Beginning SharePoint® 2007: Building Team Solutions with MOSS 2007

10.3. Using the Design Tasks Pane

In InfoPath, the Design Tasks pane shown in Figure 10-10 contains the most common design activities and concepts related to customizing or developing a form template. By clicking any of these items, you expand the configuration options for that item in the pane. The items on the pane represent the process you follow when you create a form template. You start with a blank form template, and it launches with no data source. As you add controls to the form in Design mode, fields appear in the form's data source to support the use of these controls. Next, you can create various views for the form, which are similar to those discussed in Chapter 4 related to lists and libraries, but in this case are specifically located in the form. You can basically create a set of criteria that displays your data in different ways, depending on what you want to collect or represent. You then check your design to make sure that it's compatible in the browser where it will operate. Some field types are not suitable for use in a web browser, so when you create a form for the browser, it is important to include only elements that are supported. InfoPath has a Design Checker mode that helps support you with this. Finally, you publish your form template so that others can use it and so that you can begin collecting data.

The Task pane is generally opened by default when you first start the InfoPath application in Design mode. Otherwise, you can access it by selecting Design ...