FinerEdge
Publisher Demonstration
Tutorial
Demonstration Tutorial
Introduction
Introduction
Note: To re-display this document at a later time, or any of the other supporting help documents,
you can either select them from the "Help" menu within the IDE or from the FinerEdge Publisher
Microsoft Windows menu.
The FinerEdge Publisher demonstration documents are provided both as "live" examples and to
illustrate how documents are typically structured for document authors. The demonstration
documents extract most of their information from a supplied database called FPDemo or from
an XML file that was automatically generated from the FPDemo database by FinerEdge Publisher.
Many of the demonstration documents also have attached forms (for collecting information prior
to document generation), which are managed by automatically generated processes. Forms and
processes are built-in facilities that are visually created with the assistance of the WYSIWYG
form editor within the FinerEdge Publisher Integrated Development Environment (IDE).
The explanations in this document are meant to provide a quick introduction to the FinerEdge
Publisher IDE and further supply enough information to successfully generate the demonstration
documents. Much more information can be found within the supplied IDE Manual, Reference Manual,
Document Author's Guide, and Programmer's Guide, which can be accessed via the links that
appear at the top of this document.
FPWeb Facility: The FinerEdge Publisher FPWeb facility
empowers an organization's outside customers and internal users with the ability to, from
their browser, visually customize document definitions, save the customized document definitions
for reuse, generate documents in all supported output formats, and view the generated documents.
FPWeb utilizes only HTML elements, CSS styles, and standard JavaScript within client web browsers
for maximum compatibility and security.
The facilities of FPWeb are available as both an Active Server Pages (ASP) and Java Server
Pages (JSP) implementations. As such, both FPWeb ASP and JSP versions look and operate in
exactly the same way. In addition, while the customization capabilities of FPWeb are more
selective than documents authored with the FinerEdge Publisher IDE, it nevertheless provides
a valuable and easy-to-use environment for web-based users to customize and generate their
own documents from any browser.
For more information on FPWeb (including initial setup), click
here.
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IDE
Fundamentals
When a document is opened in the IDE, five (5) distinct "views" are available. These views
show different aspects of the opened document and allow different actions to be performed
on the document. Depending upon the view chosen, different menus, toolbars, and supporting
panes may be shown. The five views can be selected from either the "View" menu or from the
corresponding toolbar buttons just below the "View" menu. The five views and a brief explanation
of each are as follows:
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Visual definition
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The WYSIWYG visual document designer view. This view is kept in-sync with the markup definition
view (i.e., any changes in this view will be reflected in the markup definition view).
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Markup definition
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The markup definition view. This view is kept in-sync with the visual designer view (i.e.,
any changes in this view will be reflected in the visual designer view).
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Document generation
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The rendered results of the document, designed with the assistance of the integrated WYSIWYG
visual document designer and markup editor. Selecting this view for an opened document causes
the document to be processed, rendered, and shown within this view. In addition, this view
allows any of the output formats to be generated (e.g., PDF, PostScript, XPS, RTF, etc.).
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Form definition
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The WYSIWYG visual form designer view. This view shows the front-end form that is attached
to the currently opened document (if one exists) or allows a form to be created and attached
to the opened document.
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Form generation
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The GUI generated "live" form. Forms can be simultaneously used in either a GUI format, Web
(standard HTML) format, or embedded within automatically generated ASP and JSP processes.
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For any of the demonstrations discussed in the next section, we will be using the same basic
set of instructions, which are as follows:
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Open a demonstration document by either selecting the "Open an existing document" menu item
under the "File" menu or by pressing the corresponding toolbar button below the "File" menu.
By default, the opened document is shown within the visual definition view (although the markup
definition view can also be selected if desired).
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Select the document generation view to process, render, and show the document output.
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When instructed (and a corresponding form exists for an opened document), select the form
generation view to show the attached form in a GUI mode of operation. Fill in or select any
applicable form fields and subsequently select the "Test form process" menu item under the
"Generate" menu or press the corresponding toolbar button (that appears as a checkmark).
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As you've seen, many other capabilities exist within FinerEdge Publisher including automatically
generating ASP and JSP web-to-print processes. Please refer to the accompanying help support
documents for additional information regarding all aspects of FinerEdge Publisher.
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Generating Demonstration
Documents
Customer
Orders Master Reference
This demonstration generates a master reference of customer orders along with multiple sorted
indexes, both by order ID and customer name. (For instructions regarding how to open a document
or any other general concept used in this demonstration, please refer to the "IDE Fundamentals"
section previously presented in this document.)
Step 1: Open the document named "FPDemoOrdersDoc.fpm".
Step 2: Select the "Document Generation" menu item
from the "View" menu or press the corresponding "Document Generation" toolbar button. You
can position or scroll anywhere within the displayed document using standard methods such
as the Page Up and Page Down keys or by using your mouse. You can also jump particular pages
or zoom in/out the display.
Note: Since this document has an attached visually designed form to collect certain preliminary
information prior to generating the document, let's now generate the same document using the
form.
Step 3: Select the "Form Generation" menu item from
the "View" menu or press the corresponding "Form Generation" toolbar button.
Step 4: On the form, select the number of orders to
generate and the desired page break option. (Note: The page break option determines where
page breaks are allowed within a particular customer's order.)
Step 5: Select the "Test form process" menu item under
the "Generate" menu or press the corresponding toolbar button (that appears as a checkmark).
You can position or scroll anywhere within the displayed document using standard methods such
as the Page Up and Page Down keys or by using your mouse. You can also jump particular pages
or zoom in/out the display.
If desired, select any of the output generation types (e.g., PDF, XPS, etc.) from either the
"Generate" menu or using the corresponding toolbar button, and subsequently view the resulting
document (you will be asked if you want to show the resulting output generation using the
applicable viewer).
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Customizable
Products Catalog
This demonstration generates a customizable catalog of products along with an optional index
and embedded links from the index to the specific products (if applicable to the generated
output type). (For instructions regarding how to open a document or any other general concept
used in this demonstration, please refer to the "IDE Fundamentals" section previously presented
in this document.)
Step 1: Open the document named "FPDemoProductsDoc.fpm".
Step 2: Select the "Document Generation" menu item
from the "View" menu or press the corresponding "Document Generation" toolbar button. You
can position or scroll anywhere within the displayed document using standard methods such
as the Page Up and Page Down keys or by using your mouse. You can also jump particular pages
or zoom in/out the display.
Note: Since this document has an attached visually designed form to collect certain preliminary
information prior to generating the document, let's now generate the same document using the
form.
Step 3: Select the "Form Generation" menu item from
the "View" menu or press the corresponding "Form Generation" toolbar button.
Step 4: On the form, select any or all of the desired
products you want to see in the catalog, and if an index will be generated.
Step 5: Select the "Test form process" menu item under
the "Generate" menu or press the corresponding toolbar button (that appears as a checkmark).
You can position or scroll anywhere within the displayed document using standard methods such
as the Page Up and Page Down keys or by using your mouse. You can also jump particular pages
or zoom in/out the display.
Note: This document contains images that were directly imported from the demonstration database
on-the-fly. Images imported from a database are compatible with all applicable output generation
types including XHTML (i.e., in the XHTML case a special directory of images will be automatically
created for you).
If desired, select any of the output generation types (e.g., PDF, XPS, etc.) from either the
"Generate" menu or using the corresponding toolbar button, and subsequently view the resulting
document (you will be asked if you want to show the resulting output generation using the
applicable viewer).
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Bulk
Generated Business Letters
This demonstration generates bulk business letters to customers containing their orders to
date. (For instructions regarding how to open a document or any other general concept used
in this demonstration, please refer to the "IDE Fundamentals" section previously presented
in this document.)
Step 1: Open the document named "FPDemoBusinessLetter.fpm".
Step 2: Since this document does not have an attached
form yet, select the "Document Generation" menu item from the "View" menu or press the corresponding
"Document Generation" toolbar button.
If desired, select any of the output generation types (e.g., PDF, XPS, etc.) from either the
"Generate" menu or using the corresponding toolbar button, and subsequently view the resulting
document (you will be asked if you want to show the resulting output generation using the
applicable viewer).
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Products
Database to XML File
This demonstration extracts information from the demonstration database for an alternate Products
Catalog generation and creates a corresponding XML data file and images directory. (For instructions
regarding how to open a document or any other general concept used in this demonstration,
please refer to the "IDE Fundamentals" section previously presented in this document.)
Step 1: Open the document named "FPDemoProductsXML.fpm".
Step 2: Select the "Document Generation" menu item
from the "View" menu or press the corresponding "Document Generation" toolbar button.
Step 3: Select the "Generate the document as Text"
from either the "Generate" menu or using the corresponding toolbar button.
Note: By default, the generated well-formed XML file was placed into the "Results" directory,
which is normally located in the directory C:\Documents and Settings\Your User Name\My Documents\FinerEdge
Software\FinerEdge Publisher. The extension "txt" was used by the IDE because Text output
generation was selected (but can be overridden when generating documents via any of FinerEdge
Publisher's documented APIs). Notice also the automatically generated directory of images
(from the database) in the Results directory.
Note: This demonstration document was automatically generated by FinerEdge Publisher's database
Query Editor. In addition, the database query editor also has the ability to generate entire
documents with formatted fields and tables simply by applying one or more of the supplied
formatting themes (to database queries) and pressing the Generate Document button. This facility
provides an ideal way to initially create an entire document (or portion of a document), quickly
see some "live" results, and subsequently tune the document to your exact specifications.
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Products
Catalog using XML File
This demonstration generates a "Customizable Products Catalog" exactly like the previous catalog
of products demonstration, but instead uses the XML file that was also previously generated
from the demonstration database (in the "Products Database to XML File" demonstration). (For
instructions regarding how to open a document or any other general concept used in this demonstration,
please refer to the "IDE Fundamentals" section previously presented in this document.)
Step 1: Open the document named "FPDemoProductsXMLDoc.fpm".
Step 2: Since this document does not have an attached
form yet, select the "Document Generation" menu item from the "View" menu or press the corresponding
"Document Generation" toolbar button. You can position or scroll anywhere within the displayed
document using standard methods such as the Page Up and Page Down keys or by using your mouse.
You can also jump particular pages or zoom in/out the display.
If desired, select any of the output generation types (e.g., PDF, XPS, etc.) from either the
"Generate" menu or using the corresponding toolbar button, and subsequently view the resulting
document (you will be asked if you want to show the resulting output generation using the
applicable viewer).
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Where To
Next?
For
Document Authors
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For
IDE ASP/JSP Generations
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A WebMaster or Programmer will need to perform a one-time setup of the ASP or JSP environments
for FinerEdge Publisher ASP/JSP generation to work seamlessly. For setup assistance, please
refer to the topics under the section "ASP, JSP, and FPWeb Setup" within the FinerEdge
Publisher Programmer's Guide.
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To receive assistance automatically generating ASP and JSP processes from documents with attached
forms, you can refer to the chapters "Form Definition" and "Form Generation" within the FinerEdge Publisher IDE Manual.
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For
FPWeb Use and Initial Setup
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A WebMaster or Programmer will need to perform a one-time setup of FPWeb. For setup assistance,
please refer to the topics under the section "ASP, JSP, and FPWeb Setup" within the FinerEdge Publisher Programmer's Guide.
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To view an FPWeb demonstration tutorial and corresponding sample FPWeb document, you can refer
to the topic "FPWeb User Tutorial" within the FinerEdge Publisher Author's
Guide.
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To receive on-line help assistance while using FPWeb, you can click on the Help icon located
in the menu of both the FPWeb ASP and JSP main web pages.
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For
Programmers/Integrators
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Copyright © 2008 FinerEdge Software. All rights reserved.