MacHammer

Thank you Carpal! That is what I was looking for. Mac Hammer

Hi all, I'm using a script to generate HTML and build a table of values to be displayed in an email using SMTPit Pro. The problem I'm having is that in order to specify a in my script, the double-quote character is interpreted as a literal and I can't get it to pass the script/formula checker. I thought I'd try to build it in using a custom function. But when I put a " in the custom function, it looks for a close ". I can't put """ because the third quote looks for a closed ". Can I use ASCII characters? Is there an ASCII character that represents a " like %20 represents a space? Thank you. Mac Hammer

The Runbeck Companies, of Tempe, AZ is looking to fill an immediate vacancy for a FileMaker Developer/Administrator position. Qualified candidate will be responsible for maintaining our growing number of FMP solutions and the FMP Servers on which they run. We are a small, but fast-growing company, completely entrenched in the use of Filemaker Pro. When we have a problem, FMP is usually part of the solution. We use FMP to manage everything from Job Tickets for our Print Management company to communicating with our Pitney-Bowes high-speed mailing/insertion equipment via SQL connectors. We are looking to leverage our FMP Server 9 Advanced for web-based solutions, but need your expertise to do so! Please contact Clint Potts, Manager of IT Services, at machammerx@gmail.com if you are interested in discussing your qualifications and your future. Feel free to send your resume to the address listed. Salary DOE. The Runbeck Companies, Inc. is a family-owned and operated business, serving the print industry of Arizona for over 35 years. Publishers of Southwest Graphics Magazine and the Southwest Graphics Annual Buyers Guide. Runbeck Election Services provides elections printing to city and county governments in Arizona, Florida, California, and a growing number of states. We are a fast-moving company and want to fill this position as soon as the right candidate steps forward. Check us out at: http://www.runbeckgraphics.com http://www.runbeck.net http://www.southwestgraphics.net

Hi, We are a small, fast-moving company in Tempe, AZ. When we have a business problem that needs to be solved, we often look to Filemaker Pro to provide us with the solution. Our internal developer is moving away from us to another state and that leaves us with the need to replace her skills in our organization. I can fill the gap, but as our Manager of IT Services, my days are crammed with other issues and Filemaker will require more attention than I can give it. If you are currently using FMP to solve problems for another company and feel that your talents are not growing to their fullest potential, come to sunny Tempe! I am hoping to accumulate the names of interested persons in anticipation of needing to fill this position. Management should be coming around to my way of thinking soon and will begin the official search, but I'd like to have some names we can turn to immediately to begin discussion when the decision is made. If you are interested, please post to my address: machammerx@gmail.com. Thank you! Mac Hammer

Thank you. What about this thought: According to Filemaker 8 Functions and Scripts Desk Reference by Love, Lane, and Bowers, page 414, "URL Syntax for Access to Container Objects", You can format a reference to a file housed on the FMP 8 Server: ,,, and as in: http://my.filemakerserver.net:8080/fmi/xml/cnt/data.tiffgif?-db=Customers&-lsy=web_search&fild=photo[1]&-recid=303 "This URL will extract container data from a specific field (called photo) from the record with recid=303. Even though photo is not a repeating field, the syntax "photo[1]" is still necessary. The web server will return this container data as GIF data, assuming the .gif suffis correctly mapped to the TIFF MIME type on the server". I'm not sure that this is getting me anywhere. It seems 1) complex, and 2) tedious to set up just to see if it can work or not. If anyone has experience with this, I'd like that input, as well. Don't get me wrong...I love Filemaker, but it seems that I keep getting asked to make it do things that are either difficult or impossible for it to do. I hoped this would be something simple! : Mac

Hi, I'd like to be able to store a PDF file in a container field, and then somehow issue a print command that will open the file and print it. I can't seem to find a way to issue commands to the object of the container... With the common uses of FM including asset management of images, I'd think this would be possible... Hmmm. Any help you can provide will be appreciated. Thank you. Mac Hammer

OK, I changed the Storage option, choosing to Re-evaluate as needed, and it corrected the problem. Thank you for your prompt help. To summarize: Create a Field. We'll call it Current Layout. Then, make it a Calculation, using "Get (LayoutName)" as the calculation. Then, make the results equal Text. Set the storage option to Do not Store. Then, in your layout, use a Merge Field <> to display the calculated results. Thanks again! Mac

I have not made the field a Global. Though I just tried switching it to Global and I still get the ?. There seems to be plenty of room for the Layout Name to display. I've typed the name in the desired location and it fit with ample room to spare. Am I using the correct calculation argument? Thank you. Mac

Hi, Forgive me for being a bit dim this morning, but I can't remember how to do this. I'd like to be able to use a <> to display the current layout with each of my layouts. However, I can't seem to get the calculation correct to make it actually work. Currently, I've created a calculation field called "Current Layout" and I've set it equal to: Get (Layout Name). This isn't working, as when I jump back into Browse mode, all I get where I should have a Layout Name, is a question mark. I am sure that I did this correctly in one of my recent projects, but I'll be damned if I can find it to copy from my own work! If one of you can please remind me of how to do this, I'd appreciate it. Thank you. Mac Hammer

Awesome! Great job in chasing it down. I'll pass this entire thread to my colleague and she should have an easy job of fixing it for us. Again, Thanks. Mac

Wow. Thanks. That seems to confirm the ideas presented here, though the step-by-step is wonderful to have. I hope it works for you. Gracias Amigo! Mac

Hi Jonathan, I have not actually resolved this, though I was fairly comfortable in the advise I'd received that I will be able to resolve it, particularly with the suggestions above about the layout size and body size of the label. I 'have' been able to make improvements to the situation, though I have not made it work, quite yet. I'm about to hand the problem off to a colleague who has a little more time to resolve it than I do. (FM Development is just a small part of my overall position as IT Manager) If she comes up with a solution, I promise that I will post how it was resolved. Best of luck. Mac

I think you've stumbled upon the biggest weakness (IMHO) of tabs--No list view. You might work around it by using a portal to display your listed information, but it isn't as elegant as using a straight list view. Perhaps you will need to build a separate layout that adheres to your design elements, but displays the info in the list view as you wish. That is the route that I've taken. Good luck, Mac

That! Seems to be exactly what happened...and I got bit. I've now corrected it. Thank you. Mac

Mr. Watson, You know, not being able to import commas seemed very strange to me, and I went back to my original solution and realized that the initial import was probably botched, and I blamed it on the commas. My new "buffer" database is able to handle the commas just fine. Now, I'm trying to remember is there was another downstream reason that we needed to kill the commas, but I can't remember one if there was. I still like the idea of having the buffer database to clean up stuff before it lands in the real user database, so I'm still going to keep working on this, but you are right. The commas shouldn't matter in a Tab-Delimited solution. Thanks. Mac

Cool. While you were responding, here is what I've learned: First off, the container import field will actually separate records into properly split records the INCLUDE the commas, so we already get around the first comma problem right there. And actually, the commas aren't the problem, per se... The data file we import from has commas that separate Last Name and First Name fields, as in "Hammer, Mac" and in the Residential Address as "City, State ZIP". They aren't problematic, assuming they don't mess with the import. Once in the database, we can deal with the commas, as they primarily just then get printed on envelopes for mail delivery, and the post office certainly doesn't care about them. So, that might solve the actual problem, right there. The next step, is since the text file is made of fixed-length data fields, we have to calculate out that the first 40 characters are the NAME, the second 40 are the Res Address, etc. That isn't hard, just time consuming. Then, I want to IMPORT/EXPORT TO/FROM this buffer to the actual database, where I import just the field data and get rid of all the fixed-length data in the main database. I'm not trying to duck the actual resolution of finding a way to remove the commas while in the buffer file, but I may have solved the larger issue! Mac

Thanks! I'm playing with it now and have created the "buffer" file you mentioned as a test, but it could grow into the actual solution. What I've toyed with right now is to import the data, not into a text field, but into a container. Each line of the data IS coming in, without the comma messing up the import. If we try to import the same data into a TEXT field, the comma screws it up and the data before the comma is one record, while the data after is a second record. That, of course, is what I'm trying to avoid. So, the container seems to handle the import, but since it is a container, I can't seem to edit the data. Then, I made a calculation field that basically sets the new field equal to the container, but makes it text. However, I still can't edit it because it is now a calculation based on an un-editable field. AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!! I seem SOOOO close. Keep those ideas coming! I know we can do it. Mac

Hi everyone, One of the processes I have to manually do prior to importing data into one of our solutions is to clean all the commas out of a tab-delimited file. Currently, I have to open the file in a text editor and replace all commas with a space, and save the file. Then, FMP can be used to import all of the data properly. I'm trying to automate as much as I can in this process. I'd like to be able to "pre-import" the text file and then use FMP to search for the commas and replace with a space and then use the resulting data as the source of the import into the actual data table. Might this be possible? Thanks for your help! Mac Hammer

More info: I may have figured out the problem. When I see a discrepency in the number of records that should be in each run file, I re-import the file, telling the import to update existing records. However, I have been allowing it to import with the entire data set found. It appears that this can mess things up. I have now revised my process so that I find the existing records in the run file in question, and THEN import, updating the existing records. It 'seems' to be working now. I'm getting further into the reconciliation, so it seems to be holding its data better. Mac

After performing the database rebuild, a damaged field definition was fixed. I'm going back at my import efforts to see what happens. In all my time of doing database rebuilds, I have never seen that particular error say it was fixed, so I'm hopeful... We'll see. Mac

Thanks Shadow, I'm going to take it off line right now and do the re-build and see what happens. I wish it were possible that this was a scripting error, but in this instance, I'm manually importing all of this data so there is little room for a missed script step. I'm really hoping the rebuild will help. Do you have any info on max file size? I can't seem to find that listed. Thank you for the help. Mac

Hi everyone, I'm working with a database solution here at work where we track a lot of client data. We have a request file that gives us a list of clients who have requested our product. This table, with data entered by import, now contains nearly .5 Million records. Then, we have another table in the same file, that contains records showing how we processed those requests. This table also contains nearly .5 Million records and should, in theory, have the same number of records as in the request file. There are also other tables that contain smaller numbers of records used to help wrangle the data between these two primary tables. All totalled, we have somewhere slightly south of 1.5 Million records in the database file, and 10 different tables. My problem is this. The request files get broken down into files that contain no more than 15,000 records, each. So, we number these files as they are processed and I can search the database for all records contained in a certain numbered file. I have also created an accounting layout where the layout calculates the number of records in each file and displays them on one report so I can verify that we have ALL records in each file. There are approximately 55 individual import files, totalling the .5 Million records in the database table. I am losing records. As I look at the accounting layout, I will find an import file that contains 14,999 records, instead of 15,000. So I will re-import the data, asking FMP to update existing records and to add new records found in the import. This will bring that file up to its 15,000 records. I'll move down the list, doing the same process. After a few imports, I'll look back in the list and see that one of my imports now contains fewer records than expected AGAIN. Records have been lost. Sometimes as many as 6000 records are now gone. My goal is to account for all records in all 55 files, but I can never get there. By the time I even get close to being there, I look back and see that I've lost records again and have to start over. Am I maxing FMP out? I thought that I'd read that FMP can hold data into the terabytes and we are no where close to that sort of file size. Perhaps I'm wrong? Please help me figure out why I'm losing these records. I really need your help! Thank you, as always. Mac Hammer

:P Mac

OK, so you guys aren't the only ones that can't read... I guess that will give me the field names, at least. Well, only 10 more to go anyway... Thanks again. Mac

The usual method for moving everything from one file to another (short of using FMRobot) is: 1. Import or retype the fields. 2. Add any necessary relationships, making sure the TOs have the same names. 3. Define blank layouts with the same names as those from the original file. 4. Copy and Paste any necessary value lists. 5. Import any necessary scripts. 6. Copy and paste the layouts. 7. Go back and fix any calc definitions that were commented out. 8. Test everything. Since there is no way to import, I'm retyping the fields, per step one. And importing to f1, f2, f3, etc. is completely unhelpful, so I'm copying field by field, definition by definition. Its lots of fun. Mac