When Office 2003 is released about a month
from now, some of the versions will contain
two new applications OneNote and InfoPath.
OneNote is a note taking application that
may be interesting to those of you with
tablet PCs. InfoPath is an XML based forms
creation and entry application that looks
very exciting to those of us who create
applications that work with a lot of data on
tablets and desktops.InfoPath is one of
several new applications on the cusp of
delivery that enable the display and entry
of data in a WYSIWYG forms based application
without the need to write code. I am talking
about:
- XForms by the W3C
- InfoPath by Microsoft
- Acrobat 6 by Adobe
Applications that make it easy to create
data entry forms aren't new. For example,
Access forms and Access Data Access Pages
are both pretty easy. Adobe has long had
forms data entry capabilities in Acrobat.
The acquisition of Canadian company Accelio,
formerly Jetforms, has enabled Adobe to add
an XML based infrastructure to Acrobat 6.0.
What is different today is that the new
forms based applications are enabling the
creation of XML data by the application
instead of in a proprietary format. They are
also facilitating distribution of the forms
over the web and entry of data both online
and offline. That is, once created, the XML
can either be saved on disk for later use or
be sent to one of many possible locations
for consumption.
XForms is a W3C standard for Web Forms to
supersede HTML based forms on multiple
platforms. The multiple platform aspect is
key to the design of XForms and creators
have attempted to abstract the form as much
as possible from the implementation. The
standard has reached the "Proposed
Recommendation" stage of development.
What has made the surge in XML based
forms possible is the evolution of various
XML standards. Among them are:
- XSLT: XML Style Sheets
- XPath query specifications
- XSD: XML Schema
- XML Digital Signatures
- Namespaces
- Webservices: SOAP, WSDL, UDDI
These standards each make it possible to
specify one aspect or another of an
application in XML rather than in code. The
ultimate effect is to create the data in an
XML format instead of a proprietary format
so that it can easily be manipulated and
transferred from application to application.
InfoPath uses the XML based standards and
melds them with Office technology.
To get InfoPath you'll either have to
purchase it separately or have a volume
license agreement for the "Professional
Enterprise" edition. However, I have heard a
rumor that for a limited time it may be
included in the "Professional Standard"
edition. Keep checking Microsoft's site for
more details as the October 21st
ship date approaches.
One of InfoPath's strengths is
flexibility in the source of data that it
can read and update. The choices include XML
files, Web Services and databases. That is,
as long as the database is Access or SQL
Server. I suspect the list of supported
databases will grow in future releases.
If InfoPath works well with SQL Server, I
am hoping that it will be an easy way to
create a robust GUI interface for SQL Server
tables. That might save hours of writing
application code. It is also a possible way
to display SQL Server reports without having
to have a report writer. Moreover, the
resulting forms share many of Office's
features such as spell checking!
This article shows how InfoPath can be
used as a front end to a SQL Server
database. I have kept the example
deliberately simple: we will design an
InfoPath form and enable it to edit the
Regions table in the Northwind Traders
sample database in SQL Server 2000. The
table is about as simple as they get with
just two columns: RegionID and
RegionDescription. The information in this
article is based on the Office 2003 Beta 2
version of InfoPath so there may be some
changes to the product when it is officially
shipped.
