InfoPath Dev

Okay newbie question here...I want to create a new UI for Sharepoint users to enter data into a list.

I followed the steps to create an IP form which updates a Sharepoint list using CAML, and managed to make this work.

My Quest is to re-design this page to that it has a freindly UI, rather than showing the CAML file layout and column names.

Is this possible, I have read some posts with similar queries but not seen any posts with some pointers on mapping the fields to my new UI fields

Hello,

Yes you can do so by changing the binding of your new UI fields to the fields in the Sharepoint datasource
Right Click on the Field and select Change binding
In the Next window, select the datasource from the drop down and then select the field you want to map that in the tree structure below.

I hope this helps you.

thanks drgkreddy...

Is this datasource a link to the actual Sharepoint list, or another CAML file? I have created a DS to Sharepoint list and looked at changing data binding to one of these fields and I got a message about repeating items and non-repeating items. I thk this is because the DS is polling sharepoint to get the data, and there will be many items in the list... or am I totally off track?

Hello,

Yes this is because there will be many rows of data in the Sharepoint List and therefore to display all the data the fields in the UI have to be in the repeating Section/table.

Also view the link below to get some idea.
http://www.infopathdev.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2619

I hope it helps you.

thanks again...

Sorry, I have not explained this too clearly, I am not having problems showing data to the user in the UI, which is held in Sharepoint.

I want to insert new records into the list... do I still follow the above recommendation?

Hi Andrew,

To do what you are wanting, I am pretty sure that it will require code. What you will want to do is create another secondary data source with a schema to suit your UI needs. Then, build the UI off of this, and once you are ready to submit the CAML to SharePoint you will need to write some code to copy the values from the "pretty" schema into the CAML formatted schema. It's a little complicated, but this is the general idea.

If you have any more questions or run into any problems, let us know! It seems like this question gets asked a lot so I might extend the Add List Items to SharePoint HowTo to cover "prettying up" the way the UI looks. Anyway, good luck!

Matt,

Thanks yes this looks to be exactly what I need to do... is there any quick guides on the code I will need to look at writing. Is this in IP using Xpath or VS.Net?

I would suggest downloading the InfoPath SDK which is available in the left sidebar of this website. You have your choice of JScript, VBScript, C#.NET, or VB.NET. For the latter two you will need visual studio with the InfoPath toolkit installed, but for the other two you can choose in the form. I recommend JScript or C#.NET.

You could also take a look at some of the example InfoPath forms that are shipped with the product. Several of these forms use pretty in-depth JScript and would provide a great basis for you to start with. Good luck!