klauern

I am curious whether it is possible to execute Filemaker and perform scripts externally from the program? If I wanted to make a program outside of Filemaker, could I have it execute Filemaker, open a file, login, and execute a script remotely from that application? If so, how would I go about doing that? I am considering putting a front end application on our company's computer desktops. We have alot of applications and not all of our work is done on Filemaker, so abstracting pieces of it by doing this would make the interface MUCH easier to use, and interoperable with other applications. Any help along these lines would be appreciated. I know Java, C#, and C++ programming, and am willing to expand my knowledge to other languages if necessary, but if it is possible to do this within Java, I would especially like help on figuring this out. Thank you, Nick

In the not-so-distant future of our database, we are going to try to make some changes. One of them is changing a field. It is a key value that is used to relate the Customer to MANY different files throughout the system. The key is stored on one file, and relationships tie in through all the files via this one field. The previous developer used a system that created this field via an increasing index, and what we want to do is change this field to be representative of the main key(such as a customer ID). I know how to change the field to a different type, and know how to change the main file's attribute to the new values, but how would I go about making sure the relationships throughout all of the other files remain intact? Once the data is stored in the main file, is there a way to change ALL of the fields in the other files/records to the new data I am to implement?

Another option, and I haven't checked the first option either, is that when I do import, I end up with many many duplicates. The guy who developed our database decided it was best to create CustomerIDs based on Indexed numbers. The first customer created was lucky #1, and the second #2, etc. Anyway, currently, #3818 customer IDs were created. When I import the customers, I end up with dual records, with different CustomerID's. I was wondering if there was a script to: 1) loop through all the records, 2) search for duplicate records. 3) compare the customerIDs, for the one with the lower Number. 4) set the newer record's ID to the lower number(since all the relationships are tied to this older number) 5) delete the older record(with the newer record's customer ID having been changed to maintain the relationships). 6) go to next double records. There is a master key that can be searched so as to show whether there are two records of the same person, but what kind of script would be able to do this? Can Find Mode be entered, perform my changes, and then exited, so that I can just "Go To Next Record" and do it again? I would prefer to be able to fix my problem from within the Imports.fp5 file as my first post suggested, but if I'd have to, I would also like to be able to fix it within the master Customers.fp5 file, which is what I'm proposing with this solution.

I have a question regarding records. Currently, our database integrates a list of new users every year, and we have a list of records that we have to update periodically. The developer before me had made this database, without thinking of updates in the future to the list of users. Currently, we import a file that has, among many other attributes, a transaction flag attribute: "A", "D", or "U". "A" means to Add the customer, "D" means to delete the customer, and "U" means update the customer information. I have a list of records with all "A" on them, and many of these customers are already in the database, however, there is no other check to verify that you're not adding a duplicate. I am trying to figure out if it is possible to perform a find in the master Customers.fp5 file, to compare to the records in this Import List. I would be performing this script from within the Imports.fp5 file, and would like to find records matching a key value in the Customers.fp5 file. I don't know if it is possible, and wouldn't know how to do it if it were. I would be most likely performing this script as a loop, so could I pull out of the script to perform a find in the other file, and then return to where I left off in the loop? Any help would be appreciated. Also, if anything is unclear, let me know. -Nick

I have what seems to me an easy solution. However I, for some reason or another, can't figure it out. I'm trying to jump from one file to another. I have one file, Tickets.fp5, which has ticket information for customers, etc., and another, "Computers.fp5" which stores the users' computer information. I want to make a button work so that I can switch between these files. Specifically, when this specific button is pressed when browsing a specific record in "Tickets.fp5", I would like it to perform a search all records for the specific computer/s that match this user's customerID in "Computers.fp5". When this button is clicked, it switches to a view layout in "Computers.fp5", THEN performs the search. I can't figure out how to search in computers.fp5 for the information that is in tickets.fp5 to find the computer/s that match the user to whichever ticket i'm browsing. If that seems a little complicated, let me know, so I can better reply.

Hello all, I am implementing a button script that will show a set of records that match being marked as "Supervisor". I can get the script to work, however, when there are no records that are marked "Supervisor", a dialog pops up saying that No records match this request. This is all well and good, if you want to show that. However, I was wondering if there was something I could edit in my find script that would disable that dialog from displaying on the chance that there do exist zero records marked Supervisor?

Well, assurance that I'm not alone does improve my mood a bit. What bothered me most about this error is my never seeing it before, and when I took over responsibility of the files and the server, it started happening. Why, oh why, Murphy, must your laws abide to me?

So I'm relatively new to this forum, but I can't find an explanation of a problem I'm receiving anywhere, so I thought I'd ask the question in here. Currently, our system is running FM server 5 and hosting a number of files (~70). The client-side computers are running Filemaker v5.5, one running v6. I have just recently taken over managing this database, and can't honestly say what I've done to cause the problem, as I've only been adding buttons that implement various types of finds on records, but the error I get is: Communication with the host was interrupted and could not be re-established (-20). Before I try to restore backups(which would cause some data loss that I'm not prepared to accept), I would like to know what this error is, and if anybody else has seen it, and what they did to alleviate it.