Community Videos, Tips, & Techniques, Articles.

Friendly reminder, our miniseries on ALL the FileMaker functions continues to grow! Richard Carlton joins us on Day 10 as we dive into each and every function so that you can continue to grow your developer tool set. Future LiveStreams: https://fmtraining.tv/#LIVE [email protected] www.FMTraining.TV www.FMStartingPoint.com www.rcconsulting.com

The mechanics of saving and what “save” actually means can vary throughout the Claris FileMaker Platform. Learn what those differences are so you never lose your work. Future LiveStreams: https://fmtraining.tv/#LIVE [email protected] www.FMTraining.TV www.FMStartingPoint.com www.rcconsulting.com

Recently a few clients run into a problem with using ODBC databases: IM004 [iODBC][Driver Manager]Driver's SQLAllocEnv() failed The ODBC manager (called iODBC) can't load the ODBC driver for the database you like to connect to. By default on macOS we load "/usr/lib/libiodbc.2.dylib" as the ODBC manager, but this library seems to be outdated. For some time now we tried to load various ODBC drivers like Actual Tech's one directly with the plugin by putting it into the connection options for our SQL functions. But loading drivers directly doesn't always work well as the ODBC manager does some text encoding work and translates between older and newer API calls. …

Recently a client asked if we could help on entering addresses. Like to fix typos, lookup zip codes or split addresses into fields like for street name, house number and city. We got an idea and made a new sample file for you to validate address with MapKit. We use the CLGeocoder functions to geocode the address. Once done, we can inspect the result and query the various parts of the response. This includes the thoroughfare (aka street) and the subThoroughfare (house number). We can then fill the fields in our database and get the address from the user parsed. Here is the sample script form our sample file included with MBS FileMaker Plugin in v14.1…

At Claris Engage we got the question about how to print a web viewer in FileMaker. While FileMaker has nothing built-in in that direction, we can provide a solution in our MBS FileMaker Plugin with the WebView.Print function. Print You can add a print button to the layout, assign it a "Set Variable" script step to run and then call MBS( "WebView.Print"; WebViewerRef ) there. For the WebViewerRef parameter you can pass the name of the web viewer and our plugin should find it on the current window. For more difficult cases you can use WebView.FindByName and specify the window with a window reference. It may be useful to tune the website beforehand with some JavaScr…

There has been a lot of talk about the new Apple Vision Pro but what does this mean for FileMaker solutions? Join Christian Schmitz as we dive into VisionOS with the MonkeyBread Plug-in and see for yourself! Future LiveStreams: https://fmtraining.tv/#LIVE [email protected] www.FMTraining.TV www.FMStartingPoint.com www.rcconsulting.com

The Claris FileMaker MonkeyBread Plug-in just released their 14.0 version! Check out this LiveStream recording to learn about all the new functions and capabilities that came with this new release. Future LiveStreams: https://fmtraining.tv/#LIVE [email protected] www.FMTraining.TV www.FMStartingPoint.com www.rcconsulting.com

At Claris Engage we learnt from Wim Decorte that it may be better to disable advanced tools if possible. Quite a few ways to hack a FileMaker solution go by using the debugger to check scripts or data viewer to read or evaluate some things. Advanced tools are great for developers, but normal users may not need these tools. You can use the checkbox in the preferences dialog: Let's go and check via plugin on whether advanced tools are enabled. You may have scripts check for this and or react on the outcome. e.g. if enabled and user is not developer or admin, then disable it automatically for the next launch of FileMaker. Or included the status in some reporting to server…

Did you know Claris has released the Associate-level Certification for Claris FileMaker Server? Join Richard as he discusses the newest categories of certification as well as the various levels for each. Future LiveStreams: https://fmtraining.tv/#LIVE [email protected] www.FMTraining.TV www.FMStartingPoint.com www.rcconsulting.com

Here is a list of which FileMaker version includes which CURL version: FileMaker version CURL Version 11.0.4 7.19.4 12.0.5 7.21.6 13.0.9 7.21.6 14.0.4 7.38.0 15.0.3 7.44.0 16.0.4 7.51.0 17.0.3 7.58.0 18.0.3 7.62.0 19.0.1 7.62.0 19.1.3 7.62.0 19.2.1 7.62.0 19.3.1 7.62.0 19.…

Claris Engage 2024 has officially come to an end! If you missed out this year, or just need a quick recap, join Richard and Garrett Debski as they discuss their takeaways from the opening Claris Keynote! Future LiveStreams: https://fmtraining.tv/#LIVE [email protected] www.FMTraining.TV www.FMStartingPoint.com www.rcconsulting.com

When a client asks you whether you can do something in FileMaker, please don't just check FileMaker documentation, but also check if MBS FileMaker Plugin has something for you. Over the past 18 years we got a lot of requests and consequently added a lot of functionality to our plugin. Let's show you a few examples: Switch printers While FileMaker has a printer setup script step, you may prefer to use our plugin to switch printers and set various options like which tray to use or whether to print color or b&w. Our plugin has functions to control the printer on macOS and Windows and allows you to automatically lookup the best printer in the database for each wo…

"Show the world you’re expanding your tech skills." Claris has released a new line of Claris FileMaker Pro certifications and Richard is here to discuss what you should expect on your road to becoming Certified. Future LiveStreams: https://fmtraining.tv/#LIVE [email protected] www.FMTraining.TV www.FMStartingPoint.com www.rcconsulting.com

Presenting a miniseries on ALL the FileMaker functions! We're diving into each and every function so that you can continue to grow your developer tool set. We kick off Day 1 with "Char (number)" and "Code (text)". Future LiveStreams: https://fmtraining.tv/#LIVE [email protected] www.FMTraining.TV www.FMStartingPoint.com www.rcconsulting.com

The MonkeyBread Claris FileMaker Plug-in never stops adding amazing new features. Join Christian Schmitz as he dives into his new Phidget integration with Claris FileMaker! Future LiveStreams: https://fmtraining.tv/#LIVE [email protected] www.FMTraining.TV www.FMStartingPoint.com www.rcconsulting.com

Check out the FMTraining.tv website. Richard Carlton and his team do a daily free live stream about FileMaker to watch. A few days ago Christian Schmitz from Monkeybread Software joined a live episode to talk a bit about the MBS FileMaker Plugin. Watch it on YouTube. Let's take the FileMaker iOS SDK to make an application for iPhone first. Basically we follow these instructions from Claris. Then we run it in the Vision OS simulator. We explore what visionOS offers and even integrate the MBS FileMaker Plugin. Finally we build an iOS app to run on macOS. More videos Making FileMaker Apps for the Apple VisionOS (With MBS) The Claris …

Looking forward to the Claris Engage conference in Austin, Texas we got the idea to make a bingo game for things mentioned in the keynote. Get your own random bingo card here: monkeybreadsoftware.com/filemaker/bingo/ Here is a sample one: Claris Apple Cloud New File Format FileMaker Go FileMaker Platform Android FileMaker Server Large Language Modell Freemium Claris Connect FileMaker Claris Platform Dynamic Record Height FileMaker Pro FileMaker …

Check out the FMTraining.tv website. Richard Carlton and his team do a daily free live stream about FileMaker to watch. A few days ago Christian Schmitz from Monkeybread Software joined a live episode to talk a bit about the MBS FileMaker Plugin. Watch it on YouTube. We talk about the new version 14.0 of MBS Plugin. See announcements on the blog, the look on the details and the new functions in documentation. We talk about CURL, DynaPDF, JSON, Math, List, Phidget and other functions. More videos The Claris FileMaker MonkeyBread Plug-in 14.0 Release FileMaker MBS Plug-in and more Phidgets Changing Image Formats in Containers …

Did you know you can have attachments within a PDF document? Yes, PDF documents can embed files, including other PDF documents. This allows to bundle various files with a PDF document just like attachments on emails. Or you can merge other PDF documents into a PDF and make them accessible via menu in Acrobat Reader or with buttons or clickable areas. Let's start with loading an existing PDF from a container into the DynaPDF workspace: # Clear current PDF document Set Variable [ $pdf ; Value: MBS("DynaPDF.New") ] # Load PDF from container Set Variable [ $r ; Value: MBS("DynaPDF.OpenPDFFromContainer"; $pdf; PDF File::Input PDF) ] # …

Learn how to optimize your FileMaker solution from the "Mad Optimizer" himself, HOnza! We'll be diving into 24U's first performance optimization case study that started it all. Future LiveStreams: https://fmtraining.tv/#LIVE [email protected] www.FMTraining.TV www.FMStartingPoint.com www.rcconsulting.com

Welcome to Nick Hunter's miniseries on everything Custom Functions! Over the next 3 days, we will go over: what a custom function is, how to build your own and best practices to avoid nightmares. Future LiveStreams: https://fmtraining.tv/#LIVE [email protected] www.FMTraining.TV www.FMStartingPoint.com www.rcconsulting.com

Since HOnza posted about his Initiative ’24 about making FileMaker calculations quicker, I spend some time thinking on how to do this practically. Like what could be optimized if Claris puts work into their calculation engine. And I got some ideas: Math seems to be a problem sometimes. Have a flag internal for number values on whether they are 32-bit integers. If math functions are invoked and the flag is set for both values, perform integer math directly with normal C math instructions and skip the precision math library. E.g. the normal "j = j + 1 " in a loop doesn't need to do precision math. Cache parsed calculations. Evaluate() taking a text parse…

Does your FileMaker made solution run on macOS (or iOS) and shows some text? Whether you show some emails, text messages or content from the web, we may have something for you: How about adding an action button with a contextual menu to offer various actions for the text? Using the RegEx.DataDetector function from our MBS FileMaker Plugin, you can analyze text using Apple's frameworks. You get a JSON array of results for the found details, which can include: URLs Email addresses Phone numbers Addresses Transit Information Dates We can process the found information and offer action commands. This may include copying t…

Check out the FMTraining.tv website. Richard Carlton and his team do a daily free live stream about FileMaker to watch. A few days ago Christian Schmitz from Monkeybread Software joined a live episode to talk a bit about the MBS FileMaker Plugin. Watch it on YouTube. We check the new Phidget functions in MBS FileMaker Plugin and various Phidget devices we go to try: Slider, Temperature sensor, Barometer sensor for air pressure, Joystick with button, distant sensor, motion sensors, and IR receiver. And we talk about other available sensors like RFID readers. More videos FileMaker MBS Plug-in and more Phidgets Changing Image Formats…

If you have a question, comment or otherwise like to say Hello, please meet me at Claris Engage in Austin, 6th to 8th February 2024 in Austin, Texas. We should have time for appointments as usual with the conferences. Please contact us if you like to meet-up. Closer to the conference we may look for a time. But there are plenty of possibilities before/after the conference or in lunch breaks. We are sorry to report that we didn't get a booth this year, but of course we hope for another conference in 2025 to take a chance on getting a booth again. If you like to know what is new in MBS Plugin in 2023/2024, you can watch the EngageU conference video here. …

Nick Hunter is back with some more tricks - parsing script parameters using records. Future LiveStreams: https://fmtraining.tv/#LIVE [email protected] www.FMTraining.TV www.FMStartingPoint.com www.rcconsulting.com

In this article we want to introduce you the new functions from the MBS FileMaker Plugin in version 14.0. DynaPDF Let's start with DynaPDF. DynaPDF has received new parser functions. With these functions you can search for text on a PDF page and then delete or replace it. For example, if you already have an imported page, you can create a parser object with DynaPDF.Parser.Create. With the function DynaPDF.Parser.SetAltFont we can then set an alternative font. With DynaPDF.Parser.ParsePage we parse a page and store the page contents in an objects internally. Now we can call various functions, e.g. to find the text. With DynaPDF.Parser.FindText we can search …

Nick Hunter explores handling script errors using records instead of using the Exit Script step. Future LiveStreams: https://fmtraining.tv/#LIVE [email protected] www.FMTraining.TV www.FMStartingPoint.com www.rcconsulting.com

With MBS FileMaker Plugin 14.0 we include the DynaPDF Parser functions. These functions provides a top-level interface on the parser in DynaPDF. You can do various operation using them: Parse a page Find text on the page. Extract text on the page Delete text within a rectangle. Query coordinates for found text. Replace found text with new text. Set alternative font for new text. Finally write changes back to page. The combination of these allows for a lot of things. Like finding text on a page and replacing it with new text for a little PDF editor. Or to find text and then: Draw rectangles around the found te…

Check out the FileMaker Magazine website. Matt Petrowsky provides a huge collection of training videos around FileMaker. And recently he started a series of videos about our MBS Plugin: Watch it on YouTube and subscribe to his channel. Matt shows what cool things he built with our MapView functions. We never thought about overlaying the map view, but this is perfectly possible. More videos from Matt about MBS Plugin in this playlist.

Having trouble with Windows being able to read iPhone's HEIC file format in containers? Join us as we discuss changing image formats in containers using the MBS FileMaker Plug-in. Future LiveStreams: https://fmtraining.tv/#LIVE [email protected] www.FMTraining.TV www.FMStartingPoint.com www.rcconsulting.com

We're always here to give you the must-knows on all the latest Claris FileMaker updates. Join us as we cover the new loop caching feature in FileMaker 20.3 and its ramifications! Future LiveStreams: https://fmtraining.tv/#LIVE [email protected] www.FMTraining.TV www.FMStartingPoint.com www.rcconsulting.com

It's great that FileMaker lets you do things your way. However, that also means there are best practices to make your database the best it can be. Join us as we cover these coding standards and calc syntax. Future LiveStreams: https://fmtraining.tv/#LIVE [email protected] www.FMTraining.TV www.FMStartingPoint.com www.rcconsulting.com

We got various cases where it would be useful to have a way to check the content of a file in FileMaker. Whether the file comes as hex or base64 encoded string, a container value or a file on disk. Why would be need this? Well, let's think about a few cases: You got a file without file extension and you need to know what it is. You got a JPEG, which actually is a PNG or HEIF image. Some user wanted to edit an image before uploading. They dropped it into a word document and later renamed it to have the extension to be imported. You like to check if an attachment is an executable as you like to prevent passing on malware. To solve thes…

If the first 20 FREE functions from the MonkeyBread Plug-ins weren't enough, we're back with another 20 FREE functions! Join us to learn how to improve your FileMaker development experience. Future LiveStreams: https://fmtraining.tv/#LIVE [email protected] www.FMTraining.TV www.FMStartingPoint.com www.rcconsulting.com

Depending on how many licenses you need, you should be aware of a few license options from Claris. Like when you have 24 users, always order 25 since that is cheaper due to the tiers. And consider the site license as it may be cheaper. But lets go into details: One license One license is $594 USD on the Claris website. That is $16.50 for one seat paid for 3 years. Alternatively get the FMTraining Bundle including a FileMaker user license. The video courses are $199 alone and $399 USD with a FileMaker user license, so you can develop while watching the videos. Or get Claris FileMaker Developer Subscription for $99/year, which includes licenses for up to 3 Fi…

Have you seen our list of goodies in MBS FileMaker Plugin? Since we started this in 2012 (read about the story), we got a lot of improvements for FileMaker's user interface to benefit the developers using it. Earlier in 2023 a client asked if there is a list to describe them all, since the information was split over various blog entries, an outdated list of 20 goodies and a lot of details hidden in our documentation. We collected all the bits and pieces and added them to a comprehensive list. You find a list of all shortcuts here where we explain search shortcuts. Recently we even showed them off in the live stream at RCC's fmtraining.tv. …

Check out the FMTraining.tv website. Richard Carlton and his team do a daily free live stream about FileMaker to watch. A few days ago Christian Schmitz from Monkeybread Software joined a live episode to talk a bit about the MBS FileMaker Plugin. Watch it on YouTube. We check out the image functions in MBS FileMaker Plugin like Container.ReadImage and Container.ReadImageFile to convert HEIC/HEIF images to PNG, then use GraphicsMagick functions to check if we can read it. And we came up with the idea of Container.IdentifyData to tell you what really is a container. Sometimes you have an image declared to be JPEG, but really is a PNG, a HEIF or even a word …

We've all heard of ice cream on an apple pie but what about FileMaker Server on Raspberry Pi? HOnza is here to see exactly how small you can make your FileMaker Server. Future LiveStreams: https://fmtraining.tv/#LIVE [email protected] www.FMTraining.TV www.FMStartingPoint.com www.rcconsulting.com

For some years we have our CLibrary and CFunction functions in our MBS FileMaker Plugin. They can be used to load a library file, dylib on macOS, DLL on Windows and so on Linux. Then you can inspect the library for offered functions and load one. You need to have the declarations for C to know what parameters and return types are used. But once you translate them to our plugin's notation, you can load the function and call it. Our first example is the version function from SQLite: const char *sqlite3_libversion(void); The return value is a C string, so from our documentation we pick Z as notation for this data type. No parameters are g…

In this 3 Day LiveStream Miniseries, we'll be discussing the what, when, where and why of Auto Enter Calculations and Lookup! Learn the key differences between the two as well as Real-World situations. Future LiveStreams: https://fmtraining.tv/#LIVE [email protected] www.FMTraining.TV www.FMStartingPoint.com www.rcconsulting.com

When you make a custom WebViewer with MBS FileMaker Plugin, you may miss the callbacks with FileMaker.PerformScript there. But we got a way to get them into our WebViewer, too. Let us explain: First we create a custom WebViewer using WebView.CreateWithControl function. Passing zero here for the current window and the name of the control for the placeholder on the layout. Then we request WebKit 2 version (macOS only!), so we can use message handlers later. Set Variable [ $$web ; Value: MBS("WebView.CreateWithControl"; 0; "placeholder"; 2) ] Next we install the message handler to receive the script trigger. We use FileMaker as name…

On your marks, get set, go! Join Jonathan Ray as he demonstrates how to use ChatGPT and Highcharts to get your FileMaker charts at the speed of AI. Future LiveStreams: https://fmtraining.tv/#LIVE [email protected] www.FMTraining.TV www.FMStartingPoint.com www.rcconsulting.com

We recently talked to a client about sending log messages out in background. You know a normal script would block the interface and we really prefer to have the user not notice it, even when the network hangs. By using CURL.PerformInBackground function, we can send the log in the background without to another server and receive it there. Whether this is your own php or python script, or you decide to pass it to the FileMaker data API or one of the AWS services doesn't matter. Just include the credentials to use with the request. And with CURL.PerformInBackground function, the transfer will happen even if FileMaker shows a dialog, performs another script or is busy for a f…

Check out the FMTraining.tv website. Richard Carlton and his team do a daily free live stream about FileMaker to watch. A few days ago Christian Schmitz from Monkeybread Software joined a live episode to talk a bit about the MBS FileMaker Plugin. Watch it on YouTube. We check out the second 20 free goodies in MBS FileMaker Plugin around syntax coloring. More videos Another 20 Free FileMaker MBS Functions to Change Your Development - Part 2 20 Free FileMaker MBS Functions to Change Your Development FileMaker Monkeybread Plug-in Open Q&A FileMaker Monkeybread Plug-in Update 13.5 FileMaker Monkeybread Plug-in Up…

What if we told you there was a way to improve your FileMaker development experience for FREE? Join us as we cover 20 free functions from the MonkeyBread Plug-in! Future LiveStreams: https://fmtraining.tv/#LIVE [email protected] www.FMTraining.TV www.FMStartingPoint.com www.rcconsulting.com

If your New Year's resolution was to learn how to set, use and transfer variables - we have the perfect LiveStream for you. Join us on this 3 day miniseries as we dive into the world of variables. Future LiveStreams: https://fmtraining.tv/#LIVE [email protected] www.FMTraining.TV www.FMStartingPoint.com www.rcconsulting.com

There is a Spanish FileMaker conference coming up end of March 2024: MBS sponsors the event and I will be there to show off some MBS Functionality and answer questions.

Welcome back to another great year of learning about The Claris FileMaker Platform! To kick us off, we have Christian Schmitz from MonkeyBread Software answering questions in this recorded LiveStream. Future LiveStreams: https://fmtraining.tv/#LIVE [email protected] www.FMTraining.TV www.FMStartingPoint.com www.rcconsulting.com

Have you seen all the entries for this year's advent calendar? 24 articles to highlight various MBS Plugin features: Barcodes Vision BinaryFile Speech WindowsOCR MongoDB Paths CoreLocation IBAN Phidgets WindowsLocation Files XL Progress Dialog DynaPDF GraphicsMagick Dialog Preview RegEx MapView SendMail ListDialog MailParser Goodies You can download the example file here: Advent2023.fmp12. Check also the advent calendar from last year: Load images Check image size Write To File Add…

Door 1 - Barcodes Fact of the day Did you know that you can generate over 80 different barcode types with MBS? Welcome to the first door of our advent calendar. In this advent calendar I will introduce you to various components of the MBS FileMaker Plugin and show you how to use them. Today it's all about barcodes. Did you know that you can create over 80 different barcode types with the MBS FileMaker Plugin? How this works I will show you today in a project in which we create a WIFI QR code. If your guests get bored over the Christmas period, they can simply scan this QR code with their smartphone to gain ac…

As you may know, we have search functions for FileMaker, built into our MBS FileMaker Plugin for a few years and they work great on macOS. But clients using Windows asked for a similar thing. We got some search functions for Windows to show you today: With our new Search Script example file you can use a hotkey to start the search. Once you press the hotkey, we copy the script steps and put them into our search window so you can perform a search there. You may keep the search database open in your FileMaker environment, e.g. on the side of the screen. When our Search Scripts file opens, it registers the hotkey and unregisters it when closing. Once you are …

The MonkeyBread FileMaker Plugin has a new 13.5 release and who better than Christian Schmitz to talk about all the great new features! Future LiveStreams: https://fmtraining.tv/#LIVE [email protected] www.FMTraining.TV www.FMStartingPoint.com www.rcconsulting.com

Interactive containers in FileMaker are a great way to play videos in the FileMaker user interface. Whether you actually run a movie database or you use them for animations, they are implemented using web viewers. That means we can use our WebView.Evaluate function here from MBS FileMaker Plugin. We got a little database file to try various calculations directly in FileMaker on macOS and Windows: FileMaker uses a video tag in html, so we can find this element with the expression "document.getElementsByTagName('video')[0]" in JavaScript. You'll see it below a lot. It simply asks the document for the elements with tag names "video" and picks the first one. T…

You may know how to download a file with either our CURL functions or Insert From URL in FileMaker. But have you ever tried to download multiple files in parallel? Let us show you three variants. First using FileMaker's Insert from URL, then CURL sequential and finally CURL parallel. The FileMaker one may quite common, but you can speed up your processing with parallel requests and run a lot of them at the same time. Let's say you have a job to download 4 files together and you like to do it faster. This can of course also be changed to do multiple uploads and of course you could use index variables and loops to code it for a variable number of requests. …

Object Hidden States can have some performance hits on your FileMaker Solution. Join us as we discuss how to avoid this and other great Hidden States tips and tricks! Future LiveStreams: https://fmtraining.tv/#LIVE [email protected] www.FMTraining.TV www.FMStartingPoint.com www.rcconsulting.com

Let's create a more complex example for JSON.Search function in MBS FileMaker Plugin by combining various JMESPath features. Consider the following JSON data representing a list of students and their courses: { "students": [ { "name": "Alice", "age": 21, "courses": [ { "title": "Math", "grade": 90 }, { "title": "Physics", "grade": 85 } ] }, { "name": "Bob", "age": 22, "courses": [ { "title": "Math", "grade": 78 }, { "title": "History", "grade": 92 } ] }, { "name": "Charlie", "age": 20, "courses": [ { "title": "Physics", "grade": 88 …

We recently had a client with a problem exporting data in a server side script. Since server scripts run blindly and we can't debug them, we check FileMaker's logs, enable script error logging and add calls for MBS("Trace") and MBS("Log"; ...) calls to log data to the log file from our MBS FileMaker Plugin. We quickly noticed that the Export Records script step failed with error 3, which is command unavailable. After that I quickly looked though FileMaker's documentation and identified functions with limited Data API support: Function Data API Server Close Data File No Yes …

In case you missed the Claris FileMaker 20.3 release, Richard and Jacob are here to cover all the new features and bug fixes! Future LiveStreams: https://fmtraining.tv/#LIVE [email protected] www.FMTraining.TV www.FMStartingPoint.com www.rcconsulting.com

Check out the FMTraining.tv website. Richard Carlton and his team do a daily free live stream about FileMaker to watch. A few days ago Christian Schmitz from Monkeybread Software joined a live episode to talk a bit about the MBS FileMaker Plugin. Watch it on YouTube. We looked on a few new things in development for the next version. In the Q&A session we got interesting questions: Around syntax coloring New list functions like List.Shuffle Our oAuth example for Office 365 SVG conversion Using CURL functions with OnWindowTransaction to send audit log to your server in the background. see blog articlea Find and repl…

The Claris FileMaker 20.3 update is out and HOnza is here with a performance test to tell us exactly how amazing it is! Future LiveStreams: https://fmtraining.tv/#LIVE [email protected] www.FMTraining.TV www.FMStartingPoint.com www.rcconsulting.com

Let us show you the built-in functions in JSON Query and how to use them in FileMaker with MBS FileMaker Plugin. abs Returns the absolute value of a number. Run abs() on a value in an array: MBS( "JSON.Query"; "[-3]"; "abs($[0])") [ 3 ] Or find all values with an absolute value > 3, so we remove small values from the array: MBS( "JSON.Query"; "[-3, 5, -6, 1]"; "$[?abs(@)> 3]") [ 5, -6 ] avg Returns the average of the items in an array of numbers. Average up an array: MBS( "JSON.Query"; "[…

Jake Scheele is back with a new technique to display a horizontal portal or grid of related records in FileMaker. He also shares a FREE unlocked sample file for you to try! Future LiveStreams: https://fmtraining.tv/#LIVE Sample File: https://bit.ly/DynamicHomeScreenGrid [email protected] www.FMTraining.TV www.FMStartingPoint.com www.rcconsulting.com

EMERGENCY ALERT: Are there Low Yield Nukes in your FileMaker Database? Learn about certain actions that could result in your data being destroyed or missing and how to avoid these! Future LiveStreams: https://fmtraining.tv/#LIVE [email protected] www.FMTraining.TV www.FMStartingPoint.com www.rcconsulting.com

Data modeling can be one of the most confusing concepts to understand in FileMaker. Don't worry, we're here with 5 Days of TOGs, Relationships and Tables to help you conquer this topic! Future LiveStreams: https://fmtraining.tv/#LIVE [email protected] www.FMTraining.TV www.FMStartingPoint.com www.rcconsulting.com

When we saw the new OnWindowTransaction, we got the idea to pass the JSON we receive to a web server to log the changes outside the FileMaker database. We had a similar thing with using MongoDB functions in a recent blog post: OnWindowTransaction and MongoDB. By storing the JSON outside, we can do the audit log on a different server. Whether you pass the JSON to another FileMaker Pro via our WebHook functions, a PHP script on your web server or directly send it to AWS to put in a database. From the point of view of MBS FileMaker Plugin we just use the CURL functions. And there we have the CURL.PerformInBackground function to perform a HTTP Post in the backgrou…

Get Functions are super useful for returning information that changes on a regular basis, but how do you know which ones to use? Join us as we navigate the most commonly used FileMaker Get Functions. Future LiveStreams: https://fmtraining.tv/#LIVE [email protected] www.FMTraining.TV www.FMStartingPoint.com www.rcconsulting.com

In case you missed it, here is the latest on the 13.4 update from the FileMaker Monkeybread Plug-in! Christian Schmitz joins us to go over all the amazing new features. Future LiveStreams: https://fmtraining.tv/#LIVE [email protected] www.FMTraining.TV www.FMStartingPoint.com www.rcconsulting.com

In this article we want to introduce you the new functions from the MBS FileMaker Plugin in version 13.5. ListDialog A very cool new feature is in the ListDialog Component. Because we now have checkboxes for the list dialog. These can be displayed using the ListDialog.SetShowCheckboxes function. You can now check boxes either manually or by script. If you want to check the boxes by script, use the ListDialog.SetCheckedfunction. Here you enter the list index of the row you want to check followed by the value. 1 for check and 0 for do not check. You can use the ListDialog.GetCheckedfunction to determine whether a field in a particular row is checked or not. To do t…

You've made your first FileMaker Solution and would like to make it cleaner and sharper. Nick Hunter is here to help with just that. Join us as we dive into themes and styles at a beginner's level! Future LiveStreams: https://fmtraining.tv/#LIVE [email protected] www.FMTraining.TV www.FMStartingPoint.com www.rcconsulting.com

Let us show you today the various data structures we have in MBS FileMaker Plugin and how to use them. QuickList Dictionary Matrix JSON References SQL Result In general you can keep huge amounts of data in memory to query them anywhere with a quick lookup in one of the data structures. Such a lookup may avoid needing extra relationships and can be faster than a database lookup. List Normally in FileMaker you may have a variable containing a list of values. You append something with a calculation like this: Set Variable [ $list; $list & $value & ¶ ] When you pass it around, you pass the whole list and e…

Check out the FMTraining.tv website. Richard Carlton and his team do a daily free live stream about FileMaker to watch. A few days ago Christian Schmitz from Monkeybread Software joined a live episode to talk a bit about the MBS FileMaker Plugin. Watch it on YouTube. We talk about the new MBS FileMaker Plugin 13.4 release: Announcement, release notes, new functions and download FileMaker Monkeybread Plug-in Update 13.4 FileMaker Monkeybread Plug-in Update 13.3 PDF Forms with Submit button for Adobe Reader using the FileMaker MonkeyBread Plug-in Debugging your FileMaker Servers with the MonkeyBread Plug-in Digital Docu…

When you enter a MBS function in a calculation on macOS, we show MBS in blue. The function name entered behind it as parameter turns blue if the function is known to the plugin. It will show in red while the function name is not correct. When you type something and you see it in red, then check for typos. As you see we check both parts of the function independently. If the whole name is mistyped, it is all red. If one part is right, we show that part as blue. It can happen that you get two parts correct, but not the whole function and then the quotes and dot are red only. This feature is always on if you have calculation coloring turned on via preferences …

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We got a new format button labeled with "ƒ" for the calculation dialog in FileMaker on macOS. We parse the formula, detect which brackets belong together and then output the formula with additional whitespacing. Let's start with a formula we found in our documentation: You see the calculation has some spaces before and after the equal signs, but not much indention. Pressing the ƒ button on the bottom right toolbar, we get this output currently: As you see we indent, add whitespace around operators and break up lines based on their length to show parameters. This is the first version and we have some rules on this, but may fine t…

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Did you know, that we have an example with snippets for writing scripts and makes them available in Script Workspace to insert via a hotkey? Included with MBS FileMaker Plugin. Please check the Snippets for Windows.fmp12 file. Beside it being for Windows, it can also work on MacOS if needed. So you may use it and then call the "Install Picker Dialog" script in your solution to install it, if you sign-in as developer. The database stores the snippets. If you click the export button, it writes the snippets to a folder. Then later when you hit the hotkey, we show a dialog and list all the snippets in that folder for you to pick one. Once picked, we insert…

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The presentation about MBS Plugin for EngageU conference. All movies Watch on YouTube. MBS2023.mp4 MBS2023.pdf

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Did you know that MongoDB has a watch feature (change stream) to see what happens in the database? You can watch a client (your connection) with MongoDB.WatchClient, a database with MongoDB.WatchDatabase or just a collection with MongoDB.WatchCollection function. Once watch is active, you can query MongoDB.NextChange regularly and see if you get a JSON with a new change. In our example database, we run a schedule to look for new changes every 5 seconds and this shows the change as new record in our example. You can use this feature for various purposes, including: Real-time Data Synchronization: You can use watch feature to keep data in syn…

This may change how you write scripts. Your longer scripts may now have an index on top with goto: URLs jumping to specific lines. The goto:start and goto:end links may help to jump to start or end of the script. And script: links may jump to a different script. Let's start with script links. You put in the script name after the script: prefix. The plugin will read the name, decode percent escaped sequences and looks for a script in same file with the given name to show it. If you have special characters in the script name, please use GetAsURLEncoded() function in FileMaker to get the URL encoded properly, e.g. with %20 for spaces. This may look like this in t…

As you may know we have a variable check for FileMaker script workspace for macOS in MBS FileMaker Plugin. This works fine for most scripts, but you may need to know a few pitfalls. Since the plugin reads what is in the script workspace window and FileMaker truncates long lines, it will not catch a variable mistyped in a very long line. When we read a calculation like this one: Let([ // define some variables $varDefined = 1; $secondVarDefined = 2]; $varDefined) The plugin sees it as Let([ // define some variables $varDefined = 1; $secondVarDefined = 2]; $varDefined) We don't get line breaks, so we have no idea where the comment ends and thus we can't find …

Today we have a tip for you without using MBS FileMaker Plugin and in pure FileMaker. Let's say you like to query current records in your found set as JSON, how would you do this? First you need the list of the primary keys and we like to use a While() for this. For older FileMaker versions, you could use FM.Loop instead. The loop goes over found set and just queries primary key fields for all records in found set: While ( [ liste = ""; i = 0 ] ; i < Get(FoundCount) ; [ i = i + 1; liste = GetNthRecord ( FileMaker Ideas::PrimaryKey ; i ) & "¶" & liste ] ; liste ) We could store this in $Keys and then continue with building the reques…

As you may know, you can show a list dialog with MBS FileMaker Plugin by using our ListDialog functions. For next version 13.5 we add new functions for having checkboxes in the list. Screenshot from macOS: The list dialog can now operate in multiple modes: Like the simplest version would be to just show a list, the user double clicks an item and the dialog closes (or pick one and clicks select button). Other way would be to allow multiple selection (see ListDialog.SetAllowMultipleSelection) and then pick a few items from a list and click select button. If needed, the user may first use the filter to narrow selection. You can't ju…

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JMESPath (pronounced "jay-mess-path") is a query language and a specification for searching and extracting data from JSON documents. It provides a way to perform complex queries and transformations on JSON data, making it easier to work with structured data within JSON objects. JMESPath is similar in concept to other query languages like SQL for databases or XPath for XML documents, but it's specifically designed for JSON. We add JMESPath to our MBS FileMaker Plugin for the upcoming version 13.5 with the JSON.Search function. You may use this function to find things and then also check JSON.Replace to replace values you selected with an expression. Here ar…

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Did you know the MBS FileMaker Plugin can run on all FileMaker versions from 7 to 20.2.1? As of today the current 32-bit Windows version can load in ancient FileMaker Pro 7. We don't expect clients to use that, but from time to time, a client asks about an older FileMaker version. We highly recommend to upgrade to a more recent version. As of today, we have about 21% of users with FileMaker 20.x, about 72% on some 19.x version and just about 6% on older versions. For macOS we support currently macOS 10.13 and newer in FileMaker 14 and newer. If you need plugins folder older macOS versions or 32-bit FileMaker Pro, please let us know. For Windows we support curre…

Did you know you can run CURL commands in background with MBS FileMaker Plugin? Let's start with a simple Insert From URL script like the following one. $url has the URL to query and $json the data to send to whatever web API you like to query. The headers include authentication and content types. Nothing special. The query runs and stores result in $$result and a log into $$debug. Here is the script: Set Variable [ $options ; Value: "-X POST --header \"Authorization: Basic <<API KEY>>\" --header \"Content-Type: application/json\" --header \"Accept: application/json\" --trace $$debug --data @$json " ] Insert from URL [ Select ; With dialog: Off…

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A recording of Stefanie's presentation for Rome FileMaker Week 2023 to talk about what is new in MBS Plugin for Claris FileMaker. All movies Watch on YouTube. MBS-RomeFileMakerWeek-2023.mp4 MBS-RomeFileMakerWeek-2023.pdf

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Recently we got a request for JSONPath queries in FileMaker, so we looked into various ways on how to implement this. We found a way and got three new functions for you: MBS( "JSON.Query"; json; query; flags ) MBS( "JSON.Search"; json; path ) MBS( "JSON.Replace"; json; path; ReplaceJSON ) Please try them, e.g. run a query against them. Let us take this html: { "store": { "book": [ { "category": "reference", "author": "Nigel Rees", "title": "Sayings of the Century", "price": 8.95 }, { "category": "fiction", "author": "Evelyn Waugh", "title": "Sword of Honour", "pr…

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