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Change the values used for calculations in a Drop-Down list in Adobe LiveCycle

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 20:36:41 -0600

You have to do a little extra work with the drop-down list.

To the user, a drop-down list is nothing more than a list with the values shown that they can choose from. To the programmer, that would be you in this case, the actual value that the code can use doesn't have to resemble the value selected by the user at all. First, a little background history of drop-down lists.

Drop-down lists started out as a way to allow a user to select a single value from a list, which was usually stored in some type of table in a database. For both cost reasons (memory and storage used to be very expensive) and data integrity reasons (the more someone has to enter the same item, the greater the chance one of those entries is going to be entered incorrectly), programmers developed methods of entering data once but using it multiple times.

As an example, the user may see a list of fruits:

Apples

Oranges

Bananas

Grapes

To a user, this is just a list of fruits. To the programmer, it is a list of items and he really doesn't care what the items are, but everytime Oranges are selected, he needs to be sure he is referring to the same fruit. Rather than entering this list of fruits everytime he needs the user to select one, he enters the list of fruits into a table and then just reads the table and displays it to the user. Now he only needs the storage space to store the list of fruits once.

To save even more on storage space, each entry also gets an index number, so that the table now looks like this:

1	Apples
2	Oranges
3	Bananas
4	Grapes

If the user selects Oranges, the programmer only needs to store the index value of 2. This adds flexibilty in that now he only needs to write code once to display a drop-down list and all he has to change is what table the list is drawn from. Additionally, he can add more items to the list without having to redo any previous code or damaging any user entries he may have already received. Plus, to make it easier for the user to find an entry, especially in a long list, he can now sort the entries knowing the index value will always stay consistent.

The following tables shows two new entries added to the list (index value now does to 6 instead of 4) but is sorted alphabetically by the name of the fruit, instead of the order the fruits were entered into the table.

1	Apples
3	Bananas
6	Cantaloup
4	Grapes
2	Oranges
5	Peaches

Now, let's look at your issue with a drop-down list in Adobe LiveCycle.

Adobe LiveCycle is used to create interactive forms in Adobe Acrobat files. This allows companies to distribute forms that users can type directly into and can also perform calculations and other simple programming.

Since Adobe Acrobat files are usually distributed to end-users to use on their own PC's, they don't always have access to a database to be able to drawn a list from to populate a drop-down field. Luckily, the cost of memory and storage has dropped dramatically so that becomes less of an issue.

When you create a drop-down field in Adobe LiveCycle, you have to populate the drop-down list manually. This is done by adding the items in the drop-down controls properties, shown as you did in Image 1. Because Adobe LiveCycle doesn't expect to do much more than just display the chosen selection, by default it doesn't use a separate index or value field.

Since you are looking to do additional calculations on the item selected, you need to manually enter the index or value you want Adobe LiveCycle to return to your programming code whenever you reference the field. You can do this by clicking on the Binding tab of the drop-down controls properties.

Here you can specify a more meaningful name to your control and you can specify specific values for each item in your drop-down list. You can see I changed the name of the control and the values for each list item in Image 2.

Of course, this only gets you to where you are calculating on the right values. You will need to add some basic calculations to your form to get it to start adding things up for you. Best way to learn how to do that is to follow the tutorial included in the help file. Press F1 to open the help file, click on Quick Start Tutorials, and then click on "Creating a purchase order form". It is 26 lessons and you'll be able to skip the ones that you feel you already know.

Hide Your Online Presence on Facebook

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 21:47:56 -0600

A lot of folks use Facebook to post quick little blurbs about what they are planning to do, are doing, or have just finished doing. It's a way of providing a window into their lives, whether it is part of their personal or working life.

The simplest way to do that is to just login to Facebook from your web browser and enter it into the “What's on your mind?” box at the top of the page. Since Facebook is all about communication and wanting to facilitate that communication, Facebook lets all of your friends know via the chat window, located in the lower right corner of your Facebook window.

This is a great feature for those who want to chat, but for someone in your scenario, it becomes an unwanted distraction when someone sees you online and wants to start chatting.

Fortunately, you can hide your online status. Open the chat window, click on the Options button, and select Go Offline. Even better, your online/offline status is saved between Facebook sessions. If you go offline in chat, you will stay offline until you decide to go online again.

As for the second part of your question, can you ignore a chat request? Absolutely. Social media consultant George Williams says “I leave chat turned off most of the time, but no. It is a communications channel of convenience, just like a phone. Despite the myths of the cell phone age it is perfectly valid to let a call go to voicemail.”

A few other ways you can update your Facebook status without worrying about chat requests is to post thru Twitter and let your tweets appear on Facebook (my favorite method). Use a desktop application, such as TweetDeck (the advantage of using a desktop app over Twitter is you won't be limited to Twitters 140 character limit). Or, you can post updates using text messaging thru your cellphone (you gain another 20 characters, but I haven't had the best of luck with Facebook and text messaging).

By the way, you can find me on Twitter, Facebook, FourSquare, and LinkedIn.

Have a Word Macro Detect Your Thumb Drive

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 08:55:52 -0600

Although not directly a part of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), the macro language of the Microsoft Office Suite which includes Word and Excel, VBA can detect all sorts of things about your current hardware configuration using the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) API.

Through the WMI, you can get a list of all logical drives your computer is currently recognizing and search through them looking for your thumb or flash drive. You want to search through the logical drives because the actual physical drives may be partitioned into two or more logical drives and your templates can only be accessed through the logical drive.

The first step in your macro is to create the connection to the WMI API so that you can query it for the list of drives. This is done using the following code:

Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\.\root\cimv2")

Once the connection to the WMI is made, you can query the Win32_LogicalDisk class to get a list of all logical drives.

Set colDisks = objWMIService.ExecQuery("Select * from Win32_LogicalDisk")

The Win32_LogicalDisk will answer your query with an array that can be looped through until your thumb drive is found. There are two fields that can be used to determine if the drive being looked at is your thumb drive or not, the VolumeName or VolumeSerialNumber.

Using the VolumeSerialNumber would be the ultimate way to ensure you had the correct drive, since it is nearly impossible for two drives to have the same serial number, it is a little more complicated to get the serial number, so we will just stick with the volume name.

Since you will need the volume name for the next piece of code, go ahead and open Windows Explorer (quickest way is to hold down the Windows key on your keyboard and press the letter E). Windows Explorer shows you a list of all your drives with the volume names first followed by the drive letter inside of parenthesis.

Now that you have your drive letter, you can use the following code to loop through the collection of drives until your drive is found.

For Each objdisk In colDisks
    On Error Resume Next
    If objdisk.VolumeName = "ThumbDrive" Then
        strMyDrive = objdisk.DeviceID
        Exit For
    End If
Next

You would just need to replace ThumbDrive in the code above with the name of your thumb drive.

Combining the code with the macro you sent in your question, the entire code would now look like this:

Sub AttachMyTemplate()
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\.\root\cimv2")
Set colDisks = objWMIService.ExecQuery("Select * from Win32_LogicalDisk")
For Each objdisk In colDisks
    On Error Resume Next
    If objdisk.VolumeName = "PocketDrive" Then
        strMyDrive = objdisk.DeviceID
        Exit For
    End If
Next
With ActiveDocument
    .UpdateStylesOnOpen = True
    .AttachedTemplate = strMyDrive & "\Templates\MyTemplate.dot"
End With
End Sub

Displaying the Following Year in a Word Document

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 22:11:01 -0600

Although not as powerful as using a VBA macro, Microsoft Word fields are quite powerful on their own, without the security worries of using a macro.

In your case, as you have discovered, it is quite easy to display the current year. The field code to show the current year only would be:

{ DATE \@ "yyyy" \* MERGEFORMAT }

In order to increment the result from the DATE field, you have to nest that result into another field. You end up with one field serving as a parameter for another field.

To get the following year, use the SUM field with the result of DATE field as one of its parameters. The final code will look like this:

{ =SUM({ DATE \@ "yyyy" \* MERGEFORMAT }, 1) }

Word uses the F9 key, in conjunction with the shift, Alt, and CTRL keys, to work with fields.

Key	Function
F9	Update fields
Shift+F9	Toggle this field only
CTRL+F9	Add field
Alt+F9	Toggle all fields

Press CTRL+F9 to insert a new field (Word inserts the curly braces for you to indicate you are creating a field)
Type =SUM(,1)
Press your left arrow key three times to place your cursor in front of the comma and press CTRL+F9 to insert a nest field
Type DATE \@ "yyyy" \* MERGEFORMAT
Press F9 to update the fields
Press Alt+F9 to toggle the fields to show results

Microsoft Out-of-Band Security Update

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 16:33:56 -0600

A Microsoft out-of-band security update is one released outside of the once monthly schedule that Microsoft adheres to for security patches.

Almost all computer software is going to have some kind of security flaws, especially something as complicated as Internet Explorer. Being as popular as it is in terms of installed base, hackers tend to focus their efforts on finding flaws to exploit.

When Microsoft released Windows 98, they also included a "Windows Update" system that made it easy for users to update their systems which was great for home users but turned out to be not so great for corporate users. Some of those early updates tended to "break" other software and forced corporate IT support personnel to try and "unbreak" the latest update.

Since Microsoft was releasing the updates as they developed them, IT departments had no way to prepare for an update or to keep track of what updates Microsoft had released.

To reduce the cost of maintaining updated systems, Microsoft switched to releasing updates once a month on the second Tuesday of the month, also known as Patch Tuesday, with a bulletin released three days before the patches announcing what products the updates would cover.

Although hackers are constantly trying to find some flaw in Microsoft products to take advantage of, many security researchers are doing the same thing. To protect the public, when one of the researchers discovers a flaw, they will alert Microsoft and allow Microsoft time to develop a patch before announcing their findings to the public. It's when a hacker finds the flaw before one of the researchers and uses it to attack the general public that it becomes what's known as a "zero-day flaw" i.e., a flaw that Microsoft has not had a chance to work on before it becomes public knowledge.

Most often, it is these zero-day flaws that Microsoft will release an out-of-band update for, especially if it is considered a critical threat.

Bonus question: How does Microsoft classify a threat?

Microsoft will give a threat one of four ratings.

Rating	Definition
Critical	A vulnerability whose exploitation could allow the propagation of an Internet worm without user action.
Important	A vulnerability whose exploitation could result in compromise of the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of users data, or of the integrity or availability of processing resources.
Moderate	Exploitability is mitigated to a significant degree by factors such as default configuration, auditing, or difficulty of exploitation.
Low	A vulnerability whose exploitation is extremely difficult, or whose impact is minimal.

Adding the file path to a Word 2007 Document

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 23:06:02 -0600

To add the file path and name to a Word 2007 document follow these steps (previous versions of Word are similar)

Click Insert->Quick Parts->Field

Choose Document Information from the Categories drop-down
Select FileName from the Field Name

Choose formatting as desired

Check the Add path to filename check box if you want the full path

Click Ok

Louisiana Citizens Insurance Tax Credit

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 23:16:40 -0600

Since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck the gulf coast of Louisiana an 2005, the Louisiana Citizens FAIR Plan and Louisiana Citizens Coastal Plan both suffered claims that were larger than their reserves could handle. These two insurance carriers are actually quasi-state run entities in that they are owned by the state but managed separately from the state's general budget.

To settle the billion dollars in claims, the state borrowed money so that policy holders could be pair. Now the issue is how to pay back that loan.

Built into the legislation that created the plans is an assessment fee that must be paid by all insurance policy holders, regardless of which company they actually have their insurance with.

The state is also able to declare an emergency and collect an emergency assessment along with the regular assessment until the loan is paid down.

With the unexpected surplus in the year-ending 2007 state fiscal budget, Governor Kathleen Blanco was able to convince the state legislator to pass the bill recommended by the governor to refund the amount of the assessments policy holders have paid since the date of the storms.

The assessments can be listed as a credit on your 2006 state tax returns.

The State Department of Revenue and Taxation has several web pages available to explain the credit and how to claim it.

Do I need more memory and can I get it?

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 23:58:13 -0600

One of the easier ways to improve the performance of Windows is to give it more memory. Microsoft states that 64 MB of RAM is the minimum need to operate Windows XP, either Home or Professional editions, with 128 MB being recommended. I have seen some XP machines with only 128 MB and they are slow as molasses, I'm not sure if I could stand around long enough to watch a machine with only 64 MB try to boot up, regardless of Microsoft claims.

In your case, you have 384 MB of RAM which is healthy enough for someone who is doing email, surfing the web, working with office applications, and a minimal amount of graphic design work.

You don't mention which version of Photoshop you are using, so I'm going to assume the professional version. Adobe says 320 MB is the minimum with at least 384 MB recommended. So you are sitting right on the bottom line of performance.

If you are going to be doing a lot of graphics work, I would max out the motherboard on RAM adding as much as it could handle. If you can't do that then go with at least 1 GB of RAM.

How do you find out how much memory your motherboard can handle? The best way I've found is to visit Crucial's web site and use their system scanner to tell you how much memory you have, in what configuration, and how much you can add. It will then give you links to the different types and sizes of memory that should work with your PC. You can then make a decision on the best memory upgrade path you should take.

One caveat. Sometimes the system tool can get all the information it needs to show you your different options. In those cases, you can use the Wizard to select your motherboard and figure out the best chips for you.

The Final Harry Potter Book

Sat, 03 Feb 2007 17:51:25 -0600

J. K. Rowling and Scholastic publishing have just announced the title of the final book in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

As with the previous book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, there will be two editions, a standard hardcover book and a deluxe edition which includes additional artwork and a slipcover.

Amazon is accepting pre-orders for the book with their Pre-Order Price Guarantee.

The standard hardcover can be found here while the deluxe edition is here.

Archdiocese of New Orleans Seeking Parishoners

Sun, 28 Jan 2007 21:37:15 -0600

The Archdiocese of New Orleans is in the planning stages for rebuilding Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Violet, LA. They are asking all parishoners to let them know where they are and to submit comments on the rebuilding of the church.

Please use the form below to submit your information electronically or you can mail them to:

Our Lady of Lourdes Church
C/O Janet Perez
P.O. Box 783
Violet LA 70092

Parade Schedule for St. Bernard Parish in 2007

Sun, 28 Jan 2007 20:11:22 -0600

The only krewe that will be parading for Mardi Gras in the 2007 carnival season will be the Knights of Nemesis. After Mardi Gras, the Irish-Italian-Islenos parade, founded by La. State Sen. Walter Boasso, will roll. And after a one year hiatus because of Hurricane Katrina, the Knights of Columbus Crawfish Festival will return.

The schedule and parade routes are listed below.

Knights of Nemesis
Sunday, February 11, 2pm
Start at Paris Road and Judge Perez. East to Campagna. U-turn to the government complex, then u-turn back to Paris Road and Judge Perez.
23 Floats with 400+ riders.
Royal Knight - Charles Ponstein
Goddess Nemesis - Kim Campo
Celebrity Guest - Bobby Hebert
Special Throws: Medallion Bead, 22 oz cups, t-shirts

Irish Italian Islenos Parade
Sunday, March 11, 1pm
Start at the old Wal-Mart, then west to the govt complex then u-turn to Campagna, then u-turn back to the old wal-mart.
42 floats with 1600+ riders
Usual cabbage, potatos,etc as well as 22oz cups and t-shirts.

Knights of Columbus Crawfish Festival
Friday, March 30 through Sunday, April 1.
Old Wal-Mart parking Lot.
More details to follow.

MovableType is Killing My Scripts

Mon, 22 Jan 2007 23:16:24 -0600

Setting the Text Formatting option to Convert Line Breaks is the default setting for MovableType and, most likely, all other blog software also. It allows the author to ignore the needed HTML code to separate paragraphs.

As you have discovered, sometimes you don't want the blogging software to automatically add the HTML code. It would seem that setting the Text Formatting option to None would do the trick, but it isn't quite that easy.

Whether it is a bug or a feature, MovableType will look at the contents of your entry, especially any HTML tags and use that as the deciding factor as to whether or not to convert line breaks.

MovableType will stop converting line breaks when it encounters any of the following HTML tags:

h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6

table

ol, dl, ul

center

form, fieldset, select

blockquote

address

This means you could wrap your JavaScript code inside of a

or element, but you must be careful. If you have one blank line, MovableType will start converting line breaks again. Also, be sure you put all of the JavaScript code inside of element, including the JavaScript header, as shown below:

Send Comments to Your St. Bernard Parish Council

Mon, 22 Jan 2007 00:14:54 -0600

Since Hurricane Katrina, Ask Westley! has become a source of information to St. Bernard Parish residents about their parish. To help continue strengthen that link back home, we are pleased to announce that we have now enabled a way for residents to send their questions or comments directly to their Council Person.

We are doing this on our own because we feel it is important for residents to be able to contact their elected officials as easily as possible. We have not asked for, nor have we received anything from the St. Bernard Parish Council endorsing our contact form.

Although we are forwarding your comments to the St. Bernard Parish Council, we can not guarantee that they will be received by the St. Bernard Parish Council or that you will receive a response. Furthermore, we do not accept any liability if your message is not received by the St. Bernard Parish Council.

By submitting your question or comment to the St. Bernard Parish Council through this webform, you agree to the disclaimer and limit of liability printed below.

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You further agree that Ask Westley!, da-parish.com, Westley Annis, and any other parties involved in creating, maintaining, and delivering this site's contents have no liability for direct, indirect, incidental, punitive, or consequential damages with respect to the information, services, or content contained on or otherwise accessed through this web site.

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Library Comments Wanted for St. Bernard Parish

Sun, 21 Jan 2007 22:11:17 -0600

Representatives from the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund and the Americans for Libraries Council will begin working with the St. Bernard Parish Library in February 2007. The Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund is helping libraries devastated by Hurricane Katrina with the "brick and mortar" phase of library restoration.

Officials from both groups recognize the important role public libraries played in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Public libraries provided invaluable services to displaced residents by means of free internet access, free gathering areas, information centers and community support. Without these services many hurricane victims would have had no way to communicate with loved ones, file FEMA and SBA applications, check on the status of various applications and seek information regarding their hometowns.

As part of this process, St. Bernard Parish Library staff members are working with representatives of the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund and the Americans for Libraries Council by collecting materials to be included in the 'St. Bernard Parish Library Book."

Staff members are asking library patrons to put in writing their responses to two questions. Those questions are "What does your library mean to you?" and "What would you like to see in your new library?" Patrons who submit letters are asked to provide current contact information should their responses be chosen to be included in the library's book. Parish residents interested in helping can send their letters to the following address or type them into the following web form:

St. Bernard Parish Library
C/O Janet Perez
P.O. Box 783
Violet LA 70092

Once the St. Bernard Parish Library Book is completed, it will be used as a tool and information source for groups and individuals interested in aiding the parish's library in its rebuilding process. St. Bernard Parish Library staff members hope that many of its patrons will submit letters of support. Prior to Hurricane Katrina, the library served its patrons by providing reading materials, free internet access, storytimes, afterschool programs, adult programs, reference materials and assistance, meeting space, and community resources and they are anxious to be able to provide these types of services again.

Louisiana Small Business Retention Program

Thu, 18 Jan 2007 00:11:02 -0600

The State of Louisiana has committed to $216.5 million dollars to several programs to help small businesses in coastal Louisiana recover from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Louisiana Small Business Retention Program

Governor Blanco, the Louisiana Recovery Authority and Louisiana Economic Development announced a proposal to reallocate $100 million of the economic development disaster recovery programs to provide much-needed grants to small businesses. The additional funds would provide financial relief to sustain and restart small businesses in the most severely impacted areas of Louisiana. Pending final approval of the proposed amendment, the state will determine eligible amounts and expects to begin accepting applications in early January 2007.

This $100 million grant program comes in addition to a $38 million dollar program for 0% interest loans, a $68 million dollar program for loan guarantees, and a $9.5 million general assistance program for small businesses. Collectively, these programs are intended to provide a range of much-needed assistance to small businesses struggling to rebound from last year’s storms. More information about each program can be found below.

Small businesses in the following areas of the state are eligible to apply:

*20 Damaged Parishes
Calcasieu, Cameron, Jefferson, Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St. Tammany, Vermilion, Acadia, Allen, Beauregard, Iberia, Jefferson Davis, Lafourche, St. Charles, St. John the Baptist, St. Mary, Tangipahoa, Terrebonne, and Washington

**Most Affected Parishes, Cities/Towns & Zip Codes
Parishes: St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Orleans, Cameron
Cities/Towns: Angie, Slidell, Erath, Lafitte, Folsom, Chauvin, Delcambre, Montegut, Pearl River, Springfield, Madisonville, Gretna, Franklinton
Zip Codes: 70373, 70006, 70461, 70458, 70528, 70463, 70533, 70067, 70464, 70460, 70065, 70397, 70353

Visit LouisianaForward.com for more information.

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Question/Comment

Note: Questions or comments submitted to Ask Westley! will be edited, become property of Ask Westley! and may be republished in any format.

Name
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Phone Number
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City
State
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What does your library mean to you?

What would you like to see in your new library?

Note: Questions or comments submitted to Ask Westley! will be edited, become property of Ask Westley! and may be republished in any format.