InfoPath Dev

Let me start by saying this Forum is great! It definitely helped me learn infopath. My main complaint with infopath is its html rendering engine. In my experience the weirdest of things will set off formatting changes. Like changing formatting in one column will forever change the background color of another, forcing you to delete the column and start over entirely. I've even noticed that occasionally hitting the back button in IP will remove random color and font formatting from my form, even though the step I'm undoing has isn't even in the same area of the form. The problem doesn't stop with infopath; I've seen similar problems with the html renderer in SharePoint 2010, I often just write up my own HTML and then copy and paste it into the code editor in SP. so.. I'm wondering if I can do the same somehow with InfoPath. Can you unpack the xsn documents to find the one that codes the xml for the submit to email connection and then change it, cause that would be awesome. I've done similar things with workflows to copy them. Currently, when infopath submits (through SharePoint) to email, it will not leave the first column of my form's table the width I have set it. It always changes it to about 100px and then runs the following column to the end of the page. I want to hard set it. Anyone know how?

First off - I have the same weird issues in the designer, esp. with tables. Glad I am not alone.

Second, under the Publish options, you'll find Export Source Files - that saves the template "unpacked". To pack it back up, right click the manifest.xsf in the source files and select Design, then File > Save As to save as an .xsn again.

Always always always have a backup before you tinker with the source files.

The form views are the XSL files. They are .... fun. ;)

That's excellent, thanks for that! Dunno how I missed it. I unpacked them with cab and 7-zip, but didn't know how to get them back together. I'll post back here after I mess with it to let you guys know if that is a successful method to edit what it puts out for email. I tried to convince the client to just view the form in the browser.. but no.. had to be email..