InfoPath Dev

I am having some dificulties with a Hyperlink control and wonder if anyone has encountered it.

The short of it is that my hyperlink control will lose the display of the hyperlink, though the hyperlink is actually still there.

After inserting hyperlink:

After updating another field:

The details of what causes this:

• It happens after an action rule executes.
• The action rule basically displays or hides another section of the form based on the users selection.
• The section that it hides/shows and the control that fires the action rule are independent of the Hyperlink control.
• The Hyperlink control is in the same section as the control that triggers the rule.
• If I were to click on "Click here to insert a hyperlink" it will open the URL in a new window.
• If I click on the link icon, it opens the dialog with the hyperlink populated
• Not good.

So...

1. Add hyperlink
2. Change value in another field, triggering an action rule revealting another completely independent section of the form.
3. Hyperlink "disappears" but is still technically "not blank."

Any insight appreciated. Thanks!

 And if you disable the action rule in step 2, does the hyperlink not disappear?

Well...no, it does not  disappear. And my next step today will be to disable each of the action rules (there are a few) to see if I can isolate. I saw your comment on someone else's post which was good advice, talking through disabling actions essentially even if it doesn't seem like it would cause it. Might just be missing something.

 Unfortunately, disabling the action rule for good is not an option. This all sounds very similar to: "Doc, my knee hurts when I do XYZ." "Well, don't do XYZ."

I'll drop a note if I find anything. Again, the action rules aren't exactly doing anything crazy aside from setting a variable that hides/reveals a section.

So it actually occurs in several places in my form. I just found the simplest case where I can get it to happen:

I have a field with one action rule. The action rule is simply.

Action: Set a field's value
Field: Ready34
Value: showdiag

So all the rule does is toggle a variable. And when I clear or enter a new value in that field, it will cause the Hyperlink to disappear every time.

Also worth noting that when I test the form in InfoPath, I can not replicate. Only happens in the browser.

Perhaps it's some sort of browser rendering issue. I'm thinking this is the problem:

"The Hyperlink control is in the same section as the control that triggers the rule. "

Would you be willing to test whether having these two (hyperlink and the other control) in separate sections causes the same issue?

Just tested by adding another control for the same hyperlink field in another section of the form and got the same behavior.

It appears that:

1. If the field with the action rules appears above the Hyperlink field, the change to the field will "disappear" the Hyperlink.
2. If the field with the action rules appears below the Hyperlink field, the change to the field will not "disappear" the Hyperlink.

How's that for some classic Microsoft bizarreness? I'm not quite sure what to think about that one. My design constraints don't quite allow me to always ensure that the hyperlink control is always visually above any of the other controls I'm trying to validate.

I know this is an old issue, and I hope the mods will forgive me for necro'ing an old thread. I had this same issue crop up (I use a field to hide various other fields if true, if not, show). I ended up making a changed event for the field whose value determines hiding status and reset the hyperlink via the code in that event and it allowed me to work around the issue. Interestingly, I have two hyperlink fields, and even though I only reset the value on one, it fixes the issue for both - so I'm leaning toward it being some sort of rendering bug as indicated above, and that the setting of the value in one, forces a re-render of everything fixes the issue. The only bummer is it's a post back action, so people get the "processing" modal box popping up, but I honestly don't think many people will be unhiding the fields so it shouldn't rear its head very much. I only discovered it because I was doing some mock ups of instructions and I noted my hyperlinks were empty when they shouldn't have been. Anyway, hope this helps anyone who may be experiencing the same issue.