InfoPath Dev

Hi all

I have an InfoPath 2007 form bound to an Access 2007 database, and I have two questions pertaining to a Master/Detail control I want to set up.  My database and form are for tracking requests that people put in to create a new support group in our trouble ticketing application.  My main data connection ties to tblSupportGroups, and I have various child tables for Members & Requested Categorizations.  I also have 4 secondary connections to various lookup tables or queries in the same database.  I have the primary data connection bound to the Master/Detail control and in the Master section, I have the comboboxes bound to the secondary data connection query I created for showing the abbreviated set of data from tblSupportGroups. 

 I've put the Master/Detail section at the top of the form, and I want it to function like a query to help the user know if the record they want is already in the database.  In the Master section, I changed the 3 textboxes I want to allow them to search on to combo boxes so  they can search on whatever values are actually *in* the database.  When they change the combobox value, I want to return to only the record that matches what they searched on in the Detail section.  Right now, if they pick something in the Master section, it enters that in the Detail section.  When I used the default Run Query button, it would just return all records in the database, so I created a custom Run Query button and I can get disable that when the 3 values in the Master section are blank, but I am having some trouble figuring out how to return only the record that matches one of the 3 search terms.

 The second problem I'm having is that I want all the controls in the Master/Detail to be read-only.  Problem is, they all appear elsewhere in the form and I don't want them to be read-only in those other locations.  I don't see a way to do conditional formatting based on control type, so I am wondering if there is another option.

Is a Master/Detail control the best way to do this?  Any ideas on how to get this work like I've described here?

Thanks, 

nkstrou

Well, I figured out the 2nd part of my problem.  Data Validation applies to ALL instances of a given data field, Conditional Formatting does not.  So for all of the text boxes in the Detail table, I just set an expression that will always evaluate to true (1=1) and set the controls to read-only with a change in background color.

 I could still use some help with that first part though.  I'm thinking I'm going to have to do some custom code and I don't do that very well.

 Thanks!

nkstrou 

Sorry Nkstrou,

I wish we could help you but we don't use Access and we don't use Mater-Detail. We use SQL and we set up sections that link to one another but don't use the master-detail control? Why? Well, probably because Access doesn't scale very well to Internet solutions and the Master-detail control wasn't supported in InfoPath 2007 browser forms. Sorry about that!

Well, I ended up doing away with the Detail part of the control based on this article:  http://www.infopathdev.com/blogs/matt/archive/2006/01/09/Create-a-Multi_2D00_View-Master_2F00_Detail-using-an-InfoPath-Data-Filter.aspx

and varied the method it suggested.  I use the default view of my form as a query page.  There is a Run Query button to return all records in the DB, then I have a View Form button in each row of the repeating table that brings up page one of the actual form (different view) if a record exists for that person.  Maybe that's the linking you refer to?

I also want to try to get a Submit button working on the Query page so the person can submit a new record to the database, but for some reason it isn't working.  But I posted a separate article about that.  ;)

Thanks anyway,

nkstrou