Browser Forms

Re: Mapping xml data to the html formatting

sarajday — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 13:56:01 GMT

what about using an xml data mapper tool?

Re: Mapping xml data to the html formatting

labyrinth248 — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 12:48:35 GMT

Gennady, Right, Thanks. I'll figure it out on my own.

Re: Mapping xml data to the html formatting

Gennady Vanin (Геннадий Ванин, Новосибирск) — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 02:25:22 GMT

If you want to generate HTML from XML data then you should have formulated this as such from the very start

This is different from mapping which is understood as if you wanted to access HTML fields from code of Infopath Form Web Part Page (generated and used by enterprise Infopath Forms Services of Sharepoint Server 2010)

As well as it is not mapping XML to HTML formatting but vice versa

labyrinth248:
s there a better way to do this so the html output is not messy?

So, create and use your own XSL file

PS
This is unrelated to Infopath (or sharepoint) and there are specialized discussion boards on XSLT
If I involve me in a discussion on an Infopath forum, it is because I want, need and/or have time to discuss Infopath-related issues
and if I I want, need and/or have time to other topics, for example on XSLT,, then I participate in those discussions on respective forums/topics.

Otherwise, I found me (and involve others) in awkward situation having wasted my time in vain and off-topic

Re: Mapping xml data to the html formatting

labyrinth248 — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 20:26:27 GMT

ok, I got this working partly, but the html is rendered very messy. Im trying to figure out now why the html output is writing in a poor format. What I have in code behind on form is below:

//1.Loading the XSLT style sheet manually specify location

                      XslCompiledTransform myStyleSheet = new XslCompiledTransform();
                     myStyleSheet.Load(@"C:\development\test2\test3\view2.xsl");

//2.Load the XML document

XPathDocument myXMLStuff = new XPathDocument(@"C:\development\test2\test3\sampledata2.xml");

//3.Declare writer

XmlTextWriter myNewWebPage = new XmlTextWriter(@"C:\development\test2\test3\sampledatahtml.html", null);

//4. Transform

myStyleSheet.Transform(myXMLStuff, null, myNewWebPage);

Is there a better way to do this so the html output is not messy?

Thanks

Re: Mapping xml data to the html formatting

labyrinth248 — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 13:43:44 GMT

Anyone else have suggestions for this?

Thanks

Re: Mapping xml data to the html formatting

labyrinth248 — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 14:43:19 GMT

Gennady Vanin (Геннадий Ванин, Новосибирск):
Just yesterday I run the code from this thread that exported an Infopath form to Pdf, without any problems

Gennady - was this filler or web based form that you tried? Looking to do this in browser form only and not filler.

Thanks

Re: Mapping xml data to the html formatting

Gennady Vanin (Геннадий Ванин, Новосибирск) — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 13:43:47 GMT

labyrinth248:
Thanks for your reply Gennady. Our ultimate goal is to have infopath browser based forms be converted to either htm or pdf formats

Just yesterday I run the code from this thread that exported an Infopath form to Pdf, without any problems

Though it seems to be available to do without any coding in File > Info > Form Options > Filler Features > Export to PDF or XPS

Re: Mapping xml data to the html formatting

labyrinth248 — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 12:46:12 GMT

Thanks for your reply Gennady. Our ultimate goal is to have infopath browser based forms be converted to either htm or pdf formats once the forms are submitted to a forms library. Instead of purchasing a 3rd party tool for this such as "muhimbi", I was trying to accomplish this with my own knowledge first. I have logic in place on a forms code behind that does convert each object on the form to a pdf format, but its only specific for that form. I was trying to implement this as a more universal feature that could be re-usable on other forms. Does anyone have any experience with this? I was thinking making an custom action in SPD that when selected in a forms workflow, it would disect the form, then reformat to pdf, but the hard part will be coding it so that any form can be used with this action.

Thanks

Re: Mapping xml data to the html formatting

Gennady Vanin (Геннадий Ванин, Новосибирск) — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 04:51:47 GMT

labyrinth248:
What I would like to do is save the form in .html format once form is completed

You did not provide any concrete details, And there are quite a plethora of books and online tutorials for introduction to Sharepoint and Infopath architecture/paradigm/philosophy.

Infopath forms are XML based and basically just provide XML data for their use (rendering of forms and XML data in them) by other tools, frameworks, services, packages, etc.
Also and mainly they are used EXTERNALLY (by external "tools").

And Infopath Designer is not web development tool (or HTML editor, creating/changing/updating/mapping HTML), it is XML (forms) editor for creating forms to be used in many possible formats, in many contexts externally.

For example, HTML (webpage) is generated by Infopath Form Service which is the enterprise feature of Sharepoint Server 2010 from Infopath XML data form and linked to it Infopath XSN form template.

The latter is stored, registered and used on Sharepoint Server site as precompiled Infopath Web Part (object).

If you are not going to reverse engineer and hack Sharepoint Server, then you should use the same tools and functionalities provided by them through which you generate(d) "HTML" webpage and/or from their context (External to Infopath form editing/creation).
There you most probably will see a violet icon of (compiled) Infopath Form Web Part (generated from published IP template) with contextual options "Edit Web Part" and "Add a Web Part" link.

Through the latter you can embed built-in and previously deployed/published to Sharepoint Server site web parts (incl. Infopath Form Web Parts).
Upon adding another web part, you should see contextual choice Connections with subchoices depending on how and what you use with, for example:

Send Table To
Send Row of Sata To
Get Parameters From
Get Filter Values From

You should look into how to use what is provided by a "platform" first instead of trying to subvert (substitute, overrrun or overcomplicate) what is provided OOTB

Re: Mapping xml data to the html formatting

Hilary Stoupa — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 22:09:03 GMT

No - I've not done this before - I'm perplexed as to why you'd want to, honestly. You might want to provide more information on your intended design, in case someone else has some ideas.

Re: Mapping xml data to the html formatting

labyrinth248 — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 21:34:27 GMT

Ok, Sounds good. I exported all files and placed them into the Layouts directory under the 14 hive. I will get at this again on Monday. Any other information you could provide me with getting started?

Thanks

Re: Mapping xml data to the html formatting

Hilary Stoupa — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 21:19:08 GMT

Yup, I did not understand what you were getting at - sorry about that!

Your template is a cab file - there are XSLT files in there you could use for this. You can export your source files for the template and then you'd have the XSLT.

Re: Mapping xml data to the html formatting

labyrinth248 — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 20:05:26 GMT

I think I'm getting a little off track here. I have the .xml file that is associated with a form template which is in my above post. What I would like to do is save the form in .html format once form is completed. I'm not sure if i need the .xml extracted first to write into a .html format. The form is browser enabled. Perhaps using "XslCompiledTransform" would work?

Thanks

Re: Mapping xml data to the html formatting

Hilary Stoupa — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 19:48:13 GMT

You originally said:

I have the raw xml format of a browser enabled infopath form

I don't know what "raw xml format" is - but I was guessing you mean that you have .xml files with XML in them that are not associated with an InfoPath template. You could try them with your template by manually adding the processing instructions, saving the file and then trying to open it. Does that make sense? Or am I misunderstanding what you are attempting to do?

Re: Mapping xml data to the html formatting

labyrinth248 — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 19:38:45 GMT

Thanks Hilary. What do you mean by " adding these manually to an XML file with the same schema"?

Thanks