Recommended plug for file manipulation

[sandyinlet]

I'm in the market for a plug-in to FMP9 which will enable end users to choose a folder on their hard drive on which to save an export out of FMP.

Back in FMP6 days I was a happy user of the Troi plug-in for that purpose. Is Troi still the best of the breed, or has something else taken its place?

Would appreciate hearing your views.

[bcooney]

You wouldn't need a plug-in to allow users to choose a folder during an export. Just don't save the export path in the script step.

[sandyinlet]

You wouldn't need a plug-in to allow users to choose a folder during an export. Just don't save the export path in the script step.

I oversimplified my purpose. The export I have in mind are PDFs, particularly a routine where fields are embedded within the text, and therefore outputting 10 records as individual PDFs will result 10 slightly different files. However FMP9 outputs each one to overwrite the one before, resulting in just one PDF, the last one.

Therefore I need to be able to trap the user's choice of path and also their choice of file name. With these two known elements I can then add a counter into the loop outputting the PDFs to "thePath/Title & $$Counter & .pdf".

The native inability of FMP9 to make a distinction between the path and the chosen file name calls for a plug-in. I'm very familiar with the world of FMP6 where Troi had a series of excellent plugs, including its File plug-in. Instead of leaping to the assumption that Troi continues to be "best of breed" in FMP9 I was looking for guidance on best choices.

I'm still looking forward to the views of others on best choices for FMP9.

[Fenton]

The question "which is best" is kind of vague. Troi File likely has the most features, including other things like find/replace within text files, append to file, find files on drive, create a sized image file, etc.. If you need one of those, and no one else has it, then it's the "best" (though it costs the most). There are other commercial plug-ins which can do some of this. There are free ones, such as ScriptMaster (cross-platform) and MooPlug (Windows only) which can do what you asked for (the former being more powerful but slightly higher learning curve, the latter being easy to learn). If you're only using Macs, then AppleScript can do this easily. You could use AppleScript and MooPlug, forking for each platform.

[bcooney]

Why not always save to a particular directory? FM won't overwrite the file in the loop if you create the export path within the loop, using the counter technique. Giving the user the choice of filename can open a duplication/overwrite can of worms, imho.

[Søren Dyhr]

Lets not forget that even without 3rd party tools or scripting the OS is it still posible to make fresh new folder straight from filemaker scripts:

http://www.databasepros.com/FMPro?-DB=resources.fp5&-lay=cgi&-format=list.html&-FIND=+&resource_id=DBPros000842

--sd