PopCal2 Plug In

[phtmb]

We recently purchased this calendar plug in. We are not FileMaker newbies but not developers and have no prior experience with plugins other than FileMaker Mobile. The PDF manual which accompanied the purchase of this plugin does not address our basic questions. How do we get the calendar to pop up for the user on a layout? What new fields do we have to add to our existing database to make the plug in work? We have a database of appointments. On different layouts throughout the database, we wanted the calendar to appear. When a user wanted to find appointments on a specific date or range of dates (a week for example), we wanted them to be able to enter find mode and then click on this calendar and have that date enter into the date field where the user is performing the find.

I have activated the calendar plugin in the application preferences and the box is checked. Now I need to find out how to activate/use the calendar. Emails to Datamatic, which does not offer phone support, tell us merely to look at the sample file we downloaded but the sample file doesn't show or answer the basic questions we're asking here? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[SteveB]

I don't use this particular plugin, but plugins tend to pretty much act alike. Assuming it has been successfully enabled, create a script that has a SetField statement to look like the following:

SetField(yourdate,External("PopCal2", 'parameters').

Get the parameters from the example they supplied, since they vary by plugin. The External( ) is the last entry in the calulation pull-down (upper right corner of define script step).

Unfortunately, I can't tell you what 'parameters' should be since I don't know the plugin.

Hope this helps. Steve

[CobaltSky]

Further to Steve's advice, plug-in functions are most commonly called via script, where the Set Field[ ] command is used to 'write' the external function to a global field.

The global field generally serves to return the plug in response (eg an error code if not successful etc) and the act of calling the function, as Steve says, passes your parameters to the plug-in, calling it into action to perform whatever operation it is that the function you called relates to.

Rather than go into greater detail here, however, I recommend that you take advantage of a free download document from CNS (a vendor of some very fine plug-ins themselves) which offers a primer on the use of plug-ins. The URL for the download is:

http://downloads.comm-unity.net/Guides/HowTo/How_to_Use_Plug-ins.pdf

That will give you a good general 'picture' of how plug-ins may be used and what to look out for. Then in conjunction with the PopCal documentation, should set you up to 'get your feet wet' within the vast realm of external functions.

[phtmb]

Thank you both. The problem I am having is that when pasting the paramters from the sample file the script can't be written because it keeps saying "field not found". What I don't know is if I have to add fields for "size" , "format" "behavior" etc. Do I have to create all these additional fields in my database? They have a setup wizard which walks me through my calendar choices and then at the end copies this parameter string to the clipboard. But where do I paste this string? When I paste it to the Set Field script where the word "parameter" appears, I get the field not found errors above?

[SteveB]

That message indicates that you need to add those fields to your database. They are probably globals, which you should be able to ascertain from looking at their example.

[CobaltSky]

I've a hunch that the problem you're having may stem from the fact that literal value which are supplied as a parameter string must be placed in quotes.

Alternatively, you could paste the set-up string into a global fild, then put the field name (not in quotes) in where the parameter goes.