Creating a serial number entry dialog

[buck]

Hi everybody,

I'm new to FM and have a good idea for a database that I want to market. The bulk of it is just about done but I'd like to add a dialog box that pops up upon the first launch and asks for a serial number. All the serial will be is a 10 digit number, not generated, or from a list, but just any ol' 10 digits. I just want it to check that 10 numbers have been entered and then give the ok to continue. Or if it's easier to have a list of serial numbers to pick from that's ok too. Just as long as it looks like there's some kind of anti-piracy.

I guess the hard part would be having FM remember so the person doesn't have to enter in the serial every time they use it.

Any help on how I can do that? I've been tinkering away until my eyes hurt.

Thanks so much for your help,

-Don

[ESpringer]

Don,

I'm baffled about why you'd want only the appearance of a license number. Getting the file to run a script on startup (see File Options under File menu) which uses an "if..." to check and see whether the serial number global field has other than ten digits, and then to prompt user for a value only if it *is* still lacking the right number of digits is fairly straightforward. Getting the script then to look at the value and see whether newly entered number's Length is equal to ten digits, all numbers, is also fairly straightforward. Have the script loop through three tries and close the file if the third fails, or something like that. (Check out basic scripting tutorials, and/or post question in scripting area.)

Yet it's also not so difficult to get FM to check that the serial number satisfies some usefully complex criterion, such as getting a checksum digit to come out right (as ISBN numbers do, so that only a small fraction of typos could "pass") or including only certain arrangements of digits and/or letters, or having user enter an email address, if you can send license numbers that bear some sort of encoded relationship to the email address of the user... So why settle for totally fake protection?

If the database is simply a FileMaker file, most security measures seem only symbolic... If you're doing a Runtime solution (wasn't clear from your post), you should be able to work out something a bit better. Doing a quick browse, I see apparently relevant previous posts here:

http://www.fmforums.com/threads/showflat...=true#Post41474

http://www.fmforums.com/threads/showflat...=true#Post43624

http://www.fmforums.com/threads/showflat...=true#Post28462

[buck]

Thanks for getting me in the right direction!

[CobaltSky]

If the database is simply a FileMaker file, most security measures seem only symbolic...

Hi Elise,

Not necessarily, if it is a FileMaker 7 file. The security architecture of v7 has been overhauled from the ground up and is now considerably more robust than anything we've seen in FileMaker's earlier incarnations.

The likelihood of password crackers for v7, for instance, is quite remote - v7 passwords are not even stored in the file (only a one-way hash is stored) and authentiation is done server-side. This is but one of a number of ways in which security has been ramped up.