Importing a folder of files

[Bailey]

I would like to import a folder of files into a database (all files of the same format and using the same field mapping). I was obviously happy to see the new 'Folder" import for text files, but then I discovered that the import puts the File name, location and entire file into 3 fields respectively...not really that useful. I could live with this IF I could put the entire contents into a field since I could then parse the file contents into the proper fields, but my files are larger then 100K characters (thus over the text field size limit). Does anyone have a solution that would allow a user (Mac and PC) to select a fold of files for import and then import each file (as one would do with individual files)? I have thought of storing the file locations (easy with the new folder import options) and then having a script that imports the files based on the location information stores...but how?

[CobaltSky]

I don't have a solely FMP-based solution to suggest, but there are several third-party plug-ins which you might like to take a look at.

The one which is foremost in my mind is DialogMagic from New Millennium Communications:

http://www.newmillennium.com

This plug-in is doubtless not the only one available which might assist you, but it is the one with which I am most familiar. It will allow you to script an external function call to return a list of all the contents of a folder (either from a hard-coded path to the folder or one that is user-specified on the fly), and then loop through all the files in the folder performing a scripted import for each in turn.

I suspect that similar procedures are possible with the Troi file plug-in and perhaps others, but I've not tried them.