DDE Execute and the Internet

[Steverino]

I'm trying to figure out how to automatically post form data from the Filemaker database (not when using the web version; when using a script). With DDE Execute (iexplore as the service, www_OpenURL as the topic, and the URL as the command) I can open the website I want. Can somebody give me an example of a script or command that will also post particular data and then enter it?

[Steverino]

I want to refresh this post, since I didn't get any answers last time. Are there any experts out there on DDE Execute and the Internet?

[Anatoli]

I am in the group, which doesn't have clue what you are talking about.

Can you rephrase that with example of what you are trying to achieve? Without the technotalk?

[Unable]

"I'm trying to figure out how to automatically post form data from the Filemaker database ..."

Post form data from a FM db file to where?

"...not when using the web version..."

That's Using FileMaker Off-line!

[Steverino]

OK, OK, so it's not Filemaker Online, but it is an Internet-related question.

Here's what I want to do: I want to get web content related to particular records in a contact database. So, for example, if I want to do a Yahoo search for a particular person in my database, I want to click on a "Yahoo" button (from the contact's Filemaker record), be directed to the Yahoo website, automatically have the person's name filled into the search form, and have the search executed ("enter"). Theoretically, you should be able to do that with a DDE Execute command, but the documentation is terrible and I can't figure out the commands.

Instead, I'm cheating by figuring out the web address formula for each particular search -- but this doesn't work for all sites.

Is there anybody well-versed with DDE execute commands for Explorer?

[Anatoli]

I saw nice example for live connection between FM6 and Amazon.com with RPC -- I believe.

[Steverino]

Excuse my ignorance -- what is RPC and where do I find the example? Thanks

[Anatoli]

Google has 1,630,000 pages with RPC

From http://www.xmlrpc.com

What is XML-RPC?

It's a spec and a set of implementations that allow software running on disparate operating systems, running in different environments to make procedure calls over the Internet.

It's remote procedure calling using HTTP as the transport and XML as the encoding. XML-RPC is designed to be as simple as possible, while allowing complex data structures to be transmitted, processed and returned.