I apologize in advance if this is not the place for this question, but here I go.

My organization wants to make a searchable online database of objects that we record in a FileMaker database - basically we want people to search our objects by artist, style, etc.

Our problem is that we are not sure what programs are necessary to mitigate the information from the FM database to the web. Does FM Server or Server Advanced fulfill this function? Our current webmaster wants us to buy a program to mitigate our FM data into a MySQL database, then another two programs to organize the information into a nice layout & then deploy it onto the web (I'm not sure if I can name the programs here). To me that just sounds ridiculous, to buy an extra 4 programs.

Any advice? In the end, I am pushing for the company to hire someone who is a FileMaker expert to consult with us, but before that, I just want an idea of what programs one needs to deploy a FileMaker database onto the web.

Thanks for your time.

Edited May 18, 200718 yr by Guest

Use FileMaker server Advanced for this. That's what it is designed to do.

Steven

Hi CosaNostra,

Stevens right, use FileMaker Server Advanced to host your files. As far as getting FileMaker 'web friendly', you can either use the Instant Web Publishing (a function built into filemaker to generate FileMaker layouts into web pages) as this will do the standard search etc.

If you want a more professional web front, I'd mention using FMStudio (www.fmwebschool.com) and Dreamweaver to generate webpages. I've had that product for 6 months and I've produced an pupil absence based system for our school with very little php coding which does editing records, search, new records etc.

There are a variety of Custom Web Publishing options including:

XML/XSLT

PHP

dotNet with the fmDotNet classes

Flash

There are competent developers acquainted with each of these technologies. Contact me back channel for recommendations.

Steven