Manipulating Files & Folders without plugins

by Matt Petrowsky

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Errors, problems and troubles - Oh my! It seems as if more than half the coding done is for solving problems created by writing the code in the first place. Don't worry though, it happens to all of us. It's part of the coding process. You simply can't know all the variables.

You see, you're working in a known environment. The issues you fix are related to the problems which exist in your own computing environment. However, if you're putting something out there, you simply can't account for all possible issues. Not from the start.

Hopefully, at least on this issue, if you can learn from my lessons, I'll save you a ton of time. In my situation, with my Theme Studio product, it turns out that a good number of people using FileMaker do not use AutoUpdate, or at least have never had a reason to.

In FileMaker 9, FileMaker Inc. added a new shared extensions path for plugins. This shared extensions folder is where you can install a plugin and have it running for versions 9, 10 and 11. Here are the paths.

Windows XP:

C:Documents and SettingsUser NameLocal SettingsApplication DataFileMakerExtensions

Windows Vista/7:

C:UsersUser NameAppDataLocalFileMakerExtensions

Mac OS X:

Macintosh HD/Users/User Name/Library/Application Support/FileMaker/Extensions

When trying to install a plugin, from a container, into this location, I was getting reports of errors and not being able to install the plugin. Silly OS messages would appear like "You don't have enough disk space.", etc.

There is where the topic of this video came in. Typically, I'm using a plugin to manipulate files and folders. I opt to use 360Work's ScriptMaster (of which there is a free version). The problem, however, if you haven't already figured it out, is that I can't us a plugin if it's not already installed yet. And I needed a folder in order to install the plugin - otherwise FileMaker was throwing an error.

So the question was, "How can I create a folder in order to install a plugin via AutoUpdate?"

The answer was to use the OS to create the folder. So here you have a video about using the OS in order to do all kinds of things. The example shown is that of working with folders, but it doesn't stop there.

If you understand the topic taught in this video then the limits to what you can do with FileMaker alone will expand SIGNIFICANTLY!