InfoPath Dev

Hello,

I have a lot of forms in our HR area and I wanted to create a quick infopath form that consists of a single drop down list box.  The user would then select a form name with it's url as the value click a "go" button and have sharepoint link the user to the form or another aspx page, or even a word file.  pretty much just like clicking a link.  I hate that there is not an action for the button to "link".  that would be nice.  Has anyone done something similar to this in the past?  How did you accomplish it?

 Thanks for your help,

-Bob

Hi Bob,

You're right that buttons don't launch URLs so that won't help you in your scenario.  You can still use a dynamic hyperlink to accomplish what you need.  If you go to the Insert tab and click Hyperlink, you can specify the display name and URL of a hyperlink.  The value of the dropdowns can be the URL itself or you can dynamically build the URL in a temp variable.  Using this value, set the field of the hyperlink to this and then the display name can be some harcoded text or you can use the same method to display a different name based on the what you selected in the dropdown.

Hopefully this works for you!

Hi Anson,

 I really appreciate the reply... but I think I may be missing something.  Can give me a more blow by blow?

My senario, again is to have a drop down list of multiple links.  By selecting a link it launches to the url

 *Currently I'm using a sharepoint link list as my data connection for the drop down.  I then populated the link list and used it as the external data soruce for the drop down menu.  But selecting the link does not execute that link being opened.

--------------------------------- 

As I follow your steps.

1) instert a hyperlink   -- (ok no problem there)

2) the value of the drop downs can be the url itself  -- ok losing you here, there are going to be multiple url's not a single 'url itself'

3) set the field of the hyperlink to 'this' and then the name can be some hardcoded text -- (what is 'this')

Thanks,   -Bob

Sure. For your dropdown, your display values can be whatever you want. However, the values should be the URL you want to navigate. Here is an example:

Display Name: Apple

Value: http://apple 

Now insert a hyperlink by going to Insert tab --> Hyperlink. The text or display name here can be anything like "Click me". The address or URL will be the value of your dropdown. If the dropdown is bound to URLfield, then select URLfield by clicking on the Data Source radio button and then the Select XPath button to the right of the text box. This should change the target of the hyperlink depending on the value that is selected in the dropdown.

I've attached an xsn that will hopefully illustrate what I'm trying to describe. There are several methods to construct the URL for each dropdown option. This is just the simplest. I can help explain some of the other methods if the value in the dropdown must be something else other than the URL.

I could really use a look at that demo form as I believe it contains exactly what I need to do.   However, I'm using InfoPath 2007 and it won't let me open it.

I tried putting the URL in the value part of a drop down list but nothing happens when I select it at run tme. 

 Here's a copy of the form in IP 2007 compat.