Filemaker scripts

[benbear]

I am new to filemaker. Having previously used access and vb to do my work. I decided to use filemaker for a small database at work and found it quite useful for "quick & dirty design" however I have found the scripting side of it or more to the point reference and user guides a little on the lame side. Can anyone suggest a good reference or web site to get a much more "advanced" look at the scripting possibilities within filemaker. by the way I am using filemaker 6.0 under windows XP. As i said other than this frustration I guess you can say that I am converted to filemaker.

[Reed]

www.filemakermagazine.com has a bunch of good articles and video tutorials.

"Advanced filemaker pro 5.5 techniques for developers" also has some good examples of scripting and calculation fields. The book is available at amazon

[bkamlin]

I rcommend Scriptology it seems to be the best for scripting. It is currently out of print but you can find a used one on amazon. Check www.scriptology.com.

[CobaltSky]

benbear said:

Can anyone suggest a good reference or web site to get a much more "advanced" look at the scripting possibilities within filemaker...

Dare I say it, it looks like you already found one of them...

You might also want to take a browse around the FileMaker World WebRing, which has its hub at:

http://l.webring.com/hub?ring=fmpring

It currently has 164 sites, many of which offer FileMaker tips or resources of one form or another.

[Lee Smith]

I agree with bkamlin, Scriptology is an excellent resource. Unfortunately, the book with the CD has been out of print for a couple of years. It sometimes becomes available at Ebay.com, but not as often as in the past.

Sometimes it is just as affective to look at other sample files, or just post your script here for comments. Often you only need to state what you are wanting to accomplish, and you will received more than one way to accomplish it. What may seem like a job for ScriptMaker could turn out to be a calculation, or vice versa.

One thing to keep in mind is that this isn't brain surgery, and most of the things we are trying to do have already been done hundreds of times before. In other words don't try to reinvent the wheel.

Here are a few of my favorite sites that have Tip, Trick, Example, Demo, shareware, and commercial software available.

CobaltSky (AKA Ray Cologon) is being too modest here, as he has several excellent example (tip) files at his site;

http://www.nightwing.com.au/

Also, don't forget the sample area here at FM Forums.

http://www.fmfiles.com/

http://www.acmetech.com/

http://www.databasepros.com/

http://www.dwdataconcepts.com/

http://www.mogulsoft.com/fmpro/

http://www.hposoft.com

http://www.amug.org/~hposoft

http://www.powerfiles.com/index.html

http://www.40ers.com/

http://fentonjones.com

BTW, I haven't been to these sites for awhile, so if you (or anyone else), experiences any problems with them, I would appreciate you letting me know.

HTH

Lee

Version: v6.x

Platform: Mac OS 9

[mrmarco]

I am a novice to Filemaker. Problem: First & Last Name are in the same field, but I need to have them in separate fields, and the full address is in one field, but I need to separate it into address, state & zip. How can I accomplish this without having to do it all manually?

Marco

[Reed]

First and Last names are easy, you can just use the LeftWords and RightWords functions to split this up. You could either use calculation fields or use a script that loops through all records with a couple of set field steps to populate normal text fields.

The address is a little more tricky, as it would depend on how it's formatted. If the two street address lines are on two lines separate from the city, state and zip line, you can grab them based on the carriage return character to split them up. If the city is always separated from the state by a comma, you could use that to get the city.

In the end you'll have to play around with using the Left(), Right(), Middle() and Position() functions. Also PatternCount and Substitute. Check out the online help, as it has examples of the use of these functions.

The book I mentioned previously in this thread has a chapter on complex calculations, including a section on text manipulation.

Dana

[Steve T.]

Hi, Marco! If you decide to fix it manually, I'd export the problem field to text and then use either Word or Excel to auto-replace key characters with tabs to separate them. Figuring out the key characters and subdividing your data sets is where the brainwork will be, and don't be afraid to use combinations of FM/Word/Excel on sub-parts... it doesn't have to be all or nothing.

good luck!

--ST