STATUS: Fixed in InfoPath 2003 SP1.

SCOPE:

• Occurs in both V1 and SP-1.
• Not language specific.

DESCRIPTION:

On 2004.07.23, I was sent a form to help track down an issue where dashed red lines that appears when data for a particular field is invalid. After a little playing, I was able to narrow it down to a simple repro. It’s an interesting bug.

REPRO STEPS:

1. Start with a New Blank Form.
2. Insert a single row/col table (TABLE_1).
3. Insert another single row/col table (TABLE_2) inside TABLE_1.
4. Insert a text box into TABLE_2.
5. Double-click the text box and change its datatype to a Whole Number.
6. Preview.
7. Type invalid characters into the text box (i.e. “abc”). A dashed red border appears.
8. Move your mouse all around, and click over the text box:
   
   Nothing special happens.
   
   
9. Close the preview.
10. Add a background color to TABLE_1.
11. Preview.
12. Type invalid characters into the text box (i.e. "abc"). A dashed red border appears.
13. Move your mouse all around, and click over the text box:
    
    Notice that the dashed red border acts flaky, disappearing, etc.

This doesn't happen with a single table, only when there are nested tables. There can be any level of table nesting. Also the background color can be on any table except the one that holds the control for this problem to occur. The datatype does not seem to matter—just that it is invalid. Adding a background color to the control's table does not seem to alleviate the problem.

WORKAROUNDS:

Presently the only known workaround is to either not nest tables, or to make sure that the background color is present only on the inner-most table.

©2004 Greg Collins. All rights reserved. Licensed to Autonomy Systems, LLC for display on InfoPathDev.com.