Creating Tabbed Views in InfoPath 2007

This comes from: InfoPath Team Blog

InfoPath doesn't have a built-in Tab Control, but it's easy enough to build one using tables, buttons, and views, so let's do it!

The basic idea

Here's what to build:

• Views for the contents of each tab
• Table with shading to give the visual effect of tabs
• Buttons for each tab with a rule that switches the view

For example:

Then when the user clicks "Details" they switch views to see this:

How To, with tricks along the way

1. Create all of your views (from the Views task pane)
   • Select the same color scheme for each view (use the Color Schemes task pane)
   • Use Background Color on the Format menu to make the background of each view the second color for the current color scheme (the second-darkest color at the top of the color picker)
2. Insert a layout table (on the Insert menu, click Table)
   • Make it two rows high. The first row will be for the buttons, the second will be for the tab content.
   • Split the first row to make a cell for each view, plus one extra cell to take the remaining horizontal space.
3. Insert a button into each cell (from the Controls task pane)
   • Add a rule to each button to switch to the corresponding view. Do this even for the current view's button.
   • Make the current "active" button Bold, so it stands out.
4. Use borders and shading (on the Format menu)
   • Select all the buttons at once (hold down the Control key and click each one), then remove all borders and shading from the buttons (they're invisible except for their label!).
   • Select the entire table, then add borders inside and out using the first color in the color scheme (the darkest color).
   • Select the non-active cells and set their shading to the third lightest color of the color scheme.
   • Select the active cell and the content cell, and set their shading to white.
   • Select the active cell and remove the bottom border so it becomes connected to the content cell.
   • Select the right-most "extra" cell and remove the top and right border
5. Copy the table to each view
   • Update the borders and shading to change the "active" cell for each view
   • Put all your fields for each tab in its content cell

Getting fancy

If the tabs above aren't pretty enough for your form, add some images inside a few more table cells around each button to provide rounded corners and other visual effects. It's more work, and requires some image editing, but with a little elbow grease you could get something as schmancy as this:

2007 Office System Tool: Outlook HTML and CSS Validator

To download the MS plugin to validate HTML & CSS for Office Outlook 2007 emails go here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=0B764C08-0F86-431E-8BD5-EF0E9CE26A3A&displaylang=en#filelist

Word 2007 HTML and CSS Rendering Capabilities in Outlook 2007 (Part 1 of 2)
Word 2007 HTML and CSS Rendering Capabilities in Outlook 2007 (Part 2 of 2)

Installing on Macromedia Dreamweaver 8:

When installing this for Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 you must change the path to which it installs from Dreamweaver MX 2004 to Dreamweaver 8 -

Change the path:

C:\Program Files\Macromedia\Dreamweaver MX 2004\Configuration\BrowserProfiles

To the path:

C:\Program Files\Macromedia\Dreamweaver 8\Configuration\BrowserProfiles



If you dont change the path you won't see the Microsoft Word check box available in the Target Browsers dialogue box in Dreamweaver 8:



This is not mentioned in the official documentation / installation instructions provided by MS.

Enable Anonymous Access

This info originally came from: http://weblogs.asp.net/bsimser/archive/2006/09/25/Enabling-anonymous-access-in-SharePoint-2007.aspx

First, enable anonymous on the IIS web site:

• Launch IIS - Start / Administration Tools / IIS
• Select the web site, right click and select Properties
• Click on the Directory Security tab
• Click on Edit in the Authentication and access control section

Or, using the Central Administration section:

• Central Administration / Application Management
• Select “Authentication Providers” in the “Application Security” section
• Click on the “Default” zone (or whatever zone you want to enable anonymous access for)
• Under “Anonymous Access” click the check box to enable it and click “Save”
  
  
  

NOTE: Make sure the “Web Application” in the menu at the top right is your portal/site and not the admin site.

You can confirm that anonymous access is enabled by going back into the IIS console and checking the Directory Security properties.

Next, enable anonymous access in the web site.

• In your web site navigate to the site settings page. MOSS: Site Actions / Site Settings / Modify All Site Settings. WSS: Site Actions / Site Settings.
• Under the “Users and Permissions” section click on “Advanced permissions”
  
  
  
  
• On the “Settings” drop down menu (on the toolbar) select “Anonymous Access”
• Select the option you want anonymous users to have (full access or documents and lists only)
  
  
  

Now users without logging in will get whatever option you allowed them.

A couple of notes about anonymous access:

• You will need to set up the 2nd part for all sites unless you have permission inheritance turned on
• If you don’t see the “Anonymous Access” menu option in the “Settings” menu, it might not be turned on in Central Admin/IIS. You can manually navigate to “_layouts/setanon.aspx” if you want, but the options will be grayed out if it hasn’t been enabled in IIS
• You must do both setups to enable anonymous access for users, one in IIS and the other in each site

SharePoint Search Service cannot find hosts file

I have been trying out various scenarios on a dev farm consisting of 2 SharePoint servers and a SQL box to see what happens...

If you start mucking around with search services and stop or change your search index server you may come accross the following error:

Application Server Administration job failed for service instance Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchServiceInstance Reason: Could not find file 'C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\HOSTS'.

This is because the Sharepoint Timer job deletes the hosts file after you modify the web front end the crawler is pointed to. I created a new hosts file in 'C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\' and then came across the next error:

Application Server Administration job failed for service instance Microsoft.Office.Server.Search.Administration.SearchServiceInstance Reason: Access to the path 'C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\HOSTS' is denied.

To solve this update the permissions on the 'C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc' directory for the WSS_Admin_WPG account allowing the following advanced permissions:

• Traverse Folder / Execute File
• List Folder / Read Data
• Read Attributes
• Read Extended Attributes
• Create Files / Write Data
• Read Permissions
• Delete Permissions

The delete permission also needs to be given because the timer job actually deletes and recreates the hosts file.

An indexer is not assigned to the Shared Services Provider.

The problem:

Error when trying to view profile information in your Shared Service Provider:

An error has occurred while accessing the SQL Server database or the Office SharePoint Server Search service. If this is the first time you have seen this message, try again later. If this problem persists, contact your administrator.

Error when trying to view the search settings in your Shared Service Provider:

An indexer is not assigned to the Shared Services Provider.

This will occur if you stop your search service - in which case you will also need restart the service!

Solution:

1. Open Central Administration
   
2. Go to Shared Services Administration
   
3. Click the SSP and select edit properties from its drop down list
   
   
   
   
4. Enter the SSP process account password
5. Assign the index server
   
   
   
   
6. Select Ok