Adobe LifeCycle Designer and Tab Order A.K.A. Tab Index

Adobe LifeCycle , Gotchas , IDEs , Tips and Tricks No Comments »

I was creating a PDF form using Adobe LifeCycle Designer to collect some data from external users to be sent back for processing via ColdFusion.

Whilst doing so I came across a task that I thought would have been quite trivial / easy but I found it not to be that obvious so again in leiu of my last post I hope this saves someone from digging around to get the answer!

Firstly, I did what any other user would do in my situation and hit the F1 key to access the help.  My search results for "Tab Index" were proving unsuccessful until I discovered that LifeCycle refers to it as "Tab Order".  This made a huge difference and I was able to hone straight into the material I was after and was pleasantly surprised.

Anyway, in a nutshell here's what to do:

From the menu, select "View > Tab Order" - obvious I know but not really when you're looking through the object properties trying to find the damn thing!

The follow these steps:

  1. Hold Shift then click the object you want to be 1st with the left mouse button
  2. Click the remaining fields in order.  There is a number in the top left which represents the current order.  This should change as you click.
  3. When complete, select "View > Tab Order" again from the menu to return to edit mode.

And that's that.

On the upside, I found the Tab Order functionality above quite easy and intuitive to use and also saved me from having to manually update some property of each and every object in the form, of which I had approx. 60.

Here's a link to a video from Adobe TV which also shows the same process for Adobe Acrobat Pro.

HTH

Niall

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MS Windows cmd.exe window and Fullscreen

Misc , Tips and Tricks , Windows 7 Comments »

Today I was faced with an interesting dilema...

I was writing some windows batch  scripts to automate some Subversion tasks and I wanted to re-configure the display of the windows cmd.exe window.  I know Console2 and DOSBox are out there but cmd.exe is the default so I'm running with that for now.

So, in the cmd.exe properties dialog (right-click the title bar and select defaults) I configured the command window / dialog display options to be "Full Screen".

Once I ran my batch file, cmd.exe turned my laptop into a dumb terminal / DOS interface while running the sequence of events I had configured.  It's okay, once complete it return back to Windows normally but that wasn't the effect I was after!!  I simply wanted a larger command window within windows...

PROBLEM

The problem now though was - How the hell do I get back to "Window" mode?  Everything I ran with cme.exe was switching to this mode!!

ANSWER

Quite simply using the key combination Alt+Enter, I was able to toggle between "Window" and "Full Screen" mode.

Pheeewwwww.

So hopefully someone else looking for this Gem will find it here!!

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GitHub, SSH and Windows

GitHub , Windows 3 Comments »

As part of scratching my itch to learn Ruby I decided to create a GitHub repository for storing my code, downloaded samples and koans.  Being mainly a Subversion user I decided to use GitHub for this, simply to extend my knowledge of this popular version control system.

When setting up GitHub using the detailed instructions here I ran into an issue when testing my SSH Connection, which GitHub uses to enable secure communications between your computer and the server.  Using GitBash I entered the following command:

$ ssh -T git@github.com

$ Permission denied (publickey).

I resorted to the documentation and found the following command:

$ ssh -vT git@github.com

Using the switch -vT instructs the terminal to show debug details.  Upon reviewing this debug I noticed that the session connected successfully but when trying to authenticate with my generated public key, the files being searched for where not the same as the name I created for mines.

OpenSSH was searching the .ssh folder for one of the following public key file names:

  • identity
  • id_rsa
  • id_dsa

To resolve this issue - I renamed the key files to id_rsa which resolved this issue for me.  There were two in the .ssh directory (id_rsa.pub and id_rsa).

So when creating an ssh key, when asked to enter a file in which to save the key - simply hit "Enter" and it will use the default settings.

HTH.

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Programming for the Web with Ruby - Part 1

Ruby 2 Comments »

As part of my own personal development I have decided to delve into learning yet another language...Ruby.  This time though I'm going to document my progress and thoughts on my blog.

Being a developer I think it's only natural that we experiment with, not only coding in the languages we are proficient in, but also branch out to learn about what other languages have to offer and also how to go about solving the same or similar problems in those other languages.  Partly inspired by the Pragmatic Programmers "Seven Languages in Seven Weeks" I have decided to take things further with Ruby.

In order to learn the language I sought out a structured approach and came across a basic course "Programming for the Web with Ruby" on http://rubylearning.org.

The reason I chose this course and am happy to share the details is due to the fact that it not only focuses on the Ruby language itself but also on the basics of Web Application development such as using GitHib for version control, HTML5/CSS3 and other basic HTTP / Web related topics.  Obviously us more advanced web developers can skip these sections but I thought it was a nice that the author(s) of the course decided to include this material.

Anyway I'll be posting my progess as I go!

Happy coding...

Niall

 

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Definition of a Function vs Method

ColdFusion , Javascript , Misc No Comments »

After a recent discussion as to the correct terminology to use when referring to code written in CFCs I've decided to share my opinion so people have a general idea as to what is meant when someone is referring a function or a method in its simplest sense. 

  • A function is a piece of reuseable code that is called by name.  It can be passed data to operate on (arguments / parameters) and can optionally return a result.
  • A method (also known as a property method) is a piece of code that is called by name that is associated with an object.  A method is almost identical to a function but it's purpose is generally to operate on the data contained within the component (class).

For example, in JavaScript, methods are defined as object properties that contain a function() whose intent is to operate on the data within that object.  Whereas an example of JavaScript functions would be built in global functions such as isNaN(), alert() or user defined functions function debugLog( content ){ console.log( content ) }.

Likewise, in ColdFusion, you could probably say that UDFs (User defined functions) and the standard built in functions provided by ColdFusion are "functions" and the functions within CFCs are methods.

I'm sure people have their own opions on this but in general that's how I like to refer to functions or methods.

 

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