InfoPath Dev

I am trying to set up the capability to view InfoPath form data from within Internet Explorer.  I was able to do this to some extent after following the directions to transform InfoPath form data from an article provided by Microsoft. http://support.microsoft.com/?id=826990

The results were very good with the exception that all embedded images were lost. At the end of the article it was stated as a caution that secondary data sources may not function the same.

Is there a method that exists to get around this at this time?

 

Hi Kathryn Bates,

Good work on getting the XSL stylesheet working! This alone means you should not be posting 'Newbie Questions', haha.

What exactly are you seeing as the output for the image controls?  If you put the image control into the form as chose "Save image into form", then you are probably seeing Base64 as the output.  The only way I can think of fixing the problem if you have to leave the images as base64 would be to make a program that goes through the XML and extracts the base64 into an actual file, and then links the file in the XML.  However, that's a lot of work.  You should try selecting "save link in the form" when you insert the image control and see if that will work for you.

We also have a product called Forms Viewer that will detect whether or not the client has InfoPath installed and then render the form in the browser.

Anyway, good luck with getting the stylesheet to work, let us know how it turns out!

Hi Matt,

 

Thanks for your reply.

 

Your suggestion of using an image control that was saved as a link does work when viewing the transformed file within Internet Explorer.

 

By the way, I came across a way to view InfoPath forms with embedded Base64 images through Internet Explorer.  If the form is exported as a Web Form the embedded Base64 images show up. The funny thing was that now the linked images no longer showed up.  It basically did the opposite of the transformed InfoPath form, where the linked images show up but the embedded Base64 images didn't.

 

Turns out I will need to use this second method to work together with a browser based configuration management tool to access the forms through. But it is good to know that I can used linked images if I do use any transformed InfoPath forms again.

 

Actually, going back to the the transformation problem with the embedded Base64 images. During my investigation it seems that the transformation can not complete because the xsl file it is using can not find the function 'getImageUrl' that it needs.  The function supposedly belongs to the 'xdImage' namespace or xmlns:xdImage="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/infopath/2003/xslt/xImage ".  It doesn't seem like they really exist, but maybe I am not understanding it properly.  Do you know anything about that particular function or the xdImage namespace?

 

Thanks again for your help,

Kate

 

Hi Kathryn,

The xdImage namespace is most likely buried within one of the DLLs Microsoft has made to make InfoPath run. You could try searching around to see where it is stored and try to use that DLL in your project, but my guess is that it will be fairly difficult. If you can get it reverse engineered, let us know! I'd sure be impressed!