Professional Microsoft® SharePoint® Designer 2007

11.1. The Data Source Library in Detail

In the previous chapter, you saw how SharePoint lists and libraries are reflected in the Data Source Library task pane. You probably noticed several other sections. SharePoint Designer enables you to connect to and manage many different types of information.

All of the formatting and display capabilities of Data Views described in chapter 10 can be used with any data source defined in the Data Source Library, including conditional formatting, Web Part connections, and custom XSL.

11.1.1. The Data Source Types

The Data Source Library task pane is divided into a number of sections that group similar types of data, helping you keep track of where the information displayed in your site is coming from. The following table describes those sections:

Section	Description
SharePoint Lists and Libraries	Lists and libraries are intrinsic data sources in SharePoint. Whenever you create a list or library — whether through the web interface or SharePoint Designer — it automatically becomes available in the appropriate section.
Database Connections	Database connections enable you to define a source to connect to an arbitrary database on your network. SharePoint Designer supports creating data sources for SQL Server and Oracle, as well as virtually any database for which an OLE DB or ODBC connection is available, such as MySQL.
XML Files	All data sources are converted to XML before a Data View Web Part can render them. It's no surprise, then, that you can provide ...