Managing the use of form styles

You can store style libraries on the network to make them readily available to all InfoMaker users. You do this with a shared initialization file on a network: you place an InfoMaker initialization file that references the shared style libraries out on the network, then set up InfoMaker users so that they can access the initialization file.

StepsTo make style libraries available throughout your organization:

  1. Place the style libraries on the network in a directory accessible to InfoMaker users.

  2. Open InfoMaker, go to the Library painter, and make sure all style libraries are listed in the search path.

  3. Close InfoMaker.

  4. Copy your InfoMaker initialization file to a directory on the network that is accessible to all InfoMaker users.

    This is the shared initialization file. It records all the style libraries in the StyleLib variable in the [Application] section.

  5. Set up InfoMaker users so that they can access the shared initialization file.

    Each InfoMaker user needs to specify the location of the shared initialization file in InfoMaker.

    For more information, see “Specifying the location of the shared InfoMaker initialization file in InfoMaker”.

Specifying the location of the shared InfoMaker initialization file in InfoMaker

Once the shared initialization file has been defined in a user’s InfoMaker initialization file, the user’s style library search path consists of the style libraries defined in the user’s local InfoMaker initialization file plus all style libraries defined in the shared initialization file. When the user creates a new form, the form styles defined in all the style libraries display in the New Form dialog box.

Each InfoMaker user needs to tell InfoMaker where to find the shared initialization file.

StepsTo specify the location of a shared InfoMaker initialization file:

  1. Select Tools>System Options from the InfoMaker menu bar.

  2. On the General property page, enter the path for the shared InfoMaker initialization file.

  3. Click OK.

    InfoMaker saves the path for InfoMaker initialization in the registry.

Preventing the use of built-in styles

You might not want the built-in form styles to be available to InfoMaker users. That is, you might want all forms to be based on one of your organization’s user-defined styles. You can ensure this by suppressing the display of the built-in styles in the New Form dialog box.

StepsTo suppress the display of built-in styles:

  1. Set up a shared initialization file on the network as described in the preceding section.

  2. Add this line to the [Window] section of the shared initialization file:

    ShowStandardStyles = 0
    

With this line specified in the shared initialization file, users can choose only from user-defined form styles when creating a new form. (Note that a ShowStandardStyles line in a user’s local InfoMaker initialization file is ignored by InfoMaker.)