Hey all,

Is there a way to insert a "folder" or display the contects of a folder on my local drive into FileMaker instead of a "file" so that I can navigate through it. This way when files are added to the folder they will kind of automatically update in filemaker?

I am completely new to FileMaker so please understandy my naivety. If there is a way to do this or something similar and you can send me in the right direction I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks in advance,

Vincent Seiber

Short answer: Yes, it's possible to replicate this kind of behavior... but it's really hard.

Longish Answer: It's *possible* to create a systems that will monitor a folder and update the database listing of the things in that folder. Problem is, this is a *very* hard thing to do without a ton of hacks all over the place. Honestly, I'd steer clear of this kind of task 'till you're ready to tackle things outside the FileMaker environment in your scripting.

Thanks for the reply,

At least I know that it may be ultimately possible, but just barely knowing the basics at least I know this is outside the realm of what I am capable of doing for now (and not just a simple function that I am overlooking)

No, there is no native FileMaker function to view the files in a folder. It is not terribly difficult to do, using a (free) plug-in and command line. I'm fairly familiar with the Mac side of this, less so with Windows. The basic command is:

Windows: dir

Mac: ls

One free plug-in for Windows is the Abstrakt Shell plug-in. It's rather old, and no longer supported (AFAIK), but it works in Windows XP. A newer plug-in is the Spider plug-in, from fmwebschool. But I don't know how to direct you to where/how to download it, other than this link: http://fmwebschool.com/resources/SpiderShell/SpiderShell.html

So, no, as Mike says, it's not really for beginners. But it is not rocket science either.* The plain command will bring a list of files into a single text field in FileMaker. But then you'd need to be able to parse a line, to do anything with it.

I have an example file for Mac, but none for Windows, as yet anyway.

*What do rocket scientists say? "It's only rocket science"?