Make Your MOSS Workflow Forms Look Like Microsoft's
When creating InfoPath forms for your custom developed MOSS workflows you typically fire up InfoPath and start dropping on controls etc. I've done this in the past until recently I wanted to develop a workflow that looked more like the out-of-the-box workflows that ship with MOSS.
So, how can you style your forms to look like the out of the box forms that ship with MOSS ? Easy . . .
The workflows that ship with MOSS are simply features installed in the same manner as any custom feature you would develop yourself. So go to the 12 hive in Windows Explorer, then navigate into the TEMPLATES directory. Right-click on the "FEATURES" folder and select "Search" to search for files in this folder. Enter a search term of "*.xsn" in the "All or part of the file name" text box and this will return all of the InfoPath forms that ship with MOSS.
Personally I've copied all of these into another separate folder, so I don't run the risk of messing up the forms in the features folders. You can then open these in design mode in InfoPath and interrogate font styles, sizes and colours, paragraph spacing, button rules etc. to your hearts content !!
It's easy to make your forms look more like the out of the box forms by just spending a little time. e.g. when loading InfoPath by default you are using Verdana font size 10. Most of the out-of-the-box forms appear to use Tahoma size 8.5 !!
My favourite form to base look & feel on is called "ReviewRouting_Review_1033.xsn" and can be located in the following location "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\FEATURES\ReviewWorkflows\Forms" - it has multiple views so you can get a good grip of the various look and feel aspects of the form. As I said, make sure you take a copy of the file before opening it incase you accidentally save any edits !!
So, how can you style your forms to look like the out of the box forms that ship with MOSS ? Easy . . .
The workflows that ship with MOSS are simply features installed in the same manner as any custom feature you would develop yourself. So go to the 12 hive in Windows Explorer, then navigate into the TEMPLATES directory. Right-click on the "FEATURES" folder and select "Search" to search for files in this folder. Enter a search term of "*.xsn" in the "All or part of the file name" text box and this will return all of the InfoPath forms that ship with MOSS.
Personally I've copied all of these into another separate folder, so I don't run the risk of messing up the forms in the features folders. You can then open these in design mode in InfoPath and interrogate font styles, sizes and colours, paragraph spacing, button rules etc. to your hearts content !!
It's easy to make your forms look more like the out of the box forms by just spending a little time. e.g. when loading InfoPath by default you are using Verdana font size 10. Most of the out-of-the-box forms appear to use Tahoma size 8.5 !!
My favourite form to base look & feel on is called "ReviewRouting_Review_1033.xsn" and can be located in the following location "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\FEATURES\ReviewWorkflows\Forms" - it has multiple views so you can get a good grip of the various look and feel aspects of the form. As I said, make sure you take a copy of the file before opening it incase you accidentally save any edits !!
posted by Chris White at
2:37 pm
3 Comments:
in wsss 2/w sps 2003, do you happen to know how to add a form template to the list of IP2003 samples that shows up when creating a new form library?
Thanks
By
Anonymous, at 10:38 am
I believe the SPS2003 form templates list is based on the templates detailed in the list definition within the site definition, although I haven't looked into this in detail.
If you want to do a one-off deployment of a form to a form library do it from within InfoPath and publish the form to a new forms library in the SPS area where you want to deploy the form.
To add a new form template to the list of form templates I believe you'd need a new site definition containing a custom form library list definition detailing the templates.
By
Chris White, at 11:34 am
Thank you for this.
By
Anonymous, at 1:05 am
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