[face=Arial]Microsoft Office InfoPath 2003 is a new application in the Microsoft Office System that streamlines the process of gathering information by letting teams and organizations easily create and work with rich, dynamic forms. You can integrate the information collected with a broad range of business processes because InfoPath supports any customer-defined XML schema and integrates with XML Web services. As a member of the Microsoft Office Access 2003 team, here's my perspective on what InfoPath is all about.
If you are an Access solution developer, you're probably thinking Access has a forms designer, and you've heard of the new and improved XML support with Access 2003 that will enable similar scenarios. Although this is true, Access requires you to have a database with the appropriate tables and relationships before you can design your forms.
With InfoPath, a business user can create a form based on an XML schema or XML document by simply laying out the controls using the InfoPath forms design mode. When the user saves the form, InfoPath creates a template file (XSN) that contains the schema definition, views, business logic, and default data. The user doesn't have to worry about database design principles; he simply designs the form the way he thought about the data.
When the user opens the form template, InfoPath creates a new XML file that has all the behavior defined in the form. After the user saves his work, the result is an XML file with just the data and a reference back to the original template file. The XML data conforms to industry standards, so it can easily be shared as a file without having to worry about database connections via ODBC or OLEDB.
Forms design made simple
The InfoPath forms designer has several features that make it easy for Microsoft Office users. Word users who are familiar with creating forms in .DOC files will appreciate InfoPath's ease of use of placing a control in-line with text or the way InfoPath uses tables to control the layout.
InfoPath offers a rich set of standard controls that include: text box, rich text box, drop-down list box, list box, date picker, check box, option button, section, optional section, repeating section, repeating table, bulleted list, numbered list, plain list, button, hyperlink, picture, expression box, and ink picture.
The repeating section, repeating table, and the three list controls make it easy for the user to bind repeating XML elements, similar to one-to-many relationships, without having to create a separate subform like Access requires. The repeating section is similar to an Access continuous form while the repeating table would be similar to an Access datasheet.
Setting up data validation for the most common scenarios is a snap with InfoPath's data validation dialog. Users can enter validation rules such as: If MyField is greater than or equal to a value/or another field value, displays an in-line alert or message box.
For more complex auxiliary data bound to the list box or drop-down list box, you can specify that the values are to come from an .XML file, SQL Server or Jet database, or a Web service. InfoPath uses the Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) 1.0 service to locate the Web service you want and dialogs to pick the XML values to use in the list box control. In Access, you would have to use the Microsoft Office Web Services Toolkit and write VBA code to perform Web service validation.
Sharing InfoPath solutions with others
The InfoPath publishing wizard lets you save your form template file to a public folder on a network share, to a Windows SharePoint Services form library, or to a Web server. In each case, everyone who wants to use the form for creating or editing XML documents must have access rights to the XSN template file. Publishing to SharePoint offers the most flexibility, because you can store the resulting XML files as part of a single forms library. In addition, you can specify a list of fields in the XML document that can appear as additional columns in the SharePoint forms library list. For example, if you are storing InfoPath status report XML documents, you can choose to see the name of the person submitting the report and the date of the report submission.
InfoPath offers an easy solution to the problem of rolling out newer versions of forms when changes are rolled in. Local form templates that are initially downloaded from a SharePoint Services library, network share, or Web server automatically reference the original publish location to track changes. If changes are detected, the newer version is downloaded.
InfoPath also lets you merge XML documents. Using the status report example, you could take the status reports submitted for the week and aggregate them into a single XML document that InfoPath can display using a form.
The Access developer perspective
For Access developers, InfoPath is a great tool to give users for prototyping forms because they don't have to worry about the database design beforehand. If you want to share XML data with InfoPath forms, your best bet is to generate the XML schema using Microsoft Office Access 2003's new XML export functionality, then use the result as the field source for designing your InfoPath form. Access is also a great tool for importing the XML gathered using InfoPath for analysis, but you'll likely have to apply an XSLT transform to map the data into your tables correctly.
For more information regarding Info-Path, check out: http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/infopath/default.asp.[/face]
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2004/5/20 14:18:00
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InfoPath 如何使用 XML 技术
