Need some help here!

Could someone please give me an explanation of the "save relative path only" checkbox in the open file script step? I cannot find an explanation of this in any manual. Im sure this is simple but it escapes me..

Thanks

Stuart

There are two types of paths to files

extremely useful if the files you are working on reside in the same folder and you happen to move or copy the folder to somewhere else.

....and also nicer to "submit it" to your cumstomer in this format so they are not "obligated" to reference it like you have (eg. u might have mapped drive "G:projectcustomer_55" for which you customer should not be forced to follow the same folder structure)

:-)

I agree 100%. I've provided a FileMaker project to a customer and it worked perfectly. I quickly learned in my "day job" after developing a MS Access database how nice that feature is. MS Access is strictly absolute addressing. When you move it from the development system to the client, you have to explicitly refresh any links to external tables even if they are in the same directory.

Mike

hi mkd256!

yeah Access has its + and - ....eg. FM *needs to refrence "tables" and those tables are diffrent files entirely....while Access contains all tables in one file...but as u said there is that "dark" side of Access when u connect 2 or more DBs....anyhow...we are floating away from the post

Thanks for the description .... it has helped

Stu

Based on MKD256 description, how would I designate an absolute path in my "open file" script step?

Open[]

[]Specify File... {Browse}

[x]Save Relative Path only

You would use the Open URL script step

Open URL [No dialog, "file:///c:/My_File.fp5"]

Mike

and he still wants to use Absolute path?! :-(0 whyyyyyyy)

I don't believe the checkbox is used to distinguish relative vs. absolute path. It seems to me that you'd use it when you DO want something like an "absolute" path.

My understanding of the point of it is to tell FileMaker NOT to go scouring the network for possible files to open whenever it can't locate a file. This was previously a major headache for users and developers.

It seems to me that you'd use it when you DO want something like an "absolute" path.

Assuming 'use' equates with 'check', then I would think this would be a case in which you WOULD NOT want to use it.

And, yes, I am aware that I am a semantic jerk.

"semantic jerk"

LOL.....

I think we beat this one to death....YES vs. NO.....u know in some countries YES means NO and NO means YES...in this case> how would this check-box apply???

...just kidding.

when in doubt:

<<<<@~~ puf puf...give

<take><puff><puff><hack><choke><die>...the ultimate terminal solution

Queue:

is this Absolute or a Relative solution ...?

Well, if it's fatal, I'd say that's relatively absolute.

ur absolutely right....which path should I take? non-smoke_....

lol

ok...enough spam for today

In my mind.. this is an absolute solution.. All the agents we distribute to will always have the same directory structure as we are the ones setting it up for them so it is absolute.

With their soulution, which runs locally on their machines, information exchange is done thru an IP address specified on their solution which points to us.

Here is where the absoulute vs relative comes into play.

When they log into us their files check a version number which we designate on our side. If the versions are not the sames we use the autoupdate feature of sever and client to download the latest files to them and update their version numbers after closing the files first. This works fine but sometimes we have found that the newest version cannot be found when we start up the main file which is looking for them..

Sorry for the long post.

Stu

hi,

isn't the option called "store only a reference to the file"?

you would use this option if you didn't want to embed the file you are inserting, if you just wanted to link to it...

jd.

jane, "store only a reference" is something else -- you see it when you Insert a picture for example. We're talking about a different checkbox:

http://www.filemaker.com/ti/107953.html

"The 'Save Relative Path Only' option is available when you specify a file from the Import Records, Open, Close, or Recover script steps. It is also available when you specify a value list from another file or a relationship for a file."

I think this is a feature that the above URL and this thread so far have not completely clarified. IMO there shouldn't even be a checkbox, FileMaker should have opted for the "checked" behavior by default. Their decision to by default (checkbox unchecked) search all over the network for missing files has led to untold hours of problems and frustration. It's hard to imagine a scenario where that would be a desirable behavior for the program.

hi,

ah ok, my bad.

jd.