or three pages of a large form to load rather than the entire form. Additional pages are loaded when the user clicks the Next Page button.
Large forms often contain similar computes or formatting information on each page. To facilitate ODPL, create a Working Page, which contains all compute and formatting information. You can then set the first page and the Working Page to load to users through ODPL, resulting in much faster load times for the user.
Large attachments
In Workplace Forms Server – Webform Server V2.7, attachments were read into memory, encoded, and compressed, which significantly increased processing times. Lotus Forms Server - Webform Server V3.0 encodes and compresses the form, but it does not save the attachment to memory, resulting in much faster processing times.
Signature support
The signing ceremony has been significantly reworked to make it easier to use. Lotus Forms V3.0 uses Dojo technology to create an accessible, translatable experience. For Lotus Forms Server - Webform Server V3.0, Authenticated Clickwrap is now a supported signature engine, and full PKI signatures are now supported on Microsoft Windows using Internet Explorer.
When the user clicks a CryptoAPI or Generic RSA signature button for the first time, an ActiveX control is installed that allows access to the Internet Explorer/CryptoAPI store. The certificate chooser dialog box is provided by the ActiveX control. Figures 14 and 15 show the ActiveX installation request screen and the certificate selection window.
Figure 14. ActiveX installation request screen
Figure 15. The certificate selection window
A signed form ceremony dialog box contains all the same information in Lotus Forms Server - Webform Server as it does in Lotus Forms Viewer. Figure 16 shows the completed signature ceremony window.
Figure 16. The completed signature ceremony window
JavaScript API
The JavaScript API used with Lotus Forms Server – Webform Server is identical to the one used for the Lotus Forms Viewer, and it provides consistency in the way you can modify forms.
Printing to PDF
Previous releases printed to a PNG image, which was difficult to print. When you viewed the PNG file in a browser and attempted to print, forms did not fit onto the page properly. Lotus Forms Server – Webform Server lets you print forms to PDF/PDA format. This generates a single document containing multiple pages. The PDF format ensures that a form fits properly onto a printed page.
What's new in Lotus Forms Server – API
The API has the following new features:
- Java API garbage collection
- UFLCheckValidFormat changes
- XForms 1.1 datatype
Java API garbage collection
To improve performance, the Java API method setHandGCFlag has been updated. The default value is now false, which changes the method of garbage collection. The Java Virtual Machine now manages garbage collection rather than the system. This means that any memory used by deleted signatures, certificates, or other objects is not recovered during the JVM garbage collection. To recover the memory from the deleted objects, call the new release method when you are finished with them. Additional information on this process is available from the Lotus Forms V3.0 Information Center in the Lotus Forms Server API – Java API User"s Manual.
UFLCheckValidFormats changes
Several changes and improvements have been made to the way UFLCheckValidFormats operates:
- The function now works on XForms.
- The function can be called on page and item nodes as well as form nodes.
- There are some validity changes to this function. For example, items that are not displayed or not active are excluded when the format constraint is off.
XForms 1.1 datatype
Empty content for XForms 1.1 datatypes is now allowed in the API. These datatypes include:
- xforms:dateTime
- xforms:float
- xforms:string
Conclusion
The Lotus Forms suite of products provides a range of options for you and your users from building custom forms with the Lotus Forms Designer to displaying them to users with either the Lotus Forms Viewer or Lotus Forms Server – Webform Server. Lotus Forms provides improved performance, more intuitive design, and greater usability for you and your users.
Resources
About the author  | | | Jane Rizhanovsky is a writer with the IBM Lotus Forms group in Victoria, BC. This is her first developerWorks article. |
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