Not so helpful for beginners
I'll preface this by saying I come from a print production background with heavy experience in Quark, InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator. So with a lot of time spent in the Adobe interface, I was expecting pretty smooth sailing going into Designer. Not so, however. Having to get up to speed quickly and build some multi-page forms (with a lot of tables that would include interactive content) turned out to be quite a chore in Designer, at least initially.
I was hoping I could use this book as a reference when I hit a point I was stuck on. Sometimes this worked but frequently there wasn't much in the way of specifics on the basics of getting Designer to do things. For example, there's only 3 pages devoted to tables, and building long forms with a lot of tables was something I seriously needed to get done. It didn't help that the Designer interface in Windows seemed a bit clunky and awkward, as I find the Mac much better suited for any kind of close precision layout.
That said, there's some very good info here in terms of the overall capabilities of the program, along with some helpful insight on the overall strategy of form building. I suspect when I get to an intermediate skill level after some time in the program this book will likely be a very good reference to get to the next level.
In short, this is more of "big picture" overview of Designer that'll likely be quite useful to user that already knows their way around the program, but if you're starting cold as a new user you may want to look elsewhere.
Great handbook and desk reference. Up and running in one day.
What Rex Parker is to NYT crossword fans, JP Terry is to LiveCycle newbies. A guidepost, a guru, a computer savvy friend who won't make you buy a case of beer every time you need advice.
The book was so approachable, I read it in its entirety over lunch. It generally made sense even without following every example line by line on my pc (no small feat for an IT guide). Mr. Terry nicely toes the line between giving enough background to accomplish the task, and not giving so much that new users are overwhelmed.
I especially appreciated the tips on form design, which show that Terry hasn't forsaken form for function. A rarity in IT writers, but a crucial aspect for success in real world situations.
Overall, an excellent handbook for new users trying to puzzle their way through LiveCycle as well as a great desk reference for experienced users.
In the future, I'd love to see a Mr. Terry do a companion book that delves deeper in to JavaScript focused on LiveCycle Designer.
Not good enough.
One of the main things that should make this book powerful is the ability to understand how to create a form, and connect it with information from our company database. The book does not address this well and neglects from the outset to advise the reader that if this is the reader's goal, then a complete understand of Javascript is necessary. Otherwise, you'd be wasting your time trying to create such a form.
I felt that after reading 4 of 6 chapters, the author ignorantly writes, "Now that you are a scripting expert...(Page #178)." How could such a statement be written to insinuate that one chapter can make you a programmer? The idea verges on mocking the reader's intelligence.
The book tries valiantly however, and with reasonable success, to explain the features and how to use them. But it is not written for a beginner and is not concise at times while the author uses terms and concepts that are not thoroughly explained.
I wish the book would get more into how to control and integrate the data that a user can select and input. On the other hand, this was not accomplished well, and unfortunately, you better know how to program in Javascript if you want to accomplish these high level features.
Good LiveCycle Start
I found this book to be a very broad coverage of what LiveCycle can do for you. It is complete, in that it covers all relavant topics. My only wish is that it went deaper into some of the more essoteric functions available in LiveCycle.
Great Adobe LiveCycle Book
This book tells you everything you need to know to get started creating dynamic forms with Adobe LiveCycle Designer. And it tells it in a concise, succinct, and easy-to-read manner.
