Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Designer 2007 Bible

Chapter 17. Working with the Data Form Web Part

IN THIS CHAPTER

Understanding the basics of the Data Form Web Part

Using the Data Form Web Part

Using the Common Data View control tasks

Working with the Conditional Formatting task pane

The Data Form Web Part qualifies as one of the most powerful and extensible SharePoint Web parts. Available with WSS v3 and MOSS sites, the Data Form Web Part extends the capabilities of its predecessor — the Data View Web Part available with WSS v2 and SPS 2003 sites — by providing features for inserting, editing, and deleting data stored in SharePoint data sources in addition to displaying and formatting data. In other words, while the Data View Web Part is only capable of providing a way to create views of data stored in SharePoint data sources, the Data Form Web Part allows for creating both views for displaying data and forms for inserting and manipulating data from SharePoint data sources. You can use the Data Form Web Part with almost all available SharePoint data sources. These include all SharePoint lists and libraries, business data catalogs, database connections, XML files, etc.

The Data Form Web Part expands the data-displaying capabilities of the Data View Web Part by providing the creation of single- and multiple-item views, subviews, and joined subviews of data. Subviews and joined subviews allow Web designers to aggregate data from various data sources into a single view, thereby enhancing data analysis and review abilities. Like its ...