Help!

I've developed a very intricate database that tracks a combination of individuals and companies along with various pieces of information about each. It was a hit! Now the problem, they want to move it to the web. IWP is out of the question because of little quirks and we need more control over how it looks and operates. My company is talking with an outside vendor (who is very ignorant about the power of filemaker and hasnt tried to explore the filemaker option) and he has suggested that the entire database be rebuilt in a mysql/php environment! I know mysql/php are very powerful but I need help in ANY suggestions about how to link the web and filemaker and what to use in between. thanks!

You may need FM Server Advanced to provide a web solution; alternatively you may be able to use CafePHP.

Another way is to "sync" the FM database with an online MySQL database.

All the best.

Garry

Custom web programming with FileMaker can have a steep learning curve, especially if you're unfamiliar with other web programming.

There is no reason to rebuild the database in mysql - filemaker integrates with PHP/"the web" and vice-versa very nicely. I suppose if you're dealing with millions and millions of records, then mysql would be faster. You could use ASP scripting as well, but there seems to be very little support for integrating with FileMaker.

You could use standard ODBC commands in your PHP programming to extract data out of filemaker and display it the way you need. I've found this a bit slow in transfer to be a "very good" solution. A better solution is to use what's called 'FX.php', which is a PHP class that uses the XML output of filemaker. Check out this website for more info on it - http://www.iviking.org/FX.php/ There is also a program that writes the code for you, called FXForge - http://www.fxforge.net/ There are other technologies available as well.

If you don't feel confortable about programming this yourself, there are plenty of excellent developers that could do this for you. A lot of them on this forum.

you said something about "synching" the FM database with a MySQL database online. how does one go about doing that? i'm in a position with a non-profit where we need our database available online, but don't have the money to buy extra applications to do it for us.

our web host uses MySQL, but doesn't know anything about filemaker, so he hasn't been much help so far in working this out. i don't know much about either, but need to figure it out. changing servers is not really an option.

if i'm not hosting the database myself, do i still need to install MySQL on my computer to work on the PHP application?

Making your own "syncing" would be the way to go. How you go about it depends on your needs, for example:

Is the database being edited from the web (i.e. would it need to be synchronized both ways)?

How dynamic is the database (i.e. would live, 1min, daily, weekly or monthly updates be acceptable)?

What operating system is the FM database hosted on (i.e. can you use CURL, AppleScript, etc)?

All the best.

Garry

We are actually adding FX.php to CAFEphp and this should be avaialble very soon. No longer will you have to worry about SQL querries you will be able to use CAFEphp with regular FileMaker 7.0 and FX.php.

Coming soooooon!