Newbie:Is InfoPath the right tool to use?

[Steve]

I have some data - a textural document that contains a large set of
"requirements". It is structured in such a way that I can define it in
a very structured way using XML.

I want a form where a user can define a set of "requirements".
I want the user to be able to quickly and simply navigate to their way
to a particular requirement and to be able to "add" it to their
document, their set of "requirements". Having selected one
"requirement" the user will then want to repeat the process an
indeterminate number of times(typically 4-10 say).

I have made a simple form to demonstrate how the nodes higher up in the
XML tree structure can be selected from a drop down list control and
how the selection can be used to filter (and hence determine) the
content of a drop down list control that will list a small set of
"requirements" - the user can then select one of the listed
"requirements".

Unfortunately, because of the absolute referencing in the filtering,
e.g. (field6 = topnode and field7=middlenode)is is not posible to put
this arrangement of drop-down list controls into a repeating section.
Is there a way around this?

I had thought about adding a button with the functionality to copy the
selected "requirement" to a table. The user would then re-use the same
set of controls to select another "requirement" that would would then
be appended to the end of the table. I started lookingat InfoPath 2
days ago so I don't know very much at all. I can see that I can add
some script to the handler for the button but have little idea of how
to procede with the task of copying the "requirement" to a table.

Can anyone offer some basic advice on whether to procede/persevere with
InfoPath and how best to tackle the problem - either resolve the
absolute referencing problem ina repeating section of use the copying
method.

regards
Steve

 

[Steve]

I have some data - a "base" document that contains a large set of
"requirements". It's content is such that I have been able to define it
in
a very structured way using XML.

I want a form where a user can select (and hance define) their own
subset of a set of these "requirements".

I want the user to be able to quickly and simply navigate their way
to a particular requirement in the "base" document and to be able to
"add" it to their own subset of "requirements". Having selected one
"requirement" the user will then want to repeat the process an
indeterminate number of times(typically 4-10 say).

I have made a simple form to demonstrate how the nodes higher up in the
XML tree structure can be selected from a drop down list control and
how the selection can be used to filter (and hence determine) the
content of a drop down list control that will list a small set of
"requirements" - the user can then select one of the listed
"requirements".

Unfortunately, because of the absolute referencing in the filtering,
e.g. (field6 = topnode and field7=middlenode)it is not posible to put
this arrangement of drop-down list controls into a repeating section.
Is there a way around this?

I had thought about adding a button with the functionality to copy the
selected "requirement" to a table. The user would then re-use the same
set of controls to select another "requirement" that would would then
be appended to the end of the table. I started looking at InfoPath 4
days ago so I don't know very much at all. I can see that I can add
some script to the handler for the button but have little idea of how
to procede with the task of copying the "requirement" to a table.

Can anyone offer some basic advice on whether to procede/persevere with
InfoPath and how best to tackle the problem - either: -
1. resolve the absolute referencing problem in a repeating section, or
2. use the button and copying method.

regards
Steve

 

[Renee in Juneau]

I'm having a hard time visualizing what it is that you're trying to
do, but I won't let that stop me from replying...

Have you checked out some of the webcasts that the Infopath team put
together last fall? They're excellent -- well worth the time it takes
to watch.

http://www.msdn.microsoft.com/office/understanding/infopath/multimedia/default.aspx

 

[Steve]

thanks for your help.
I have started working my way through the webcasts.
Basically I have a large list of "requirements" that form a very
detailed specification. The user can choose a subset of these
"requirements".
The base document (i.e. the superset of requirements) is a very well
structured documents and it has been easy to put all of the
"requirements"
into XML. All I want the form to do is allow the user to select bits
from my document to form their own document. Ideally I'd just like a
repeating section with a tree control in it but I guess I'll have to
make do with a couple of drop down list controls to allow the user to
find their way to the bits of my base document that they are interested
in. I did wonder if I should write some Add-in for MS-Word to allow the
XML for my base document to be accessed by the user using a
tree-control but I came across Infopath and wondered if I could do the
job more easily using it.

regards Steve