TCP import in FM8.5

[davidrichards]

I am updating a database from filemaker 5 to 8.5. In the prior version I use TCPit to import sales records from our website directly into filemaker.

TCPit does not work with the new intel macs (yet). Any other suggestions?

Thank you.

[Reed]

Using a web viewer to bring in the data would be one option. Other plugins you could use would include the smartpill PHP plugin, which I believe is intel mac compatible.

[comment]

If your web site can provide a XML source, I believe that would be the simplest route.

[davidrichards]

I'm not sure I understand. The data is on our website as a delimited text file. My goal is to import the file and parse the data. How can I use the web browser to accomplish?

Unfortunatly, the file is not XML compatible.

[comment]

You would point your web viewer to the URL of the file. Then grab the content (of the entire file) using GetLayoutObjectAttribute(), and parse it out to individual records/fields.

If AppleScript is an option, you could use that to download the file, then import it into Filemaker - that would save the need for parsing.

[davidrichards]

OK, I like the idea of using the webviewer to capture the file. I can assign the ftp address to get to the data, how do I structure the GetLayoutObjectAttribute to return data? My calculation, GetLayoutObjectAttribute("webdatafiles";"content") where webdatafiles is the name of the web viewer, did not return anything.

Thank you

[comment]

Most interesting. It appears you cannot get the content of a text file. It sort of makes sense, because in Safari the option of View Source is grayed out, too. So it's not a Filemaker issue, I think.

[Reed]

what if you rename the files with the .html extension? They will display poorly in a browser, but then you should be able to get the content.