Display current time (refreshed every second)

[larosche]

I have an application where it would be great to refresh a field to display the current time.

In other words I want to automatically refresh the field every second to update the time for the user to view.

How do I get Filemaker to refresh the field every second?

Thanks!

[Razumovsky]

I don't think you will find a good way to do this without a plugin. Filemaker works best when things are set to update/refresh based on when data is altered or entered, not so great for scheduled tasks.

You can create a looped pause/refresh script, but it will seem clunky. Not to be discouraging, but unfortunately, I think a wristwatch would be a much easier and elegant solution.

Perhaps there is a java or flash clock that could be imbedded in a container?

-Raz

[Lee Smith]

Here is a file done in v3/4 By: Steve Wilmes called Clock available at: http://www.fmfiles.com/enduserhom11.html

I just checked to see if it would convert, and it seems to okay. The purpose of my post was so you can see what is involved to create a file like this.

HTH

Lee

[Razumovsky]

I'm curious Lee, but don't have FM3 available. Any chance you could post a converted file or a brief summary of the technique involved?

-Raz

[Lee Smith]

Here it is, all I did was to open it up in version 8, and it converted to it. I did not take a look at the workings to see if anything broke, but it was clicking off the time as if it did this okay.

Lee

Clock_Converted.fp7.zip

[comment]

It's exactly what you would expect. As the author says:

"Bummer is it requires a loop so you can’t do other FileMaker stuff while it is running...unless of course you run multiple copies of FileMaker. You do, don’t you??"

[Razumovsky]

Thanks,

I had thought you needed to convert through FM5 for some reason.

Actually, it looks pretty good. Uses the looping method. The only catch (as noted in the help) is if you want to do anything else in FM while the clock is running...

Nice interface though.

-Raz

[larosche]

Lee,

Thanks for the file link. I gave up and created an application in visual basic 6. However I have to run the .exe file and Filemaker at the same time. It will be pretty easy to create an application on my Mac also.

Is there a way to force an application to stay on "top" of Filemaker?

Thanks everyone!

Ed

TimeandFlipCard.zip

Edited July 11, 2006 by Guest

[Reed]

If you upgrade to v8.5, you could place a web page containing a live clock in a filemaker layout. Java or Flash I guess would be able to pull this off.