Web layout

[davnunn]

Hi, I'm a bit of a newbie to web publishing, and I'm interested to see if I can get one particular output from a company database saved as a web page that both our mac and windows users can easily reference. It's basically a flat plan layout for a magazine, so it's quite graphic. I want people to be able to see the current plan for any particular issue.

The trouble is, the layout that will be used to depict it will change with the issue size. If they access it through filemaker, they will automatically be taken to the layout with the right number of pages on it. But for most people filemaker isn't very convenient to load up, and a web page would be much better.

Is there a way to give filemaker dynamic instructions for which layout to use?

Many thanks for all take a look!

David

[davnunn]

Hi, I'm a bit of a newbie to web publishing, and I'm interested to see if I can get one particular output from a company database saved as a web page that both our mac and windows users can easily reference. It's basically a flat plan layout for a magazine, so it's quite graphic. I want people to be able to see the current plan for any particular issue.

The trouble is, the layout that will be used to depict it will change with the issue size. If they access it through filemaker, they will automatically be taken to the layout with the right number of pages on it. But for most people filemaker isn't very convenient to load up, and a web page would be much better.

Is there a way to give filemaker dynamic instructions for which layout to use?

Many thanks for all take a look!

David

[davnunn]

Hi, I'm a bit of a newbie to web publishing, and I'm interested to see if I can get one particular output from a company database saved as a web page that both our mac and windows users can easily reference. It's basically a flat plan layout for a magazine, so it's quite graphic. I want people to be able to see the current plan for any particular issue.

The trouble is, the layout that will be used to depict it will change with the issue size. If they access it through filemaker, they will automatically be taken to the layout with the right number of pages on it. But for most people filemaker isn't very convenient to load up, and a web page would be much better.

Is there a way to give filemaker dynamic instructions for which layout to use?

Many thanks for all take a look!

David

[johanvos]

dont know if this will help, but if you go to layout in preview mode, and copy - the result can be pasted into a container field. ie your whole layout as a graphic. i am presuming that they only need to view, not edit design. you can call this as a script. hope this helps

[Steve T.]

Howdy, d! I'm not sure I entirely understand but I don't think I'd recommend using FileMaker for web drafting layouts although it could certainly be used as the backend database to store articles and content. To answer your question, though, I don't think IWP can specify layout. Custom Web Publishing with CDML can indicate a specific layout, but that is only used for content, not appearance. CWP requires that you do your own web page layouts.

What you COULD do, though, is make various PDFs of your layouts and use FileMaker to organize and web publish those PDFs for users to download. I'm not sure if your 'zine is for paper or electronic output in its final form, but PDFs will probably work better and give you better control over your layout's look and feel.

It looks like you have FM6, so you have IWP and CWP both at your disposal albeit with IP restrictions and 12-hour rollovers.

--ST

[davnunn]

The flatplan isn't for readers it's just a template of what goes on which pages - and being a newspaper, it changes all the time! I can run a script that switches to preview mode, and then copies the current layout - like a rough pdf. Using your suggestion, the resulting image could be pasted in a container field. If I could then get a simple web page to pull in the contents of this container field, I'd be laughing... But I don't know how to do it.

Could you give any further pointers?

- David