Development Caveats
Just (a/some) few things that I have learned thus far in my journey of Leap form development. A mix of lessons learned, product quirks, etc.
Previewing Changes
While majority of the changes you make can be saved and previewed, the following changes require the application to be deployed in order to test:
- Attachments
- Submit Button Actions
Also, when you close the project and then "Launch" the application from the "Manage Applications" screen, the application will not include your saved changes. You must deploy to see your changes.
(as of Leap v9.2.0.0_19)
- Unless you see a "Print" button at the top of the form (when launched... not whilst in the Design mode), you really cannot Print. You can try.... but you cannot print... but no, seriously, go ahead and try.
- In order for a user to "Print" what they have filled out:
- User must submit
- User must have a link to the record (i.e. link to the form that points to their record. A generic link to the form won't do
- User must have "Read" access at whatever stage the their submission is at
- THEN, they can print
If customer requirements call for an ability for the user to print/save as PDF etc. prior to submitting the form, you can go about it two way:
- Do a submit action, call it "Save Draft" and point it to itself (as it's next stage)
This will allow the user to see the "Print" button when they re-visit the form; upon clicking it, they can print/save as PDF etc.
Pros Cons Simple / Straight-forward setup NO control over the output; cannot style the CSS (cannot include a custom print style-sheet Quick Have to write a few lines of JavaScript to tell Leap to mark fields as "Not Required" — because by rule, one can only submit the form when ALL required fields have been filled out Involves like 50 steps before the user can actually execute the Print functionality
Do custom JavaScript that traverses the form fields and captures the fields and their values... sounds easy until you actually do it
Pros Cons FULL control over the CSS of the print page Time consuming (comparatively) to implement No need for creating yet another submit button. Needs one to be proficient with not just JavaScript but also with Leap's custom JavaScript API User does not need to submit before they can make use of the Print functionality Once implemented in one place, applying logic to other stages—or even OTHER APPLICATIONS—is a piece of cake!
At the end of the day, it all boils down to:
- Your requirements
- Your proficiency in JavaScript AND with Leap's custom JavaScript API, and
- How much time you have to get it done
Application Administration — Administrator Role
If you are an Administrator in the TEST environment, you will be an Administrator in PROD. Basically, however you have the application configured in the TEST environment will be how it gets deployed. Per group's Leap development policy:
Applications do not get changed AFTER going live whilst in PROD. (e.g. if you need to add/remove an administrator, do it in TEST, follow the normal release protocols, deploy the app in PROD, and then the changes would reflect in PROD).
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