Wasatch

Thanks, that did it, though I'm surprides there wasn't a problem before upgrading to Tiger.

I was running FM Pro Developer 6 on Macs with OS 9 up through OS X Panther. Recently I upgraded to OS X Tiger, and have a consistent problem on all machines with USB devices such as camera card readers and printers. When a printer is turned on, or when a flash card is inserted, Filemaker quits. I can restart and it works, but it's a real pain.

You may be OK as long as the photo library is in a clean location relative to the application files. I do this a lot by setting up an "umbrella" folder containing separate sub-folders for application files and photographs. When the whole thing is moved the relative paths stay unchanged. It works for Mac-to-Mac, but you have to reestablish file paths if you switch from Mac to Windows. Don't embed directly because the images become decompressed, and you end up with monstrously large slow files.

I use FM Pro databases to store and display photographs of plants. It is apparent that the image color displayed in FM is more washed out than the original image stored as a Photoshop JPEG file. The images display with no color degradation in TextEdit, Mail, Preview and iPhoto. Does Filemaker have a hidden setting that overrides the embedded colr profile of the image (sRGB IEC61966-2.1)? Attached is a screen grab of the same file being displayed simultaneously by Filemaker (left) and Photoshop (right). Can I do anything about it?

Thanks, it's what I thought.

Is there any way to prevent a text field from wrapping? This would simplify a situation in which I use text to display data in a simulated graphical format.

Great! It worked. Thanks.

My databases contain dynamic graphs or maps which reflect data specific to each record, and which need to be refreshed when switching records. Navigating among records is therefore done with brief scripts that include a refresh step; the Status Area is hidden. However, one can still scroll records with the mouse wheel, and lose the updating. Can scrolling be turned off from within Filemaker? It seems unrealistic to expect people to turn off scrolling ahead of time.

I created a DB solution in FM Developer 6, using OS 10.3.3. It was bound using the Classic version of FM Developer Tool, so it could also be used on Mac OS 8 and 9. It was tested successfully on half a dozen systems including OS 9 and OS X. However, on one system (OS 10.3.3) it would not open, the error message being "Could not find QuickTimeLib". Since QuickTimeLib is not on some of the other computers that did work, what is going on?

When a button is clicked in Mac, underlying graphics are dimmed. In Windows, however, the area is completely color-inverted. This is really ugly in a database of photographic images, where the images themselves are used as buttons (e.g. to switch between thumbnail and main photo). Is there any solution that would be portable - not dependent upon a user resetting their machine preferences?

Thanks Vaughan. However, whether opened minimised or maximised Windows seems to insist on showing each one as it closes (even if I have set "Freeze windows"), while Mac just clicks off the whole set at once. How about the other issue? Clicking a button on the Mac just dims the underlying part of the screen, while on Windows there is a complete color inversion. If the button is a graphic the effect is a horrible visual splash. Are there options?

Some complex databases have as many as 10 files related to the primary file. These open as "Hidden" in both Mac and Windows. When closing FM Pro in Windows, however, there is an ugly flurry of opening all the hidden files before closing them. Doesn't seem to happen on the Mac. Likewise there are some funny transitions (color-inverted images) when using a graphic as a button. Any ideas for preventing these? Note: This is concerns the local machine, not the web.

Can I get coordinates of a mouse-click, to indicate where on a map somebody has clicked? Needs to work for both Mac and Windows. [color:"black"] FileMaker Version: Dev 6 Platform: Mac OS X Panther

A small group of 5 consecutive images out of 10,000 is giving me the same problem. They are fine in FM6, but not in FM4; fine with Internet Explorer. They are well within normal size range, but when made smaller they sometimes work. Recreating the images from scratch doesn't help. I'm stuck, too. Is there a good listing of JPEG error codes?

Yes, that's what I was using. Using the "Paste" seemed an attractive alternative in some situations, and I wanted to know if there was a way around the capitalization. Thanks. -- Wasatch

Thanks, but it made no difference. Still get the unwanted capitalization. -- Wasatch

I want to be able to post from the index for a field containing biological names such as "Home sapiens". The correct form is with the first word capitalized, but the second word lower case, as shown. However, the index displays it as "Homo Sapiens", and pastes it that way. Any way around this? -- Wasatch

If you have Adobe Acrobat (not just the Reader), you can make a PDF file of any or all the Scripts or Field Names, without having to make hard copy. This has been very useful with DBs that have a lot of scripts: Select the Acrobat's virtual printer, then choose "Print" from within FM. In the dialog box select Destination "File"; PDF Settings "FileMaker Pro" (up near top of list, may be hidden). This brings up a lot of FM specific options.

Whoops, you are right. I had figured that only those repeats with data are split, and my "25 repetitions" was meant to imply "25 data entries". Poor choice of words. However, one of my repeat fields happened to be a global, and that does give rise to a copy for each record. I agree that regular fields behave much better. Wasatch

Thanks for the quick reply. I struggled with this a long time, got it to work reliably with jpeg and indirect referencing, but it requires close attention. PICT and JPEG were both described as cross-platform, but I couldn't get either to work with compressed images, starting from the Mac platform: * Compressed PICT images store great and displayed well, but could not be read by my Virtual PC (if I remember rightly, straight PICT images were OK); * Compressed JPEG images were decompressed before storage, blowing space constraints out of reach (also making display very slow). Can you suggest a better format, or a way of setting that check box? Wasatch

Careful, it depends how drunk the monkeys were! When the "Split" box is checked, new RECORDS are created for EACH repetition. If one repeating field in a single record has 25 repetitions, you will create a 50,000 record DB from a 2,000 record one. Similarly if there is one global field with many repetitions. Most repetitions in most of the 50,000 records will be empty unless the various repeating fields were closely coupled. Some repeating fields may have been used within records for storing parameter sets: you may not want those split up. I would suggest: 1) keep everything intact as you import into the new DB; 2) figure out which fields to keep intact as repeating; 3) write a simple script to strip the others into line items.

I create large (>5000 images) databases of plant photographs, to be used across Mac and PC. Of necessity this means checking the "Store only a reference to the file" option box. Can the box's default be set so it is NORMALLY checked? It's not a trivial problem, because a .jpg file accidentally imported directly into Mac FM is decompressed and stored as a 2 Mb implant, rather than 100-200K. Proofreading 5000 records is a major job that involves putting the referenced graphics "out of sight" and testing whether they are still shown in the file.