FM Server & Image Storage

[johnjustin]

I've spent some time scanning the threads to date on storing images in FM and I think my situation is somewhat common but I've not really seen any good answers yet. Maybe I'm missing something. I work for an art gallery and I've created a FM application for our art inventory. As you might expect we want to store a .jpg image of each work of art in the inventory record along with the data. This will be an open-ended situation in that we want to maintain all the inventory records even after we've sold the work. Thus the images and attached records will just grow in number. So we don't want to store the images inside the database but would prefer to store external 'relative' paths to the images (maybe on a CD) on FileMaker Server 5.5. This way multiple people can use the served database and see the images stored locally on the server on a CD mounted by the server.

Problem: From my experimentation it appears that when you use the FM paste image command to insert a graphic into a record the pathname is 'absolute' and specific to the user's computer who does the link. For obvious reasons this does not work since what we really want is for the link to always be in relation to where the data is stored and not from where the data is referenced or from where the link to the image was put into place.

I've looked at the Troi-File plug-in suite and nothing in the functions list hits me as being particularly useful in this case. Maybe I'm missing something. This appears to be a weak feature in FileMaker which is very robust otherwise. Someone please read this and point me in the right direction. I have over a thousand images to link and I don

[Partha]

Hi,

There are two ways that you can work around this. One is a FileMaker Plugin called iMago that can thumbnail images, and an AppleScript that picks the filepath reference & stores it in a field in your database file. You can download the trial version from the site. Don't remember the URL, but its listed in the FileMaker plugin search.

The other is to use Kudo with FM Pro. Kudo lets you catalog disks, CDs, etc with a thumbnail & a reference to the media, and has very good linking features with FMPro. Full details at (http://www.kudo.com). Kudo also has a downloadle trial version for R&D.

Hope this is of help.

Rgds, Partha

[Rumble Seat]

Addendum: The Troi plug-in is great. Imports a whole folder of images (as ref, or not), store the path in a field, and open the file in it's native application. The only caveat is that for a Network client to view ref images in FM, or launch them, the volume that the source image files are on must be mounted on the client's machine (since the path is followed in the Finder). The work around is to have FM store a thumbnail (not a ref), and the file Path. Then at least you can view the image, and see what the file's name and location is... Not Bad!

Note: I tested this with a file shared by FMP 5.5 (mac) and not by FM Server... I don't know if/how the plugin works with the FM Server(?)

Try .LaunchIt from Dacons. This simply stores a "path name" to any file on any disk viewable in the finder... So to launch a file stored on a disk somewhere else on the network, that volume must first be mounted via AppleShare...

http://www.dacons.net/launchit.html

Another popular one is Troi File Plugin... I haven't tried it for your particular question, but am interested in the same functionality, and will post my findings if I get to it.

http://www.troi.com/software/fileplugin.html

[johnjustin]

I want to thank both Partha and Rumble Seat for their replys to my posting and suggestions for resolving my image linking issue in FM. Both gave me solid leads on how I might be able to do the links to my images. I'm going to try a couple of the suggestions.

I'm also considering just creating yet another table in FM but have it store only the image and then use a relation link to connect it to its data record in the database. This table would reside on the server and on a RW CD ROM.

This way the data portion of the database remains small in size even though this one table will grow and grow. Hopefully, a future enhancement to FM will deal with this issue better. Meanwhile I sort of get what I want without adding complexity. None the less, I'm going to check out their suggestions. They may prove just as effective and be a long term answer. Please let me know if anyone else has any good ideas.

I'm hoping that the folks at FM Corp know this is a weakness in their DB offering. I don't think anyone wants to store unstructured and multimedia data 'inside' the database where it becomes monolithic or wants to have to have two copies of the information -- one for reference and one for editing if necessary.

Thanks to all who helped.

Justin

[kenneth2k1]

I have a couple of questions on this subject.

My experience with opening images is that I use a script to go to my container field and use the Insert Picture step. It seems to me that FM points the path to the last place you inserted a picture from in FM. Cant you just point this path to your CD drive? I guess a problem would be that the names of the pictures are hard to understand if they came from a digital camera. The good thing is that usually they are in numerical order.

Rumble Seat: Regarding not being able to point to a network drive (Troi Plugin), In Windows, would you be able to have a shortcut that points to that network drive? Is it just a Mac problem since it deals with the Finder? Is this plugin only made for Mac?

Thanks,

Ken