InfoPath Dev

I have a repeating section that has a dropdown list and a series of picture buttons. The picture buttons are being used mostly as just a picture that represents the choice from the dropdown list, although they allow me to place rules on them for other uses. When a choice is made in the dropdown list there are two picture buttons that could represent that choice (although they have rules so that one can be considered the "default"), and many dropdown choices can use the same pairs of picture buttons. There are three of the choices/buttons that, along with being a choice themselves, need to decide which of the two buttons is finally displayed when other choices are picked from the dropdown in the other repeated sections. I need this to work across this repeating section, in other words, if in any of the repeated sections one of the three "deciding" choice/buttons are picked, the display of the picture buttons in all of the other repeated sections need to change from the default to the other. Sorry for the poor discription, it's really hard to explain that. I tried to attach the template but it failed. Let me know if you need it and I will try again.

So - my guess is that this is going to come down to your conditions and how you check other repeating groups for the values that indicate whether a "deciding" value has been selected. I'd probably use a helper field (not on the form, just in the data source) that is outside of the repeating group for this. Then you could use a formula that returns true or false if any of the repeating values are your deciding values. I've attached a simple sample that may help describe this better - save the attached file locally, right click and select design, then you can preview.

Thank you Hilary. So how do I get it to check for only part of the entry in the dropdown list? I have four choices "8:_RCS 1", "8:_RCS 2", "8:_RCS 5" and "108:_RCS 5 (Variable type with gripper arm offset x and z)". What is important is the "RCS". I was trying to use the "contains" function by selecting the dropdown list and a text box with "RCS" in it. It did not work. the other thing is how do I then use the result to control if a control (picture button in this case) is displayed or not? There does not seem to be a way to access the result.

You'll see that the formula is actually in the "Helper" field in the main DS. I just used a calculated value on the form out of habit. You'll see sample formatting on field3? It is different with a contains formula - you can see a sample of that in the Helper field in the main DS of this version - there is a default value there.