What is my boss talking about?

[cmartin]

As i have mentioned before, I have inherited a beast of a database, which I am trying to tame. My boss (a pharamacist...not a techie) has promised some of the higher-ups that we could have our data online by April. I have been looking over what the programmer before has left behind (months of work) and trying to figure out where he left off and where I need to go next for this particular project.

It seems as though he spent months working in Developer 5.5 and I have found mutliple fp5 files with multiple layouts, buttons, scripts, etc. It appears to me, however, that what the previous programmer has developed is a somewhat functional client database. There are no html files. This previous programmer has led my boss to the impression that this could all be then almost instantaneously published to the web.

It is my understanding that this is false. If we instant published this then we would lose all layout and would need to stick with the predefined limited functionality provided by FM. Am I correct?

If we custom web published it then all of the functionality will have to be rewritten using CDML. Is this correct?

Am I missing something? What was this guy working toward for all those months?

[Garry Claridge]

Try "Instant Web Publishing" (IWP) to see what each of the Layouts look like. It may suite your needs.

"Custom Web Publishing" (CWP) is certainly the way to publish databases with greater flexibility and better page design.

Most functionality will usually exist in Calculated fields and Relationships/Portals. Accessing these is fairly basic from CDML. CDML itself does not have a great deal of functionality. Where a lot of the application's functionality is Script based, a different story may be pertinent.

All the best.

Garry