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Newbie question re architecture...

jon2004

By jon2004
in Custom Web Publishing

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jon2004 Contributor

jon2004

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i'm afraid i find the filemaker pro and developer manuals heavy on the obvious and light on the useful, so maybe someone can clarify the architecturesteps needed to publish a custom web site to the browser...

i have a fairly simple database (about 40-50 fields). it currently has a simple layout with a couple of navigation scripts and a couple of calcuation and validation scripts.

the instant web publisher version of the database is pretty but breaks a lot of items (ability to add to lists for instance, and the back-and-forth to the server validation is sooo '90's....) i want to use javascript to make the UI more helpful, and i'm happy to use htmljavascriptcss etc to format the pages.

am i correct in understanding that i can use the "elements" of the database such as the fields the save and editdelete, find features etc via the CDML options?

is this the quickest way to merge custom htmljavascript with the storage of the database at the back end?

is there a reasonably annotated real world example of this anywhere i could use?

what i would ideally like is to take the existing filemaker pro generated web site then update the UI with the items i require as the existing UI is 80% correct, but lacking a few features - i don't particularly want to design the whole thing from scracth - but would prefer to add to what is allready there.

any thoughts on the easiest wayt to go about this??

Garry Claridge Grand Master

Garry Claridge

Posted
Posted

Custom Web Publishing uses "Format" files (html/cdml) to present data. These files need to be located in the Web folder of the FM app.

Data is generated by CDML requests, either as URLs or Forms.

A URL request would look like this:

http://myaddress/FMPro?-db=mydb.fp5&-format=mypage.html&myfield=myvalue&-find

The Format file "mypage.html" could look like this:

<html><head></head>

<body>Results<br>

[FMP-Record]

[FMP-Field:myotherfield] [FMP-Field:anotherfield]<br>

[/FMP-Record]

</body></html>

Format files can be created with any page layout program. You just need to insert the CDML where appropriate.

Some examples (by Unable) are located in the "Samples" Forum.

All the best.

Garry

p.s. If you can find a copy of the "CDML Reference" database you will be in a very starting position.

jon2004 Contributor

jon2004

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  • Author
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the concept of format files still puzzles me.

a url request:

FMPro?-db=Employes.fp5&-lay=FormView&-format=results.htm&-findall

this will query the employees database and return the fields on the layout FormView and format them using the results.htm page? is that correct?

i seem to misunderstand the relationship between the layout file and the format file?

If i'm querying and will return an undetermined amount of records how do i create a format file for every possible combination?

is it correct that all html pages in a dynamic filemaker database will be displayed using "format" files?

Anatoli Grand Master

Anatoli

Posted
Posted

RE: i seem to misunderstand the relationship between the layout file and the format file?

There is not such thing as layout file.

The -lay specifies FM layout from which the fields are pulled for web. What is not present on the layout FormView cannot be served to the html form results.htm.

If your layout is only for CDML (and will not be used in future for Lasso middleware) you can have single "web" layout with all the fields from database.

Then you must build html for form display of single record and "list" html form for presenting list of records found set.

CDML for this list will be:

[FMP-Record]

[FMP-Field: Country] - [FMP-Field: Capital]<br>

[/FMP-Record]

And you are right that ALL is displayed on web through html/cdml format files.

jon2004 Contributor

jon2004

Posted
  • Author
Posted

OK - one last question now my db is taking shape...

in filemaker i have some pop up menus with the ability to add other items.

i'm using Fields (Update) generated from the CDML Tool to display my value lists, which is fine, but i want to add another value to that list from the web - is it possible??

how do i translate that feature to the web?

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