Tom Townsend

Fenton & Wim, Fenton, Ya just blew my mind... Guys, I have this program that I developed over the last 10+ years to run a automotive shop and have become agressive in marketing it as its starting to sell now that I have it in PC format too. I Also have AutoMaker up on Download com and Tucows. I love the power of FilemakerPro and the ability it has allowed. I desire to have it intergrated with parts supplies to better the program and open up new markets. I need some serious help here to understand if its possible with this incredible engine. Here is a Link to what Im up aginst. http://www.worldpac.com/wcap/ I would be glad to share in the proceeds if I can make it possible.

Im trying to only IMPORT the mentioned data that shows up in the XML'er window.

Fenton, The format you Posted is exactly what it looks like. When I tried to paste it in my help request ... The results were just the data. So if its XML ... what are the basics I need to get at it?

I need some insight in the nature of XML and FMP. Objective: Is to import data into FMP from a ...not sure what ya would call it. I have a parts supplier that I can use their supplied program that goes out onto the web and connects with a catalog that I search the part im looking for. This function is not http in a browser, it is through their program. In normal function when I find what I want ... I click the ORDER button and they send it. The parts company supplied a SDK for software intagration and in the nature of playing with it, the ORDER button turns into EXPORT button. I click it and a window named XML'er opens up with the data i NEED! It looks like this: ?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"? !DOCTYPE ProductQuote SYSTEM 'http://www.worldpac.com/wcap/ProductQuote.dtd' ?xp Request=2? ProductQuote ProductID>0 130 303 209 BOS CategoryID>G5000 ProductDesc>Auxiliary Fan Assembly OrderByTime>2004/12/20+03:00:00+-0800 DispatchTime>2004/12/20+03:15:00+-0800 QuantityAvail>1 QuantityReq>1 Price>263.33 ListPrice>451.00 CorePrice>0.00 Weight>5.20 Quality> /ProductQuote ?xp /? WoW ...I pasted the above with the brackets "greater than and less than" that start and end each line and it stripped out everything except the data. What I get in the window is each piece of info is on a seperate line enclosed in the mentioned brackets. Guidance Request = Any way to get at this and import what I need? When I shutdown the parts suppliers program, the window with the data stays there, but the data goes away. I would appreciate any insight on the nature of things here and how to deal with it OR a point in the right direction. Thanks

AutoMaker is a Automotive Shop / Garage management system developed in 1992 and refined in a real world working enviorment. AutoMaker is also loaded with sample data for Estimates and Inventory for a Saab repair shop. It also contains data for Mercedes diesels up to 1985. AutoMaker is for Mac or Windows http://www.townsendimports.com/Automaker%20Files/automaker_intro.htm

I just had a potential customer have the same problem with a bound Demo. I hope someday we all use Macs or Filemaker Support ...Please Help

Fuge, I can print to just about anything with the beauty of applescript and the Mac OS. Here is a sample of a simple script I use to print to Gif. You could probably use the basic code and use any applescript savey graphics program. In this case I use the customers name to name the image. Good luck tell application "Finder" activate select file "GIFConverter alias" open selection end tell tell application "GIFConverter" activate make at beginning new graphic document paste save graphic document "untitled" in file "HD1:Desktop Folder:untitled.gif" as GIF with preferences {GIF87aMode:true, GIFGlobalMap:true, GIFInterlace:true} end tell tell application "FileMaker Pro" activate set Customer_Name to cell "Name" of record 1 end tell tell application "Finder" activate select file "untitled.gif" set name of selection to Customer_Name end tell tell application "GIFConverter" quit end tell

Thanks Vaughan and Mark. I have played with dedicated page layout scripting and squeezed the layout of the printed reports to the Max ...and still ... a printing script bound to a Epson, when used on any other model Epson or any other brand printer, the results are very improper in most cases. On the Mac that is my Primary tool of choice, I set the printer in the chooser to Print to PDF as the default printer, get a load of this .... i then use a applescript to name the created PDF the name on the invoice. Now I have to open Acrobat to print the invoice. I haven't tried to continue the applescript to automatically print the invoice from within Acrobat YET. Its jumping through the hoops and not proper. Now I always sell the customer FilemakerPro with a solution and now it looks like I might have to sell Acrobat with them too. On FileMaker ... I tell them, anyone with average intelligence in business needs to look real close at FileMaker. It will the best $300.00 you ever spent. And now I have to say $500.00 for my solution and another $300 to print it out properly. Hey FileMaker ... I'm willing to pay for the added feature to have a open dedicated script menu for end user and to keep them out of My Code.

I sure wish Filemaker would allow for two sets of scripts in the menu and allow one set to be opened by end users of a solution or a runtime. Printing and page set up is a real problem with all the different systems and printers. The end user should be able to adjust these in the scripts through a edit so they can get orientations of page layout correct and not have to deal with print dialog box. I'm forced to tell them take what I give or Open My scripts to them. Am I missing something here or am I suffering a program weakness?