I see there is this software called REALBasic that is supposed to make it easy to write applications, etc. Can you use this to write a plug in that will work with FMP? And has anyone tried this REALBasic software?

Thanks

I've used RealBasic. It's an impressive development package, but I don't think it's the right tool for creating FileMaker type plug-ins. I'm not saying it can't be done, but Filemaker's interface files are intended to be used with C or C++ I believe. So, trying to make a plug-in with RealBasic likely isn't very practical.

Because you don't really need the user interface part when making a plug-in, you could probably do it with OSX's built-in C compiler. Don't ask me how it works though.

Okay, then what can I use REALBasic for? I asked about FMP because I was dreaming of a stand alone little app that would search through your db for you without opening fmp or having it in the background.... thanks though

You can certainly use RealBasic to create a standalone application which communicates with a Filemaker database using AppleEvents/Applescript.