Newbie Questions

Re: How can I get Object Names from InfoPath Template with VS/VB.NET

Beebo — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:35:16 GMT

Jimmy,

Thank you so much for the reply, and for the information. That said, I am stunned to hear what you are telling me! An XSN is just a CAB file? Really? I will look into the CAB Library today and start investigating that path. I never would have suspected that! As well, thanks for the tip on Qdabra's tool - I will also look into that.

Thanks again, so very much, for the help!

Regards,

Beebo

Re: How can I get Object Names from InfoPath Template with VS/VB.NET

Jimmy — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 23:33:15 GMT

An XSN file is simply a CAB file with XML, XSD, and XSL files in it. If you use a CAB library to crack it open, you can inspect the schema and provide a list of the node names in it.

If you are going to be doing this with a lot of XSN files, may I direct your attention to Qdabra's InfoPath to XML Tool? It does typically require setting up the mapping manually, but it was designed for this purpose and might save you a bit of hassle.

How can I get Object Names from InfoPath Template with VS/VB.NET

Beebo — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 18:33:15 GMT

Greetings...

I have this client who would like to move a mountain of Excel based "forms" (really just workbooks with row-by-row data) to InfoPath. I am no InfoPath wizard by any stretch, but I do work in Visual Studio 2005 and write most code in VB.NET. I have set up a VB.NET app for them that allows them to select a spreadsheet, and then the specific sheet that has their data. I then list the column headings in the selected sheet in a listbox. Now here's the part where I am somewhat baffled...

I want to allow them to pick an already-designed InfoPath template (.XSN) and then allow them to "map" the Excel columns to the InfoPath Object names. So to do this, I need a way to query the XSN and get a list of Object names. (Most, if not all will be textboxes - no fancy stuff at this point). I loaded the Interop lib for InfoPath to see if I could use that to get at this data, but as yet, cant figure out a way to get those names.

Any of you InfoPath Gurus know how I might do this quick and easy?

Note - (with respect) please do not suggest using the InfoPath "Import Form" option - they tried this and it just gave them endless repeating tables. That is not what they are after at all. They want a single form for each row of data in the Excel Workbook.

Thanks very much in advance!!