Forms - Combo Box: Display Value vs. Export Value

[Peter2]

What is the meaning of "Display Value vs. Export Value"? I thought it could be different - e.g. a string displayed for the user ("beautiful / medium / ugly") and exported numbers for the computer (1 / 2 / 3). But it is always the same ..

grafik(1).png

[Willy Van Nuffel]

It seems like you can edit these Combo Box Items after their creation, by clicking once and then clicking one again, so that a blinking cursor shows up and you can start editing. See screenshot.

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hello Willy Van Nuffel, Peter2,

Yes - the idea is exactly that - to display some meaningful values to the user, and then send a different one (e.g. the ID of said option) to the computer for processing.
And as Willy pointed out - those can indeed be updated after creation.

Kind regards,
Stefan

[Peter2]

Thanks,
I got it.

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

[Peter2]

I'm searching / hoping for a "Copy&Paste" feature to fill these values. I have some lists with 5-20 values ...

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hello Peter2,

You should be able to "quickly" create a combobox (dropdown) with some JS
Here is a page of the JS API with such a sample:

Page 374 from js_api_reference.pdf

Kind regards,
Stefan

[Peter2]

Thanks, Stefan.

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

[jotess]

Hello,
I'm pretty novice to JS, so I'm not sure if I understand correctly. Is this explanation:

...
You should be able to "quickly" create a combobox (dropdown) with some JS
Here is a page of the JS API with such a sample:
Page 374 from js_api_reference.pdf
...

meant for the case when I'm designing a form (not when I'm using it) and when I want to populate the combo box with its initial values? This is what I'm trying and I have a very long list of values that I would not like to enter by hand.
Best regards, Joachim

[Mathew]

I'm searching / hoping for a "Copy&Paste" feature to fill these values. I have some lists with 5-20 values ...

If you use Tab as a delimiter, I think the paste option will put them in the correct locations:

image(2).png

image.png

thus:

image(1).png

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, Mathew

This is probably the fastest way to hand it at the moment, Tab delimiting was actually a surprise to me, but it works quite nicely!

Kind regards,

[Mathew]

...all that and I went down the rabbit hole: Here's a script that makes a dialog to edit the Display and Export values for all the combo- and list-box fields in the document.

Installation
Extract the zip file. It can be run from the Console; or copied to the JavaScripts folder in which case it will add a menu item to the Forms ribbon (or Form > Manage Form Data in the classic toolbars)

image.png

setComboValues v1.0.zip

Usage
The tool opens a dialog in which there is a dropdown at the top to select the field to edit, and a text box with all the field options:

image(1).png

Translations
The tool can be translated if 1ang.js is installed. Here are the translation strings (save to "translationData.setComboValues.json" in the JavaScripts folder) -- there's a machine translation to German:

Code: Select all

# Translation file (requires 1ang v1.0 or later)
# Domain for this translation file is "setComboValues"
# Filename must be "translationData.setComboValues.json" and saved in the JavaScripts folder

# It is not necessary for all strings to be included in every language,
#   but don't put an empty string "" for the translation, because that's what will be shown!
# This must be formatted as a JSON file except that:
#   lines starting with # and empty lines are stripped out before processing

# "Language" is three letter code as output from app.language
# "Original Text" is case sensitive!
#   Notice that the last item in a list does not allow a comma after it.
# Format:
#  "Language 1": {
#    "Original Text": "Translated Text in Language 1",
#    "Original Text 2": ["Translated Text 2 singular", "Translated Text 2 plural"]
#   },
#  "Language 2": {
#    "Original Text": "Translated Text in Language 2"
#   }

{
 "": {
     "Set Combo Values": "",
     "Format is one line for each option:\nDisplay Value%sExport Value": "",
     "Set the values for field:": "",
     "Delimiter:": "",
     "Ctrl + Tab to enter Tab": "",
     "No List Box or Combo Box Fields found in this document.": "",
     "User Cancelled.": "",
     "Updating field '%1'": "",
     "Set Combo Values…": ""
 },
 "DEU": {
     "Set Combo Values": "Kombinationswerte Festlegen",
     "Format is one line for each option:\nDisplay Value%sExport Value": "Format ist eine Zeile für jede Option:\nAnzeigewert%sExportwert",
     "Set the values for field:": "Werte für Feld festlegen:",
     "Delimiter:": "Trennzeichen:",
     "Ctrl + Tab to enter Tab": "Strg + Tabulatortaste, um Tabulator einzugeben",
     "No List Box or Combo Box Fields found in this document.": "Keine Listen- oder Kombinationsfeldfelder in diesem Dokument gefunden.",
     "User Cancelled.": "Benutzer hat abgebrochen.",
     "Updating field '%1'": "Feld '%1' wird aktualisiert",
     "Set Combo Values…": "Kombinationswerte Festlegen…"
 }
}

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, Mathew

Ohh, this looks like a fun tool, thank you Mathew!

Kind regards,