[Scribus] Interactive pdf features in 1.3.5

[Marc Tompkins]

Thus spake John Culleton <john at wexfordpress.com>

I can get icons for text entry fields, buttons, combo boxes and list boxes
up
on the Icon bar. But I don't seem to be able to get them placed on the
document. I click on the icon, click and drag on the document and I just get
a text frame instead.

What is the drill for using  this exciting new feature? Or is it still
futureware?

Once you've placed the field on your document, right-click on it.  Near the
middle of the menu you'll see a sub-menu called "PDF Options"; select that
and you should see that "PDF Annotation" is checked.  The last item in the
submenu is "Field Properties", which is where all the magic happens.

It's not futureware; it's here and it works VERY nicely!  It's not perfect
yet (no "real" radio buttons, some issues with borders on list and combo
boxes) but I already find it much better to deal with than Acrobat
Professional - these days, anytime I have to deal with an Adobe product I
break out in a rash...

To anticipate a few questions you might have:
-  To create the options for a list box or combo box, edit the text for this
field as if it were a normal text field; each paragraph in the story editor
becomes an option for the drop-down list.
-  To make something happen when the end-user enters/exits/changes the value
of the field, select the Action tab (from Field Properties), select
JavaScript, select the event that will trigger the action (such as Mouse
Exit), click the Edit button, and enter a script into the editor window.
Don't forget to click File/Save and Exit when you're done; the default is to
exit without saving and you won't be prompted (this is a pet peeve, I'm
afraid.)
-  To define scripts that can be invoked from anywhere in the document,
click Edit from the main application menu and select JavaScripts.
-  To make a script run as soon as the end user opens the form (such as
filling-in Date and Time fields): in the editor window, after the body of
the script, add a line that actually invokes the script.  E.g.:
function date()
{var d= new Date();
var dfld = this.getField("DateField");
var tfld = this.getField("TimeField");
dfld.value = util.printd("mmmm dd, yyyy",d);
tfld.value = util.printd("hh MM tt", d);
}

date()

-  If you're not a big JavaScript maven, the Scribus wiki has a bunch of
scripts you can plunder as a starting point.
-  To test and debug your scripts, "Save as PDF" and open the form in a PDF
reader - if there's any way to do it from inside Scribus, I haven't found it
yet.

Hope that helps!
-- 
Marc
www.fsrtechnologies.com
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