Switching from V. 6 & CDML to V7 & XML question

[ibiubu]

OK, if I want to upgrade to v. 7 then I am going to have to dump CDML in favor of XML for my custom web publishing.

Question 1: Is there anything that is currently accomplished in CDML that can not be accomplished in XML? In particular, current CDML items such as:

FMP-Include

FMP-IncludeField

FMP-If: fieldName .lt. 1

FMP-If: fieldName .gt. 0

name="-format" value="[FMP-field:Research::link1]

The reason I ask is that I run a online survey system built around CDML that contains about 150 HTML pages. They all heavily use forms of the above listed CDML tags.

Question 2: In order to accomplish custom web publishing, are we still waiting on FM to release v. 7 Server Advanced?

Question 3: Could I get a head start on learning the CDML to XML conversion by contracting some work to someone that understands FM, CDML and XML. I figure maybe I could have someone else convert 10 or so of my existing CDML pages to XML.

LR

[DanBrill]

I'd be interested in knowing more about this too. I see FM7 Advanced Server in my future for custom web publishing. I know some xml now but never used CDML, so I feel like I won't be in the dark with the xml or relearning CDML. If custom web pages communicate with FM via xml, is there still a place for other handy web languages like Perl, PHP, and javascript? I don't suppose there are any books out on this yet. Is FM Intl. providing any advance-release documentation on this so we can get a head start? Have they gotten a release date narrowed down to something beyound "sometime in August" yet?

Thanks,

Dan

[Garry Claridge]

A book exists by "Beverly Voth" titled "Filemaker Pro 6 Developers Guide to XML/XSL". The XML and XSLT used should not change greatly. Other notes exist on the Filemaker site.

The use of PHP or Java as middleware is worthwhile. However, XSL transforms can achieve quite a bit for the presentation of data into a web browser.

Filemaker also talk about a Utility for transforming CDML aplications into XML applications.

All the best.

Garry

[DanBrill]

Thanks, Garry. Just picked up 2 books on PHP over the weekend, so it looks like it is time to dive in.

Thanks again,

Dan

[Garry Claridge]

You should enjoy it

All the best.

Garry

[ibiubu]

Am I the only one that does not understand FM's strategy for migrating to v7? For example...

Change the custom web publishing by dropping CDML for XML. But wait, not only are we going to do this, but lets make everyone wait another 6 months (Server Advanced) to even use custom web publishing.

Oh, and lets release a version now that does not even allow users to start migrating custom web solutions because we don't offer them anything to test it with.

Larry

[Justin Grewe]

Exactly,

I mean it is causing a lot of headaches where im from. We have solutions that were created in Version 7 and we were told that Server Advanced would be out in July so we told our customers that. We found out it would be "Sometime August" and so we waited. But then we got Server 7 and thought we could at least do Instant webpublishing with that but again we were wrong. Why does FileMaker have to keep people waiting with this one product? I mean, there is not really a lot of documentation out there showing how good it will be. What are we supposed to tell our customers? You know?