Aug 8 2009

A Sunny Shabbat

by renee

At this moment, Joy is asleep on my lap, Reayah is quietly reading books, Bennah is out riding his bike, Jaiden and Zach are asleep and Andrew is working on his photos. About an hour ago, Andrew and I we were enjoying the warm sunny day, sitting outside under the awning, drinking coffee and watching everyone play in Shawn and Shelley’s back yard. Reayah was shelling peas, our younger boys were playing in the water and Bennah was reading. I took a sip of my delicious hawaiian hazelnut coffee and looked out at everyone happily entertained and thanked YHWH for Shabbats. To top it all off, a loud choo choo train went by only a few yards away on the tracks that run right behind their house.

Little boys love their trains and fire trucks! Since we’ve been traveling, we’ve seen many trains. Some have even blown their whistle for us as they passed us and probably just happened to glace out and see a blue Suburban with all the windows rolled down, filled with kids grinning widely, hair blowing wild in the wind and waving frantically at them. On one rest stop in Saskatchewan, we stopped for some burgers at A&W.  A beautiful bright train just happened to pull up and stop right in front of the kids. I jokingly said “Maybe they stopped for a bathroom break or a lunch break!” Just then, out stepped 3 conductors. They walked along the tracks and headed straight for us. They graciously waved back at the ecstatic children and walked on to A&W for some lunch! We are constantly trying to teach the kids that everything good thing is a gift from YHWH. The kids love the trains so much, that they have started to thank Him every time they see a train. And why not? He knows the desires of our hearts and wants to give us good things to make us smile. Even if it’s something as common as seeing a train up close and having them blow their whistle just for you.

He has answered our prayers and is constantly blessing us with good gifts. In Oregon, on our way to the coast, I had prayed that Father would help us to eat healthy on the road and help us find good food to eat. Within what seemed like minutes, we saw signs for an indoor farmer’s market with fresh daily picked produce. It was in the middle of nowhere and had a HUGE gravel parking area that was perfect for RVs. I was blown away at how quickly He answered my prayer. From fresh cherries, yellow watermelons, berries, raw honey and green beans, we all enjoyed the wonderful bounty of the local farmers. The little blessings that we all receive everyday are actually a big deal when you consider who gives them and why they are given.

Shelley and Danica are out picking beets for the beet borscht she’s planing to make. I should go out and see if she needs any help.


May 13 2008

Behind Enemy Lines: Document Information Panel Editing in InfoPath

by andrew

[migrated from http://edgedev.blogspot.com]:

This one really had me wrapped around the axle for a bit, and ye ol’ trusty google let me down. Not a single applicable hit when I searched on [“form definition” “for dataObject”] so when I figured it out quite by accident I thought I’d contribute to the googlesphere and maybe help someone else out who might run into this. If anyone does. Ever. Ok, maybe no one else will ever have this happen to them, but it happened to me I promise.

I thought I’d go and customize the Document Information Panel for a Content Type – totally harmless right? Well, InfoPath didn’t seem to think so. And when I tried to attach to the Content Type’s schema as the basis for a new form (or when I tried to customize it straight from the link in the Content Type settings) i got this:

InfoPath cannot open the following form: C:Users[Name]AppDataLocalMicrosoftWindowsTemporary Internet FilesContent.MSO19D946AE.tmpcustomXsn.xsn
The XML schema file specified in the form definition (.xsf) file for dataObject “list_fb2ad403-eb57-43f2-8bee-e7574092cd4d” cannot be used.

Lovely. How informative and useful. It’s obvious from that error what exactly needs fixing. Ok, not really. At first I was at a total loss and decided to go home for the weekend. When I got back I realized that “list_” looked a lot like a list GUID. Since I was in a fairly new dev environment without too much clutter yet, I scanned through my lists and found a match on a list used as the source for 2 of the Look-Up Site Columns in the Content Type for which I was trying to customize the Doc Info Panel. Aha!

Removing both Site Columns from the Content Type and trying again, I was able to launch the schema for the form. Grrr… Hmmm…

So, was there anything weird about those columns? Well, they were look-up columns on a list with the multi-select and unlimited length in documents options checked. But what if I added them back to the content type and tried again?

Adding the first one back and trying again it worked! Alright. Adding the second one … NOPE! Crash and burn. What gives? Well, this must obviously be another stupid Microsoft bug. Incidentally, both look-up columns are based on the same column of the same list. I have a “From” and a “To” column that point to the “Display Name” column a master Names List. But I won’t be able to do both and still customize the Doc Info Panel. Bummer. Unless I can come up with some sort of work around (unlikely). But I’ll update this if I do.

[a few hours later]

Alrighty then. The enemy can be tricked. If you HAVE to be able to do this (like I do) here’s what you do:

  1. change one of the site Columns to point at a different look-up list column than the other one
  2. this will let you open the doc info panel successfully even with both site columns pointing at the same look-up list (albeit at 2 different columns within that list)
  3. in the field properties in infopath, open up the control populated from this look-up list column and change it back to the column you want to pull in
  4. in the Site Column change it back to point at the the right look-up column as well.

Voila! Happy ending. If I hadn’t wasted hours on something that should work anyway.