FMP5.5 and UltraDev? - Newbie!

[B. Elias]

I'm very new to FMP5.5 but am very interested in using it with Dreamweaver UltraDev 4. Does anybody have experience using both of these together? Can somebody point some info to me on where to start for this? I have FMP5.5 for OS X and UltraDev 4 for OS 9.2.

Truthfully, I use ASP pages at work in FP2000 with Access 2000 database, but, that is not what I have available at home (on my Mac!). Thanks!

[Anatoli]

ASP with ODBC is in FileMaker 10 to 100 times slower, than native CDML language.

[B. Elias]

Thanks for the note. Do you recommend using CDML instead? If so, can that be done easily with UltraDev? Thanks!

[Anatoli]

I don't thing so.

Get the CDML syntax file from FM site and you'll find that nothing is simpler, than CDML language.

code:

---

Return field data using an HTML file

First Name: [FMP-Field: First Name]

<!-- After processing it could look like:

First Name: John

-->

[B. Elias]

Anatoli,

Thanks for the info, but I need you to go back a step for me. I'm still inexperienced with FMPro. What I need to understand is if I've already created a FMPro database on the Mac and I go to use the info in UltraDev, how do I connect to the database using the CDML language? UltraDev asks to use a .asp, .jsp, or .cfm connection for the whole site. Where does CDML come into this? Could you explain a little? Thanks!

[Garry Claridge]

You don't need UltaDev.

All the best.

Garry

[Anatoli]

Just for testing the setup, do sharing via WebCompanion and try first Instant Publishing. If that works, forget about instant and start with Custom publishing via CDML.

Try to get old sample files from version FM 4.

And yes, ultradev is for nothing, unless you want to go really slow.

[barossabenjamin]

In short, keep UltraDev, and throw FMP out the window. If it's a data-driven site you want to build, then there is nothing that even comes close to Ultradev (except maybe DW-MX ). However, if you plan on making an ODBC connection (to use VBscript or ASP for example) then you might as well ditch FMP. Even if you can get it to work (and after much effort, I still cant!) it is so slow as to be unusable.

I've read a few methods of connecting Ultradev to a FMP DB using JDBC, but this involves using a third party app server (Lasso). I've yet to get this to work properly. If you're interested, the method is outlined at

http://www.filemaker.com/downloads/pdf/FMPU55_UltraDev.PDF

If Filemaker wants to present itself as a creditable database tool for serving large-scale websites, then it needs to work with industry standard tools like UltraDev and ASP. Filemaker gurus might defend using FMP and only FMP to do everything, but the rest of us need to use the tools we already know (Like I said 'industry-standard' - it does mean something!). Whatever happened to 'ease of transition'?

[Garry Claridge]

CDML and Javascript are a great combination. I also use ASP/VBScript. I have been building a shopping cart app for the last couple of days with ASP, not hard however CDML/JS would be better.

Using CDML you do not have to fiddle with ODBC/JDBC and SQL. CDML is also faster for small to medium databases!!! However, if you are familar with SQL and ODBC/JDBC and know very little CDML you may find the change difficult because it uses different concepts.

ODBC/JDBC are NOT "Industry Standard" for database access. However, they are very common.

Good Luck.

Garry

[Anatoli]

You found strange place to recommend ditching FM

Ditch the ODBC and you'll have nice, quiet prosperous life.

I am myself single-handed beating teams working with ODBC/ASP on anything.

Negative on FM side is the price, problems with security (solved by our Security filter) and badly written WebServer Connector.

[barossabenjamin]

Hmm, maybe a strange place to reccommend ditching the focus of this whole forum! Sorry! It's not that I don't like Filemaker - I do, and probably it has been the easiest DB software I've had to learn.

But.

To say that UltraDev isn't the industry-standard dev. environment for data-driven sites is an absolute falsity. Certainly, standards aside, it is the most full-featured environment available. It supports several standard/common connection protocols, app servers, whatever. Why then, does Filemaker ignore the existence of such standards? Worse than that, Filemaker documentation touts FMP's compatibility with these standards.

I guess I am just frustrated with FMP and FMI. I have based both the purchase of the FMPU liscense and weeks of development time on the fact that all FMI documentation clearly states FMP's compatibility with 'standards' like ODBC and JDBC. I use, and am fully conversant with a development tool that uses ODBC and JDBC as it's core connection to datasources (DW UltraDev). Is it not logical to think that the two should be able to be used together? Again, worse than not supporting this interaction (which would have to be to FM's advantage), FMI's Australian tech support team have repeatedly assured me that using FMP to drive ASP with Ultradev is easy and logical in execution. Now that I'm out in the community, it seems that this is a common misconception, and there's no good solution.

The only available solution I've found is to move to CDML. But then, this means ditching my tried and true web development tools. I could imagine others sharing my feelings when I say that I'd ditch one piece of database software before I'd ditch my only full-featured web dev. tool.

I'm not here to slag FMP as useless. I am here to warn other ASP/JSP developers that if they take the FMP documentation at face value, they may well be into a big surprise (It says 'ODBC' in 12 point type on the F***ing box for christ's sake!).

I think other people should be made aware of FMP's constraints before spending rather big dollars on liscences.

Thanks.

[Keith M. Davie]

"... the fact that all FMI documentation clearly states FMP's compatibility with 'standards' like ODBC and JDBC."

Yes, and their documentation also clearly states

"-script ... Specifies the Filemaker Pro script that will be performed ..."

Well it will be performed as long as another script is not being performed when the request is made. And it will be performed if you figure out how to make it happen even if another script is being performed.

So it's probably similar with odbc and jdbc.

Understand the hyperbole of selling!

Become a developer.

[Anatoli]

RE: To say that UltraDev isn't the industry-standard dev. environment for data-driven sites is an absolute falsity.

I would never ever claim that. After all, I am the person who got UltraDev from Macromedia FOR FREE as their appreciation of my HTML skills and to show me "there is light on the end of tunnel" after I expressed strong feelings and disappointment towards Adobe's GoLive6 (full of functionality bugs)!

But as almost all products from Apple Inc. kitchen, it is not always easy to make it work with Microsoft technologies AND ODBC is not Universal standard in all OS's!

Also, FMI generously let people use their software for trial, so there goes your complain about money invested.

But you are right in your ODBC being ridiculous claim.

How about my explanation:

14 years old kid while visiting his father at FMI HQ did it probably in week. Nobody knows about existence of that gem, but it was discovered by cleaning lady working night shift in Marketing department and she put that into product description list.

[Garry Claridge]

How do you define "Industry Standard"? Is it ANSI, ITU, CCIR, etc ?

It is very common, as are 'GoLive' and Oracle tools. However, a lot of people doing serious 'data oriented' work use text editors such as the editors in Dreamweaver and GoLive, or stand-alone like BBEdit.

Just because you cannot easily gasp the concepts of CDML it does not make it a poor development tool.

As I said previously, I also develop with ASP/VBScript/ODBC/SQL.

Good Luck.

Garry

[barossabenjamin]

Anatoli - I like your idea about the cleaning lady - maybe if I could find her I could get her to configure my ODBC set up properly! She'd probably have more idea than me!

Keith - Some people would define that 'hyperbole of selling' you mentioned as another, related concept - it's called 'misleading advertising'. Saying, without qualification, that FMP UL 5.5 supports JDBC is an outright lie. The bloody thing doesn't come with any JDBC drivers! I had to plead and grovel with the tech support guys to get them, and then they told me "We shouldn't really give you these, they only come with the developer liscence". Again, saying that it supports ODBC, without any sort of qualifications at all, is highly dubious too.

I understand 'Buyer beware', but that shouldn't excuse a company on the scale of FMI putting incorrect feature info on their packaging and in their documentation(and not in just one place, either).

Garry - I got the word 'standard' straight off of FMP's box! But then, I would probably prefer to define 'Industry Standard' as an accepted set of tools used by professionals in the industry. In the same way Photoshop is the 'industry standard' for raster image editing - not by some magical standards document somewhere, but rather by gaining widespread acceptance in the relevant community. Of course, there is room for more than one 'industry-standard' program in any field (to use graphics software as an example again, Illustrator and Freehand are both accepted as professional level apps).

At no stage did I say that CDML is a poor development tool. I would really like to know what editors support it, and what features they have, compared to something like UltraDev?

Well guys, I know I'll get flamed for sure, but today I ported my data over to Access, and using DWUD4, ODBC and ASP have coded all of the search, results, browse by category and record detail pages I need for a fairly large tourism site. Dev time, just over 8 hours. I would have liked to avoid this, but my deadline looms, and I really can't wait for the Tech support geeks to call me back (if they ever do).

Too bad my mdb file is now about 20x the size?

I enjoy this debate immensely - please don't take anything personally!

ben

[Anatoli]

I hate when something doesn't work as expected -- today again that bloody Web Server Connector forget the connection to all databases for the third time!

It looks like FileMaker Inc. is really not fully qualified for the job with WSC!

So we did the security filter to protect databases against hacking and now we have to write our connector, because FMI did poor job -- on Windows NT.

I believe Access will collapse under heavy load and maybe you'll be forced to go with SQL in future.

Also the error trapping is bad in MS Jet Engine, I saw plenty of errors on various sites.

[Garry Claridge]

Anatoli,

A good Java programmer should be able to write an alternative 'Connector'.

Good Luck

Garry

[Anatoli]

We will invest into modification of our Security Filter. What we need most is the ability to serve everything from port 80. The load balancing is not priority.

In short -- we need to convert our Security Filter to IIS plugin.

The Java stuff makes some sense for FMI, because they want to have Connector on all platforms.

We will go with Windows Fast Compiler as with Security Filter.