I know, I know, I should bite the bullet and buy the TROI plugin. But I don't WANT to buy a plugin! I know it was mentioned elsewhere in the forum, that it is possible to set a container field to a picture, but to store it as a reference, in applescript. How?

The Applescript code is basically:

set picFile to reference to file "Macintosh HD:MyFolder:MyFile.jpg"

set cell "picture" of current record to reference to picFile

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Here is a simple script to import references to all jpg's from a folder into individual records of a Filemaker file:

tell app "finder"

-- change the following to suit your own folder name

set myfolder to "Macintosh HD:photos:jan2002"

set mypics to ( name of every item in folder myfolder) as list

end tell

-- change the following line to suit your database name

tell database "PicCatalog.fp5" of app "Filemaker Pro"

repeat with i from 1 to count of mypics

set filename to (myfolder &":"&(item i of mypics))

-- skip files that are the wrong type

-- change the following line to suit your image file type

if filename ends with ".jpg"

set picFile to reference to file filename

create new record

-- picture is the container field where the import goes

set cell "picture" of last record to reference to picFile

-- picref is a text field that holds the path/file name

set cell "picref" of last record to filename

end if

end repeat

end tell

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If you already have graphics in your database and want to find the pathname that's stored you can do this:

-- Finding the filepath name of a picture in the current record only

-- If you want to do all records, place this in a Scriptmaker loop

tell database "PicCatalog.fp5" of app "Filemaker Pro"

-- "picture" is the name of the container field

set pathref to cell "picture" of current record

-- picref is a text field where the file name and path will be deposited

set cell "picref" of current record to pathref as text

end tell

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Because of black magic involved in Applescript parsing, it won't work if you combine the two set commands from the above script into the following single line:

set cell "picref" of current record to (cell "picture" of current record) as text

I discovered this after a couple of hours of hair-pulling. Grrrr!

Thanks, worked like a charm! I knew it had to be something like that! Thanks again

Ok, well, I made the script I was making, it worked perfectly. Now, I'm making a nearly identical script that imports eps's in a loop, names match the primary key of the files I'm importing them into. The eps's are good, I can import them manually, but when I run the script I get an error: -43. Have you experienced this?

Error -43 is "File not found," which generally means that you somehow specified the wrong file name or wrong path. Try putting a display dialog step in your script to see what file name and path applescript is getting. Like this:

display dialog myFilename & " " & myFilePath