Unassuming Local Guy

arharharhar

Hey guys, So I'm playing around with Office finally, after years and years of using it but never bothering with useless side stuff like time management skills and organized records of my past projects, and I happen upon InfoPath. At this point, the gears start turning, and I'm brainstorming all kinds of crazy ways to cut through the surging tides of stupid in the DoD world. Only problem is, paying attention to Microsoft's Barney-level tutorials quickly gives way to closing the windows and clicking buttons until something happens--If I can catch the logic of it, I can figure it out myself. So after getting a rough handle on the relation between controls, groups, and fields, I find it's a REALLY slow process to put the stuff together. So riddle me this: Let's say you're making a status report form to deliver damage assessments in several rooms of a large facility. Do you really have to go through and individually create each row, set all the conditional formatting options on each cell in the table (for the neat function where you want to emphasize your progress with colors and symbols that change based on values and sub-status indicators present, both to impress yourself and BS your supervisor with all the pretty colors), change each text box into a check box, double-check for duplicate controls, and then set the defaults, rules, and equations? Sorry so long-winded, my head's fried at this point in the day. Regardless, please tell me I'm just reinventing the wheel here. But only if you mean it. Thanks!

Sorry, had to get that out of my system. Just wanted to say thanks to you guys for devoting your time and effort--without paid compensation, I assume--to helping people you don't know undo damage from people you likely only know by reputation or coffee breaks. You're like the Superfriends of the Internet, minus Aquaman because his powers are lame and all he does is hang out with a bunch of fish. All facetiousness and joking aside, I say again: Thanks. As soon as my debit card arrives, you can expect a contribution.

A Buddhist walks up to a hot dog stand and says "Make me one with everything."