Tabbing Problem with InfoPath 2010 People/Group Selector

Question

I have a InfoPath 2010 form. Somehow my user-profile people picker tabs back to the previous field when I first step into it. Once I tab back in there is no longer a problem. Does anyone know how to fix this?

I tried making all the fields around it render only when the browser changes but that does not help. I also tried adding the URL of the site with no success.

Thanks in advance.

Sara

Answer 1

Update: Short answer is the issue is fixed in SharePoint 2013. I haven't verified this yet.

Long answer is it's recorded as MS internal bug: "Office14 459444 - MOSS-IP : Partner Controls are not hooked up to IPFS selection model/service infrastructure"

Issue details:

RESULTS: tabbing away [from people picker] causes a postback (expected) but when the page reloads the focus is reset to the top of the form, so we can never tab to the button EXPECTED: after the postback, the tab focus should return to the next item in line (i.e. the Resolve icon of the people picker, then the Browse icon, then the Button)

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Update: It seems any post-back on the form will cause the people picker to go into auto-resolve mode and cause the tab-back problem. For example, we have some cascading-drop-down lists and when we re-query for the dependent drop-down, the non-required people pickers start to exhibit the problem.

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Update: Problem is also reported here.

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Update: I posted an update here. Basically nothing new from MS. Our current workaround is to "de-require" the people picker and then use a "fake" single line of text field to simulate the required behaviour. We can also a section to show hide a red required asterisk based on the presence of the value.

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Update: We've logged this as a bug with Microsoft. It seems to happen if you have a required People Picker on the page. They confirmed the bug - but they're doing further investigation atm. I hope to get answer soon.

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For us, this is caused by a full page post-back. We are using a SharePoint 2010 in the old SharePoint 2007 Visual Styles (v3), and so the AJAX Update Panel isn't present in the Master Page (hence the full page post-back).

Explicitly setting the tab order didn't work.

We are now investigating upgrading this site to use the v4 UIVersion/master page styles.

Interestingly in the old styles, the control attempts to resolve the user after you tab out of the people-picker, however in the new version, it doesn't seem to resolve the user until you click the resolve button or hit save. Seems it'd be nice to have that option.

Answer 2

I worked out all the data was on the page so if you run this js it will populate the people picker

$("div[title$='People Picker'][id*='FormControl_FormControl']:visible").each(function(){
                                id = $(this).attr('id').substring(13,$(this).attr('id').length);
                                $("div[id$="+id+"]").eq(0).append($("div[id$="+id+"]").eq(1).find('#divEntityData').parent());
                            });

It basically looks for all empty people pickers and populates it with the HTML data that is already on the page.

I then found the native method for initializing the post back WebForm_InitCallback(). So what I did was in formserver.aspx add in to a script tag the following method that overrides the native function, does all the same stuff bux executes my fix after

function WebForm_InitCallback() {
            var formElements = theForm.elements,
                count = formElements.length,
                element;
            for (var i = 0; i < count; i++) {
                element = formElements[i];
                var tagName = element.tagName.toLowerCase();
                if (tagName == "input") {
                    var type = element.type;
                    if ((__callbackTextTypes.test(type) || ((type == "checkbox" || type == "radio") && element.checked))
                        && (element.id != "__EVENTVALIDATION")) {
                        WebForm_InitCallbackAddField(element.name, element.value);
                    }
                }
                else if (tagName == "select") {
                    var selectCount = element.options.length;
                    for (var j = 0; j < selectCount; j++) {
                        var selectChild = element.options[j];
                        if (selectChild.selected == true) {
                            WebForm_InitCallbackAddField(element.name, element.value);
                        }
                    }
                }
                else if (tagName == "textarea") {
                    WebForm_InitCallbackAddField(element.name, element.value);
                }
            }
            //Function Modification
            setTimeout(function(){
                loadTimer = window.setInterval(function(){
                    if($('#FormControl__DialogContainer').is(":visible")){
                        //console.log("loadding3");
                    }else{
                        clearInterval(loadTimer);
                        setTimeout(function(){
                            $("div[title$='People Picker'][id*='FormControl_FormControl']:visible").each(function(){
                                id = $(this).attr('id').substring(13,$(this).attr('id').length);
                                $("div[id$="+id+"]").eq(0).append($("div[id$="+id+"]").eq(1).find('#divEntityData').parent());
                            });
                            $("div[title$='People Picker'][id*='FormControl_FormControl']:visible").children().append('; ');
                            $("div[title$='People Picker'][id*='FormControl_FormControl']:visible").css("height", "auto");                              
                        }, 500);                                                
                    }
                },200);
            }, 200);