Thursday, September 6, 2018

Orbeon Forms 2018.1

Today we released Orbeon Forms 2018.1, the first major release of Orbeon Forms in 2018! This release is packed with new features and enhancements which should help form authors and form users be more productive.

Major features and enhancement

    Performance enhancements for large forms

    Large forms (with hundreds or even thousands of form fields) using the wizard view now use much less HTML markup, as only the content of the visible page is sent to the web browser (lazy page load). In order for this to be effective, your form should be split into sections and subsections.

    The Number and Currency fields use less HTML markup. This is useful for forms which have a large number of such fields.

    The wizard view and the error summary have been improved to update faster for large forms. In addition, the error summary no longer shows all the errors immediately when a large number of errors is present. (doc)

    Drag and drop of grid cell boundaries

    Orbeon Forms 2017.2 introduced the new 12-column grid layout, but if you wanted to move cell boundaries with Form Builder you had to use icon buttons. With Orbeon Forms 2018.1, you adjust cell boundaries via drag and drop. (doc)

    Dragging cell boundaries horizontally

    Field-level encryption

    This feature allows form authors to mark certain fields so that data entered by users in those fields is encrypted when stored in the database. This is typically used for fields used to capture personal information, also referred to as "personally identifiable information" (PII), "sensitive personal information" (SPI), or "personal information," depending on the context. Encrypting such information can help you with compliance with privacy laws, such as GDPR. (doc)

    Option to encrypt data at rest for a given form field


    Support for strict Content-Security-Policy header

    Orbeon Forms now works with a Content-Security-Policy header which disables inline scripts and CSS. Optionally, Orbeon Forms can also set the Content-Security-Policy header directly. (docblog post)

    Dynamic labels, hints, and help messages

    Controls now support dynamic labels, hints, and help messages, and sections support dynamic labels and help messages. This means that instead of being specified once and for all at form design time, labels, hints and help messages can incorporate dynamic parts such as control values and other custom expressions. (template syntax doc, dynamic labels, helps and label messages doc, sections doc).

    Dynamic label


    Automatic calculations dependencies by default

    Orbeon Forms adds a user interface setting to enable and disable automatic calculations dependencies in the "Form Settings" dialog. In addition, for new form definitions, the "Automatic Calculations Dependencies" option is enabled by default starting with Orbeon Forms 2018.1. (doc)

    Automatic calculations dependencies setting


    Email templates

    The email subject and email body can now be dynamic, that is, include content which comes from form controls or can be calculated with a formula. You can also set email subject and body directly within Form Builder, and have separate subjects and bodies for each form language. (doc)

    Dynamic email body


    Wizard enhancements

    The wizard view includes a number of fixes to highlight section status as the user fills out data.

    Wizard status
    Wizard options are now grouped under a separate tab of the Form Settings dialog. Options to control several aspects of the wizard are now directly accessible from Form Builder.

    Wizard Options tab


    Multiple PDF templates

    Orbeon Forms now supports multiple PDF templates for a given form. They can differ by language and/or by a custom name. (doc)

    Attaching multiple PDF templates

    Other features and enhancements

      Form Runner

      • Accessibility: calculated value fields are readable by screen readers (#3583).
      • The lease feature works with databases other than SQL Server (#3471).
      • By default, alerts now have an arrow pointing to the field (#3415).
      • Orbeon Forms upgraded to reCAPTCHA v2 (#3551).
      • Orbeon Forms upgraded to TinyMCE 4 (#1753).
      • The wizard TOC visibility is improved and scrolls as needed when possible (#3222).
      • Support for Liferay DXP GA4 and newer (#3314).
      • Formulas
        • A new function allows retrieving the current form title (#3559).
        • A new function allows accessing the value of a form field (#2910).
      • Icons have been updated to high-resolution for high DPI displays.

        Other new features and bug-fixes

        Including the features and enhancements above, we closed over 170 issues since Orbeon Forms 2017.2.

        Internationalization

        See Localizing Orbeon Forms for the latest localization support. Localization depends on volunteers, so please let us know if you want to help!

        Browser support

        • Form Builder (creating forms)
          • Chrome 69 (latest stable version)
          • Firefox 62 (latest stable version) and the current Firefox ESR
          • Microsoft Edge 17 (latest stable release)
          • Safari 11 (latest stable version)
        • Form Runner (accessing form)
          • All browsers supported by Form Builder (see above)
          • IE10, IE11, Edge 15 and Edge 16
          • Safari Mobile on iOS 11
          • Chrome for Android (stable channel)

        Compatibility notes

        Internet Explorer support

        Support for IE9 is removed.

        XForms event handling

        Non-relevant event handlers no longer run. (doc)

        XForms repeat updates upon xf:insert and xf:delete

        With previous versions, the xf:insert and xf:delete actions attempted to update repeats immediately after completion, independently from regular UI refreshes. With this version, this behavior is disabled by default and deprecated. (doc)

        Migration to TinyMCE 4

        We have migrated to TinyMCE 4. If you are providing custom configuration to the older TinyMCE 3, you have to update such configurations.

        Restriction on uses of the file: protocol

        The file: protocol is now limited to accessing temporary files. (#3577)

        Removal of noscript mode

        The noscript mode, which was deprecated since Orbeon Forms 2016.3, has now been entirely removed from Orbeon Forms.

        Download and feedback

        You can download the latest version of Orbeon Forms from the downloads page.

        Don't forget to grab a trial license for the PE version.

        Please send feedback:
        We hope you enjoy this release!

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