How to insert a named hyperlink anchor in InfoPath?

Question

I have an infopath form, and I want to create a sort of table of contents so that when users return to finish filling out their forms (after having left off), they can jump to the section.

I see that I can create a hyperlink, but I don't see any way to insert a hyperlink anchor.

Is there a way to do this? How?

Answer 1

If to answer "How to insert a named hyperlink anchor in InfoPath?" then you can't because Infoapth forms are not HTML webpages (from client Infopath side).

Instead of link one should use a button and formatting rules for this. If you want to appear it as a link, then remove borders, shading, changethe font color and underline.

You might find to be helpful these articles:

• S.Y.M. Wong-A-Ton. InfoPath 2010 previous next navigation on a SharePoint list
• Greg Collins. Create Miniature Navigation Buttons with Centered Arrows

Answering comment-question:

You can use (probably also set hidden controls) SelectText and SelectNode in codebehind, see MSDN article:

• Programmatically Selecting Controls in an InfoPath View

Note this is accessing data and through it jumping to their visual representations (or rendering containers) - controls to which data fields are bound. There is no way to access controls, i.e. visual representation and rendering objects , in Infopath (client) codebehind, only their data.

It is always helpful to remember that Infopath forms are XML-based, with XML for data and forms being used externally and by various disparate (and incompatible) services in various rendering formats (in order to avoid frustrating requirements and wishes of pulling yourself up by your own hair).

Update:
This is obvious underdevelopment in Infopath since, for example, MS Offcie Words .doc (.docx) documents are enabled to have a bookmark and link a hypelink to it (to jump/navigate to other parts of ta Word document).

Another approach (and probably for using the Infopath data forms from browser only while browser-enabled forms can be also opened in client/Filler) would have been to tweak Infopath template XSL files content (by your own custom XSLT rules) though it will be a maintenance nightmare since it is not supported OOTB and this results in necessity to tweak repaet those tweakings after each editing of template in Infopath Designer or discontinue editing in Infopath Designer at all.

Answer 2

BGM,

Don't know about hyperlink anchors...

But one way of doing this could be having multiple views, in this way on load you will show the view for Table Of Contents, and their having HyperLinks or Buttons for which you will define Rule to switch view!

Here are some articles on that:
Add, delete, and switch views (pages) in a form
Automatically switch views in a form
Create an InfoPath form that switches views

Must look at the last one, he has done beautiful vertical tabbing for the contents! :)

Answer 3

Ah, I should've thought of it before! You could do this with javascript. Since the form runs in a browser, you could use javascript to change certain text into hyperlinks, and certain other text into hyperlink anchors.

However, if you look at the code in Firebug, there aren't any IDs to grab ahold of, and the classes seem to be assigned to multiple objects based on styles applied. For example, if you have text that has style1, all instances of any text with that style will have that class. This could give you a smaller range in which to cycle for the text replacement. Still, you will end up having to match the text value of the span tags.