Filling out dialog boxes...

[spankalee]

This is kinda related to faxing ad printing, but there so little traffic in the faxing forum, so...

Is there a way to fill out dialogs that script steps like [print] produce? I can choose "Specify print options" but I can only choose the options once, I can't choose them dynamically via the script.

What I'm trying to do is fax a layout. I either want to choose the fax option and fill out the phone number with the customer's fax number, or I want to save a PDF to a temp file with a unique name so it doesn't get overwritten by a subsequent fax script. I can't figure out how to do either. I think it might be a job for AppleScript, but so far I'm striking out there as well.

I'm pulling my hair out with FM yet again, trying to do something that should be simple. Please tell me I'm just missing something obvious.

Thanks

[spankalee]

Anyone?

I'd love to hear a response, even if it's to tell me it's not possible. Of course, it'd be even better if there was some work around.

thanks

[Ted S]

I'm not a Mac guy at all so I don't want to even attempt and answer but the question is a bit fuzzy so I don't know if I could even start.

Assume we know nothing about the problem and talk us through your ideal solution.

[spankalee]

Ok, so on the [print] ScriptMaker step there's a "Specify print options" checkbox and button. When clicked it shows the standard print dialog which let's you choose your printer, range of pages to print, the number of copies, etc.

I'd like to set some of these options based on field values in the database. Specifically I'd like to either set the fax number for an outgoing fax, or the filename of the PDF file to save to, but even something as simple as selecting the printer would be nice as well.

[ShawnR]

As far as I know, there is no way to pass the info to the System Software. Maybe via AppleScript?

[Fenton]

The printing to PDF is probably a job for AppleScript. Not so much to print the PDF, which can be done by a FileMaker Print script step, but to rename the file produced so that it doesn't get overwritten by the next. You cannot print or export a dynamically named file from FileMaker, so you have to rename it afterwards.

You can print to a couple of folder locations (you can alternatively use the PDF Services technique; read at Apple's site).

Shared folder:

Macintosh HD/Users/Shared/

Temporary Items folder:

Macintosh HD/private/tmp/501/TemporaryItems/

It's then a matter of renaming and/or moving the exported file after. It is pretty simple, if you know what the full file path is. Which you should, since it has to be static. It is an old Mac style path (unless you use a shell script). Example - FileName is a FileMaker field on the current layout, with the new name in that record (or could be a global field)

set newName to cell "FileName"

tell application "Finder"

set name of file "Macintosh HD:Users:Shared:Export.pdf" to newName

end tell

About faxing, I know there are built-in methods, but you may want to look a the (cheap) shareware PageSender, which comes with a some AppleScripts to do this (from FileMaker).