Writeable pre-populated attachment

[Ken Crosson]

Here's the scenario: we're trying to build a form to use for a manufacturing
company's product inspection. Along with form-style data collection, there
are some other documents we want to include (spreadsheets, etc.)

We can add a file attachment control, and pre-load it with a document -- but
when the user opens the document, it's read-only. So the user has to save
the document to his machine, and then re-add it to the attachment control.

Is there any way to make that document read-write, so a user can open an
embedded document, modify it, click Save, and be done with it?

Thanks,

Ken Crosson

 

[Brian Teutsch [MSFT]]

Thanks for the suggestions. We do keep track of them, and hopefuly we'll get
to add yours in the future. There's lots still to do...

Brian

 

[Ken Crosson]

Thanks, Brian.

In the meantime, do you (or does anybody) have a workaround that will allow
us to make this a little more user-friendly?

Thanks,

Ken

 

[Brian Teutsch [MSFT]]

If you can make your form fully trusted (by installing or by code signing),
I can think of one creative way. You could have two buttons in the form (or
one at a time), that save the file attachment to a temp file (see the
InfoPath blog for file attachment saving help), and then lauches the file
from the commandline. Save the file path into the XML or a script variable.
Then, swap buttons in the form to show a "save button". Now, the user can
edit the file in Word/Excel/etc, and hit save and close. Finally, they can
go back to InfoPath, press the in-doc "re-attach" button, and you'll read
the file from the stored path back into the file attachment.

Hardly a replacement for an "edit file" option, but not quite a bad user
model.

Brian