Prior to the introduction of Office 2007 system, the Infopath client application, like other office products, had to be installed on every user’s computer.
In order to develop and use a form,
1. The form had to be designed using Infopath.
2. The resulting form template should be hosted in a network file share or installed individual user machine or uploaded into a form library in sharepoint, from where users can fill the forms.
3. Filling up the forms require infopath to be installed on the client machine.
4. Developing a connected infopath was complicated for end users.
5. Developers didn’t have an integrated development platform.
6. The product didn’t integrate with other office products such as word and excels.
The Benefits of Office 2007
This introduced a new server side runtime to host infopath forms known as Infopath form services.
The new capabilities includes :
1. Ability to convert word and excel documents into infopath form templates.
2. With the help of Infopath form services the Infopath form can be Browser enabled.
3. The new infopath form can be embedded into Outlook
4. The form can be built once and rendered in different modes and devices.i.e. Design Once.
5. Introduction of document information panel.i.e.the infopath form that is hosted inside word 2007,or powerpoint 2007,which can be used to edit document properties.
6. Introduction of logic inspector. i.e the components which provides visual view of all the rules embedded in the form.
7. The new infopath forms can be published to content types.
8. Introduction of template parts.i.e a reusable code sections.
9. Introduction of integrated development environment inside visual studio 2005 using visual studio tools for office.
10. The information right management can be used to protect sensitive data in the form.
I find all the points covered in this article very good and useful about Infopath. Its an amazing tool to design web forms easily. I also wanted to learn about it.
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