FAQs on TIBCO Business Studio Forms
You may benefit from the answers to a few frequently asked questions, which can go a long way in enhancing your forms.
How can I create a Form that is not associated with any business process?
Right-click Forms in the Project Explorer, click New, and click Form. Alternatively, on the File menu, click to open the New dialog box. Expand TIBCO Forms by clicking the plus icon, and click Form.
How can I create multiple columns of controls on a Form?
Create a horizontal pane, and place two or more vertical panes inside of it. Then add controls to the vertical (child) panes. Each vertical pane will contain a column of controls.
How can I align the labels between different panes, for example, when there are several panes that are direct children of a root pane?
To align the label width for all panes to achieve a uniform and consistent appearance, set an explicit child label width for all panes whose labels should be aligned.
How can I create option lists or radio buttons using array type parameters?
In the properties tab of the option list or radio button Properties View, create Label Array and Value Array Choice Bindings. If different parameters are selected for Values and Labels, you must ensure that the number of items in both the arrays are equal.
How can I reuse similar behavior between different controls?
Do not reference the control by name in your shared action scripts, but rather use the context.control object that represents the source control of the fired event.
How can I use part of the parameter value as a value for a control?
While capturing input values for items like social security numbers, different controls can be used to capture different parts of the same value.
For example a value of parameter ssn, say, 888-78-9898, can be captured in three text fields. First, a text control named ssn_part1 takes input for the first part, 888.
Second, a text control called ssn_part2 takes input for the second part, 7. Finally, a text control called ssn_part3 takes input for the last part 9898.
This can be achieved by providing a scriptlet that returns different parts of the parameter value. In this example the three expressions would be p.ssn.substring(0,3), p.ssn.substring(5,7), p.ssn.substring(8,12). Each of these scripts would be provided in their own computation actions within a rule that fires when the underlying parameter is updated.
Similarly, a scriptlet that assembles the values of 3 controls can be used as an expression for a parameter.
In this example this expression would be:
f.ssn_part1 + "-" + f.ssn_part2 + "-" + f.ssn_part3;