When building the forms it is most important to see what they look like while the user is filling them out. However often we are asked to have it write the approved data out via a different form into Laserfiche for storage (such as PO generation). Any CSS that you view when building this in the "CSS and JavaScript" page may or may not get applied correctly because of how the form is changed when it is saved into Laserfiche (inputs becomes Divs & Spans, ...). It would be nice to be able to see what a form would look like when saving into Laserfiche while designing instead of constantly having to save it into Laserfiche, review the issues, delete it from Laserfiche, and try again. I am hoping this can be a feature in a future version of Forms up next to the current "Preview" button. Has anyone else found a good way of designing forms using CSS and seeing what it will look like without having to save into Laserfiche over and over again?
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This doesn't address your entire issue really, but something I usually do with my forms is create a completely separate version of the form for repository storage. Basically I have Form A designed to look good in the browser when the user is filling it out, then I have Form B with all the same fields but different styling that will look better in the PDF and when printing (less coloring, no background, etc.). I set the User Task for Form A, then in the Save To Repository task I use Form B.
That is what I am doing here. The problem is that the building of the form so it looks good in the repository is tough via CSS when Laserfiche changes how it handles CSS when saving it into the repository. I'm just hoping there is a way to easily see what it will look like without having to try-try again.
I'm not sure exactly what issue you are having since I haven't had any problems with CSS in the saved version, but using Themes as much as possible instead of relying on a lot of custom CSS on the form could do a lot to alleviate the problem.
What kind of abnormalities are you seeing exactly?
If you have JS reliant on input fields, these often do not work when saving to LF (many posts out there on these). Laserfiche converts the doc to read-only which changes the inputs to divs and spans. Additionally, some JS fails to run which can control the way a form appears. It would be nice to be able to see exactly what is going into LF, just like we can see exactly what the end user sees when filling out the form.
Okay, now that I have definitely encountered. Aesthetic changes made through JavaScript rarely work on the stored document, but a few people have found workarounds that seem to get at least some stuff working.
Another user found a way to get his CSS changes to work with JavaScript in this post, not sure if it will help in your situation, but it is worth checking. Seems like the key may be to apply CSS directly instead of using custom classes.
Yeah, I can get it to work but it just takes lots of trying, testing, and trying again. I am hoping they will either allow it to save to LF as we can see it in the preview window or provide another method to see what it will look like as it takes sooooo much longer having to design it this way.