InfoPath Dev

Can anyone tell me how I would go by Adding Tabs.

Do I have to go do this in the view1.xls? Will Javascript work?

I wanted to use Sections and just show and hide them, but when I add a Section it HAS bound. Why and is there a way to use it for formatting only?

Kind Regards

    James

It is true that section has to be bound. But you can bind it to just about anything and you can also bind several sections to the same node! Just make sure users cannot add/remove them (in section properties) and you should get no adverse effects (you'll have to be a bit careful for InfoPath Forms Server though). Then you can introduce a numeric field in your data source (either main or auxiliary) that specifies which tab is active.

Then you add your tab buttons and get them to set your special field via rules. Finally, you conditionally format each section to show only when that field is a specific number. Done!

Hey David

Thanx for your reply. I just have a question about this:

Then you can introduce a numeric field in your data source (either main or auxiliary)

Can't I just store it in a unbound textbox on the form, is unbound texboxes even possible.

In my opinion saving the "current" tab in a connection sounds like heavy overkill for just Tabs. Dont you agree?

 Kind Regards

   James

So, InfoPath does like unbound controls in general (the few controls that may be unbound and still function are buttons, hyperlinks and to a certain degree, expression boxes). But when a control is unbound, the very definition of it is that it cannot have XML data so then InfoPath would have to have a mechanism of exposing data stored in unbound controls.

To make the long story short, secondary data sources are exactly this mechanism. It's not really heavy-weight, it's the right solution. Think of it this way: you want a clean separation between your data and your auxiliary data you don't need to persist, such as the current tab index. A secondary data source based off an XML file is an ideal place for it: it's accessible in the same way the main data source is but it does not persist. And it takes 1 minute to create so I don't think it's really an overkill :) You can reuse it for other unbound scenarios as well by adding extra fields to it.

http://infotabs123.codeplex.com/

Here's a quick example.

Vertical tabbing:

http://www.infopathdev.com/blogs/mel_balsamo/archive/2009/09/06/create-an-infopath-form-that-switches-views.aspx

Horizontal tabbing:

http://blogs.msdn.com/infopath/archive/2006/05/01/tabs.aspx