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Interactive Forms in OSX?

SSpiro

SSpiro

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Anyone familiar with a program like Infopath for OSX that will create dynamic or interactive forms? Drop-down boxes, fields, reporting, etc?
 
Microsoft Office Infopath is part of Microsoft's strategy to take out PDF. However, PDF is still here. There are various tools on MacOS X which can be used to develop interactive PDF forms. Take a look at Adobe Acrobat Professional and pdfOffice. The advantage that these solutions have over Infopath is that they are guaranteed to work for virtually every user who can read PDF files.
 
Not really looking for interactive PDF's..

I'd like to find something a little more detailed.
 
MisterMe said:
Is there some task that you are trying to accomplish, or are you just curious?
Click to expand...

I'm trying to create a quotation form.. Using an existing one in excel, but I'd like to create an interactive quotation form with drop-down boxes that auto-populate data from a database (also known as cascading drop-down boxes) when data is selected..
 
SSpiro said:
I'm trying to create a quotation form.. Using an existing one in excel, but I'd like to create an interactive quotation form with drop-down boxes that auto-populate data from a database (also known as cascading drop-down boxes) when data is selected..
Click to expand...
You can do this in Adobe Acrobat Pro for a limited number of selections and if you have a way to deal with the enormous files required. However, what you really need is a forms-based application which acts as the front-end to a database system. You might want to look into FileMaker Pro or 4th Dimension which are database management systems noted for their power and ease of use. If you want your customers to access your system remotely, then your best option is a web-based form. Using either local or web-based forms to access a FileMaker Pro or 4th Dimension backend will give you a cross-platform solution as opposed to Microsoft's Windows-exclusive offering.
 
MisterMe said:
You can do this in Adobe Acrobat Pro for a limited number of selections and if you have a way to deal with the enormous files required. However, what you really need is a forms-based application which acts as the front-end to a database system. You might want to look into FileMaker Pro or 4th Dimension which are database management systems noted for their power and ease of use. If you want your customers to access your system remotely, then your best option is a web-based form. Using either local or web-based forms to access a FileMaker Pro or 4th Dimension backend will give you a cross-platform solution as opposed to Microsoft's Windows-exclusive offering.
Click to expand...

My next question was going to be whether or not these solutions would be accessible by a windows box - but you addressed this by mentioning cross-platform, correct?

Will FileMiker or 4D help me create the web forms or local forms?
 
SSpiro said:
My next question was going to be whether or not these solutions would be accessible by a windows box - but you addressed this by mentioning cross-platform, correct?

Will FileMiker or 4D help me create the web forms or local forms?
Click to expand...
Cross-platform generally means Mac and Windows (and sometimes Linux). Both FileMaker Pro 9 and 4th Dimension can be used to produce forms to be deployed locally, on the web, or both.
 
timmy1729 said:
I wanted to see about this now that it's 2017. Is there a 2017 Mac equivalent to Infopath/Database combination for forms?
Click to expand...
I guess you could use Electron.atom.io along with HTML5/JS/CSS to build locally interactive forms that update to a web api. The electron approach may be a bit heavy handed for only interactive forms, though.

Is there a specific reason server side forms cannot be used?
 
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