Excel 2003 Programming: A Developer's Notebook

Script InfoPath

You can write scripts to run within InfoPath forms using JScript or VBScript. These scripts can perform custom actions, such as displaying other forms, send email, or do custom validation.

Note

Although InfoPath uses rules and actions for many tasks, there are still a lot of things you have to do with code.

Warning

The default language is JScript, so if you’d rather use VBScript (as I would), change the default setting as soon as you create a new form. Once you’ve opened the code editor, you’re stuck with the form setting.

How to do it

To set the default script language in InfoPath:

1. In Design mode, choose Tools → Options. InfoPath displays the Options dialog box.

2. Click the Advanced tab of the Options dialog box and select the default programming language setting. Click OK to close the dialog.

Note

InfoPath, Version 1.0 has slightly different dialog boxes than those shown for the SP1 release in Figure 7-36 and Figure 7-37.

Different types of controls can have code set in different places within InfoPath. Controls that perform actions, such as Button controls, add code through the control properties dialog (Figure 7-36).

Controls that perform validation can add code through data validation events (Figure 7-37).

Once you click Edit, InfoPath displays the Microsoft Script Editor (MSE) (Figure 7-38).

Figure 7-36. For Button controls, use control properties ...