I've simplified the approach since posting topic #170311, and I'm still having problems. I'm very unknowledgable of FMS, can't find any downloadable docs at filemaker.com, and am 3000 miles from my client (I'm doing all the work via Timbuktu).

Problem: I can't make 'Save a Copy As' work on a server.

Here's my proof-of-concept: I "sat" (virtually, via TB2) at a client Mac, and opened a FM file hosted by FMS 5.5 on their local server. I then used Scriptmaker to create the following one-line script:

Save a Copy As

In the Save dialog I designated the user's Documents folder as location, and "Custom Sales Report.fp5" as the name.

I ran the script. No errors, but it did not create a file by that name *anywhere* on the local machine.

Then I enhanced my script by prefacing it with Set Error Capture On, and adding the following:

If [status(Current Error) > 0]

... Set Field [gTemp, "Error " & Status(Current Error) & " trying to Save a Copy."]

... Show Custom Dialog[gTemp]

End If

I ran it again and got the fascinatingly insane message:

Error 0 trying to Save a Copy.

What is going on?? I can live with zero being occasionally greater than zero . But is it simply impossible for a server-resident file to save a copy of itself onto the client's computer?

It only has to work for this one user - the same one whose computer I'm using to do this scripting. Thus, pathname differences are not an issue.

Should I not be creating/editing server-resident scripts in this way? Are there some secret permissions (Unix or Filemaker) I'm unaware of? (Security is nonexistent in this database)

I sure would welcome any ideas - and probably the more obvious, the better, since I have almost no knowledge of FM Server.

Chap

No, 'Save a Copy As' does not work on hosted files (for good reason.)

An alternative is to distribute a file to your client and built import scripts into it that pull from the hosted file.

Thanks - come to think of it, that's kind of what I was trying to do, except I was trying to have the server file "distribute" itself to the client by saving itself as a clone on the client machine, and then invoke that clone's import scripts. (The file in question was sort of a report template, containing no data, only scripts.)

Would have made bug fixes and upgrades easier, there being only one file to replace.

But since this "auto-distribution" can't work, your suggestion seems to be the best approach.

I know FM Server 5.5 has the ability to distribute plug-in updates to clients. It downloads the specified encoded file to FileMaker's Extensions folder. It may be possible to use this process to download FileMaker files too??! You would still have to encode the file and put it in the right place, and work out all the import scripting.

Maybe someone has investigated this already?

A lot of these upgrade issues can be addressed by moving to the modern versions of the software and employing the separation model as your core file architecture. That way--for the most part--you'd be updating not the data files, but just the logic and UI file.

Steven