Jeff Spall

Hi, my understanding was always that the HTTP server in FMPro didn't do any caching - If there are any CDML tags in the page then it is definitely built on-the-fly against a database query. Are you using a proxy server? regards, Jeff

Hi, sorry Steve, I've never used IWP at all, though I've tried just about every variation of CWP/WSC/php at one time or another! regards, jeff

Hi, a dual G4 X-serve can easily run webseving and FMPro at the same time for a pretty busy site. The reason I use a separate database server is that the FileMaker databases are hosted on FMP server and some databases are also used by client machines which run automated processes and I don't like a client logged in to a machine that's web serving. If you are really having stability problems, try doing a "recover" on all the databases. regards, jeff

Hi, I'm running Apache/WSC 5.5v1 on a G4 X-serve and it's totally stable. This machine doesn't run FMPro, but connects to an OS X 10.3/FMPro6 computer over the network. We have another G4 desktop running OS X 10.2.8 server with FMpro6 and Apache/WSC on the same box and that's also absolutely solid. I think FMPro 6 is a much safer than 5.5 on OSX. We run 5.5 on classic and that's pretty stable, too. I found that re-installing web companion solved a crash problem on one of the classic machines for me. regards, jeff

Hi, are you sharing with TCPIP or Appletalk? If it's TCPIP, which is preferable, do both of the computers have a valid address on the same network? If you're using Appletalk, is it active on both computers?? regards, jeff

Post deleted by Jeff Spall

Hi, if your web database doesn't have really heavy traffic, then you can run an export script through the web interface. Have a field which flags exported yes or no and then just do a find on that through the web page, running a script which does the export into a set folder. (see the attached file for a page we have that does just that - In this example there are eleven possible export files. You need to change the extension of the file from "txt" to HTML - can't upload an html page!) On your other database, you can run an import script every now and then (or have an (Applescript app. running on that machine which calls the import script every so often), or, if you wanted to get really tricky, have one DB email the other to trigger the script. The export script has worked very reliably for me on a database that only got a few dozen users per day, although it was on a FMPro server that was getting maybe 75000 hits per day. The script is very fast, so it seems to avoid the usual script pitfalls and it's very simple, too. regards, jeff activerecords.txt

Hi, FMPro in versions 5 or 6 is *exactly* the same, the only difference is the serial number. take any install cd and try the two serial numbers and you can swop unlimited/client around. When you use the WSC on Apache, all the calls are seen coming from the same computer (I found this out by trying to do some stuff that needed [FMP-ClientIp]) but, of course, only the most unscrupulous would use a copy of the client instead of Unlimited :-) regards, jeff

Hi, given clean databases and an install that is patched up to date (especially web companion/Webserver connector) FMPro unlimited can be very stable. I've used it on these platforms: (a)- 5 and 5.5 Unlimited on OS 9xx sharing computer with Webstar, FileMaker on Port :591, either serving direct or through WSC (:- 5 and 5.5 Unlimited running as the only http server on port 80 ©- 6 unlimited on OSX, on desktop G4s and on X-serve sharing with Apache using WSC (d)- 6 unlimited Running as a 3- computer system: FMPro server (v5 on Mac Classic) > FMP unlimited (on OS X G4) > Apache WSC (OS X on X-serve) Just to see what would happen some time ago we left the Webstar/FMPro/Mac classic box running for five months continuously and only restarted it when we had to move the computer. 6 Unlimited with WSC and Apache is very solid and happy sharing with php on the same box. The only disappointment I had was trying to run FMPro6 with Webstar5 in OS X on the same box. Completely stable, but very much slower than PMPro5, Webstar 4.3 in Classic on the same hardware. This is a shame, because I had always liked Webstar for its easy setup and security, so now I use Apache, the industry-standard webserver which mixes very well with FMPro. regards, jeff

Hi, I've been using a Javascript to check that certain fields are filled in. This looks for any field prefixed "check". I think it will work with dropdowns if the rdeault is "-no selection-" <HTML> <HEAD> <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript"><!-- Begin function checkTheForm(which) { var pass=true; if (document.images) { for (i=0;i<which.length;i++) { var tempobj=which.elements; if (tempobj.name.substring(0,5)=="check") { if (((tempobj.type=="text"||tempobj.type=="password")&& tempobj.value=='')||(tempobj.type.toString().charAt(0)=="s"&& tempobj.selectedIndex==0)) { pass=false; break; } } } } if (!pass) { shortFieldName=tempobj.name.substring(8,30).toUpperCase(); alert("You must fill in both name and password"); return false; } else return true; } // End --></script> </HEAD> ><FORM ACTION="FMPro" METHOD="post" name=enterform onsubmit="return checkTheForm(this)"> <P>name<BR> <INPUT TYPE=text NAME="check_username" VALUE="" SIZE=26><BR> password<BR> <INPUT TYPE=password NAME="check_password" VALUE="" SIZE=26><BR> <INPUT TYPE="submit" NAME="-Find" VALUE="submit"> </FORM></FONT></P> </BODY> </HTML>

Hi, If you are going to have a static address, then what you're suggesting is really easy to do. Unless you are going to have *serious* traffic a G4 will be fine. I'd recommend running it with Apache as the webserver and the WebServer Connector linking to FMPro as it is both faster and a little more secure than just FMPro doing the web serving. You'd then run FMPro on port :591 as it's on the same computer as the webserver but, as the outside world wouldn't need to access that port, you could close it on your firewall to stop hack attempts. This needs a bit more setting up unless you start out with a copy of OSX server as you'll have to install Apache, but it's still a simple job. regards, jeff

Hi, related value lists don't work on the web, but there are a numebr of work-rounds, using separate files, or inline actions, or Javascript depending on how many combinations of value you have. It's been discussed at some length in the Internet and CDML forums - try a search for related value list there. regards, Jeff

Hi, if you are serving images through a web page, it's much easier to do it purely through HTML, especially if you use WSC: <img src="[FMP-Field:theImageLink]" alt="Photo Unavailable" width="75" border="0"> where "theImageLink" field just stores the path as an HTML link. If the image is on a different server to the database, you need to specify an absolute url (http:// etc), if not just relative path. Container fields are bad news for web publishing! regards, jeff

Hi, webserver connector is a very easy install and it doesn't need a copy of FileMaker on that computer. The only thing to do would be if you had been making CDML calls on port 591 direct to filemaker - you just delete all the ":591"s from urls etc. I think the connector will work with a regular copy of FMPro, but it's only included with unlimited for licence reasons (because it would see all the web calls coming from one IP address!) regards, jeff

Hi, If you have two webservers and are running version6 of FMPro on one of them, you only need to install the Web server connector on them to have both servers able to use the databases. This is probably not the best performance option (one or two webservers, one DB server would be better) but its fine for the kind of loads you are using. If you use CDML, you would have html format pages that your other people could edit (assuming there data isn't from another db source) or just build them a browser-based editing source - we do that for our Intranet home page where the news and info are input by 3 regular people (for different department news items) plus anyone else for social news and stuff. Works just fine. regards, jeff