I'm using Filemaker Server Advanced 8. I have a database that has a lot of photos. When I use IWP to publish layouts that contain photos, I notice that the photos become huge (in KB, not in screen size!) and can take forever to download and display. If I choose "Save Picture As" from the web page and save the image to my Desktop, I'm forced to save as a BMP and the file size is 4 to 5 times larger than the actual JPG I added to the container in the database.

I see from reading other posts that for newer versions of Filemaker there's software called SuperContainer that supposedly takes care of this problem. But is there anything I can do in Filemaker 8? I haven't been able to find a solution to this.

Thanks,

Tony

Tony-

I haven't experienced this problem personally (my databases are not terribly image-laden), but here's some things I would try if I was:

First, containers allow you to store the file itself, or a reference to the file. If you store the actual file, the binary data is written to the database. If you store by reference, it just stores some sort of pointer that grabs the image and displays it. Maybe the photos won't get bitmapitized if you just store a reference. One thing to note, is that if you're using the reference technique I don't know where you'd have to store the files, maybe on a web server accessible from the internet, or maybe on the FileMaker Server. Like I said, I haven't had to deal with this yet.

Also, SuperContainer has a free trial, you should see if it will work with Server 8 Advanced. The web site says that it uses the Web Viewer, therefore it needs FileMaker Pro 8.5, but there is no FileMaker Server 8.5 Advanced. If you're accessing a database with FileMaker Pro 8.5, you're probably serving it with Server 8. 8 isn't THAT old. I think this is actually more likely to work than the store reference thing.

HTH,

Jamie