Microsoft SharePoint 2007 Technologies

570 18.3 Introduction to InfoPath 2007

18.3 Introduction to InfoPath 2007

Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007 is the application to use to develop

browser-enabled form templates that can be deployed to InfoPath Forms

Services. InfoPath 2007 provides a rich user interface that is intuitive to

most people already familiar with Microsoft development tools, such as

Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 or even Microsoft Office InfoPath 2003. In

addition to designing form templates, InfoPath 2007 can be used to create

new instances of forms and update existing forms. If a user has InfoPath

2007 installed on his or her machine and launches a browser-enabled Info-

Path form from SharePoint, the form opens by default in the InfoPath 2007

client; this behavior can be changed by the designer. Updates made to the

form are then saved back to SharePoint, demonstrating the integration capa-

bilities between the two products.

18.3.1 What is a Form Template?

Before we proceed any further, let’s expand upon our earlier definition of a

form template. An InfoPath form template is a basically a cabinet (CAB) file

with a .xsn file extension; in fact, if you rename an InfoPath .xsn file with a

.cab extension, you will be able to examine the files and components that

comprise the template. Figure 18.7 shows the contents of a sample form tem-

plate that has been published to Forms Services and contains multiple views.

The manifest.xsf contains the form definition, which is automatically created

and maintained by InfoPath and contains all the information about the form

template, such as the location of all the files and resources associated with the

template. Other files and information contained in the cabinet file include a

collection of data, views, and resources, and a schema file. A form template is

associated with a core data source, such as a SharePoint list, that stores the

data entered onto the form by the user. Additional data sources can be associ-

Select the location to use for storing form

session state:

Form view (reduces database load on

server).

Default=disabled + session state size =

40kb

Determines whether to use the Form

View (ASP.NET view state) to store the

session state information for the form ses-

sion.

If form session state is larger than the

specified value, the Session State Service

will be used instead.

Table 18.1 Forms Services Configuration Settings (continued)

Setting Description

18.3 Introduction to InfoPath 2007 571

Chapter 18

ated with the form to help populate various components, such as a drop-

down list box. A form template contains at least one visual representation of

the form data, known as a view. When designing your forms, you may need

to provide different views of your form to different users. For example, you

may have views that represent different languages or that provide some users

with a subset of data and others with a more elaborate view of the data.

Views are basically XSL files associated with the form. In addition to the

views, data, and schema files, you can associate resources with a form. A

resource is content that you would like added to the form, such as images or

picture files.

18.3.2 Form Template Designer

The template designer (Figure 18.8) provides the form designer with a set of

design tasks that map to design task panes containing tools to help build the

form templates. The design tasks provide a basic high-level task list for the

types of activities a typical designer will perform during the template design

phase. The first task is to design the layout and the basic structure that the

form template will adopt, such as adding tables, columns, and rows. The

next step involves adding the appropriate controls to the template, such as

text boxes, list boxes, and buttons. After the controls have been added, the

designer then checks to make sure all the required mappings with the data

source are in place, such as mapping the InfoPath fields to the appropriate

site columns in SharePoint. Once the fields have been mapped, the designer

can move on to create any additional views required by the form. When the

designer is happy with the form template design, he or she then checks the

template for potential problems or inconsistencies prior to deployment of the

form. This functionality is achieved using the Design Checker. When design-

ing browser-enabled form templates, you can configure the browser compati-

bility settings with the URL of a server running Forms Services to verify the

compatibility of your template. This setting enables the Design Checker

options, which allow you to select the type of messages you wish the Design

Checker to display. For example, the Show browser compatibility messages

setting, when enabled, highlights any inconsistencies that it finds with Forms

Figure 18.7

XSN file contents.