Spawn and delete page field numbering fail

[Jeff1776]

I have a form and on that form I have a custom button to spawn a new page -

var template = this.getTemplate("1");

template.spawn(this.numPages, true, false);

this.pageNum = this.numPages-1;

When I add a few pages everything is works properly, fields are renamed etc.  Once I delete a page say page 4 of 5 pages the page deletes fine.  Page is deleted via a custom button that is on the spawned page -

var response = app.alert("Are you sure you want to DELETE page" + (this.pageNum+1) + " ?", 2, 2);

if(nResponse == 4) {

    this.deletePages(this.pageNum,this.pageNum);

    this.pageNum = 0;

}

Now when I spawn a new page after deleting a page it appears to duplicate the last page I spawned.  It does not rename the fields so it populates the fields with data from the last spawned page, any ideas?

[Thom Parker]

It actually does rename the fields. The spawn function uses the page number to create the new field names. And since a page was deleted, the fields on the new page end up being duplicates of the previous page, which used to have the same page number as the new page.

The spawn function is not that smart. If you want to create and delete pages, then you'll need to work out a methodology that takes this limitation into account, such as spawning pages until there is a unique set of fields, then deleting the intervening pages.

[Jeff1776]

Is there a way to manually rename fields or just tack on a unique prefix

[try67]

Manually? Sure, just like you would edit any other field.

[Jeff1776]

Sorry, I was not specific enough.  I would like to spawn a new page and add a unique prefix like a time stamp to each field using javascript to make each page unique.

Basically I want to through code to rename all the fields on a template form that I spawn.

[try67]

You can't do that. You can only tell the Template object itself to rename the fields or not, but you can't tell it in what way to do so.

[Thom Parker]

Unfortunately fields cannot be renamed in a script, they have to be recreated. I don't know why, its just the way Adobe did it. If you're going to go this route, then you shouldn't put fields on the template page at all. Just create them as needed when a new page is spawned.

However, I provided an example methodology in my previous response. Spawn enough pages to automatically create the unique names, then delete the extra pages. This is far less code than recreating new field names.

[Jeff1776]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Thom+Parker  wrote

Unfortunately fields cannot be renamed in a script, they have to be recreated. I don't know why, its just the way Adobe did it. If you're going to go this route, then you shouldn't put fields on the template page at all. Just create them as needed when a new page is spawned.

However, I provided an example methodology in my previous response. Spawn enough pages to automatically create the unique names, then delete the extra pages. This is far less code than recreating new field names.

Please elaborate on the second paragraph.  Im not sure I follow.

[Thom Parker]

If you look at the field names on the spawned pages you see that they are prefixed with both the template name and the number of the spawned page.  So if 3 pages are spawned after page 2, the field prefixes will be page3, page4, and page5.  If page 4 is deleted, then you'll have page3 and page5.  If a new page is spawned after the page5 prefix, it will also have the page5 prefix since this is the real page 5. And I believe this is your issue. But if another spawn is done, then you'll have page3,page5, page5, and page6. The extra page is added to get past the page number gap caused by deleting the original page4.  Now you can delete the second page5 to get a unique set of field names.

The trick to this technique is keeping track of the additions and deletions.