InfoPath Dev

This seems like a really basic thing to do but I can't seem to solve it.

I created an InfoPath form and added some textboxes in a section. I need to make some changes using VBScript but can't figure out how to retrive or update the data in the text box. When I go into Textbox Proerties | value fx | Insert Fields my data structure looks like this: myFields.group1.MType for the 1st field. There are more fields under myFields.group1 and several other groups.

I've tried everything I can think of to just display the data in a button click event. I entered data in MType as a test to prove I can get at the data in the text box. I've tried the following plus lots of other things and nothing works.

Dim answer

answer = myFields.group1.MType

MsgBox(answer) 

I know there must be a very simple solution. can someone help me.

Thanks

Hi--

You need to use something like:

Dim answer
Set answer = XDocument.DOM.selectSingleNode("my:myFields/my:group1/my:MType").text

myFields.group1.MType is not XPath, which is what we use to access the data in a node. If the Xpath in quotes above is incorrect (which, since I am guessing the namespaces, it very well could be!) you'll get an object required error when you try to access the text in the node.

Thanks Hillary; you got me by the 1st problem.

I have never worked with XPath before so this is all new to me.

Now the hard part. I have to figure out how to update the InfoPath manifest file to change URL's so we can promote the InfoPath forms from Dev, to QA and then to Production in SharePoint. I have a few samples from a co-worker that hopefully will help. 

Do you mean for data connections in your form? You can modify that in manifest.xsf. Always save a copy of your form before saving as source files, in case you make a mistake! I actually (not that I'm recommending this) use find and replace to update things like this.... Open manifest.xsf in a text editor, find 'http://myDevSharePoint/DevSite' and replace with 'http://myTestSharePoint/TestSite'.

Hi Hilary,

Thank you again for your advice. We are aware that we can manually change the data connections in the manifest file. Since I’m between projects I got assigned to see if we can find a way to update all the data connections using some code. We think that the new URL’s will have to be provided by the person who created the InfoPath forms.

As far as we know there is nothing available from Microsoft or any 3^rd party and we have not found anything posted that will do this. So this seems to be a challenge. We considered writing a C# program and also imbedding VBScript code into the InfoPath forms.

I have some SharePoint and InfoPath training and  .NET skills but this is new to me. Since you recommended using a text editor to modify the manifest I assume your organization has not found a better solution. I am using Notepad2. It’s terrific.

I’m going to Baltimore SharePoint Saturday tomorrow. I’ve been advised by our management that they don’t think anyone there will be able to help but I like going to these types of events anyway.

Thanks again

We use CabLib in our solutions when we need to programmatically fix up an InfoPath template.  It's a free library for extracting and compressing .CAB files (.XSNs are essentially just .CABs).

Depending on how many of these templates you have to deal with, you may want to give CabLib a try.  Or you could take a midway approach, whereby you extract the templates manually but create a tool to fix up the manifest.xsf files (they can be processed as XML so they would be well suited for this).

 Best of luck in any case.

I'm making progress. I used VBScript to redirect the InfoPath form to a different SharePoint Document Library. See below.

strURL = XDocument.DOM.SelectSingleNode(//my:myFields/my:group1/my:strURL").text 

set myAdapter = XDocument.DataAdpaters("Adapter Name")

myAdapter. FolderURL = strURL

myAdapter.Submit

Is there any way to update the Folder URL for the form in the manifest.xsf so we don't have to enter a new URL in a text box eachtime when promoting the form from say, Dev to QA, or QA to Prod.

Thanks