So I have a photo database that I built with FM. In the database, I have a record for each image, with a smallish thumbnail of the image the record relates to. The larger original images are kept in a directory on my drive that has a bunch of subdirectories containing images from different months and locations.

I wanted a button in filemaker that I could click and have the large version of the image for that record pop up. The problem was that the paths might change, and I couldn't hard code location data into filemaker.

The solution:

Write a bit of applescript that uses the terminal to execute unix commands to find the file. So I have a field that contains a bit of applescript that is generated for each record, like so, based on the ID of the current record (which is also the base filename of the image, and is essentially the date the image was taken):

"tell application ""Terminal""

You don't need to script or lauch terminal. The applescript "do shell script" command can achieive the same results. Or you can use the the shell plugin from Abstrakt.com and the whole thing can be set to execute as soon as you tab out of the field.