fmgo12 thumbs and small product pix on iOS

[peaceandplenty]

My products database is very straightforward, nothing complicated. Each product has several photos; the photos are in a separate file as per recommendations here some time ago.

 

Now I am building a version of my products DB for iOS, and naturally the photos (some are 2000 x 3000±) are way too big for the iPhone to handle. So the question is this: I know how to create smaller versions of each picture (there are many ways, I will use Preview or Graphicconverter).

 

What I don't know is how to have records on the iOS refer to the small version of the photo while records on the Mac use the normal, large version.

 

Do I create a new table? How do I populate the new table and how do I tell the iOS records to use the small version of the photos? This isn't an unusual situation I would guess but I don't see how to do it?

 

And of course to complicate matters I need TWO smaller sizes of each photo on the iOS: one for a thumbnail, and another that is large enough to email to clients but not as large and unwieldily as the 'main' picture that resides on the Mac?

 

I am using FM 12 Advanced on the MAc, and FM Go12 on the iOS. Once I learn how to do it for the small iPhone, I can do the same thing so it can run on the iPad with a different set of sizes.

[RyanESmith7]

I think this depends on the size of the container field on the layout that you are using to present the data. I have one in a portal where the container field field is very small (about thumbnail size), and the pics load very quickly on that layout. Then I have another layout where the container field is full size and they load a little slower. This is just a guess, though. 

[normanicus]

I think the answer is here:

 

http://www.filemaker.com/12help/html/func_ref2.32.78.html

 

The Get(SystemPlatform) function.

 

With this you would create fields to contain your various sizes of thumbnail and reference the one you need with a calculation using this function.

[peaceandplenty]

Thanks for the replies, and it seems I've not explained the problem well, as usual! I know how to do the setup stuff, and how to learn what the platform is, etc. That's not the problem.

 

This solution will run on remote devices. It won't use Server. Everything, including product data and product photos, must fit on an 8G iPhone.

 

Photos are critical, but they are very large, ?4M, and there are nearly a thousand of them. So far, so good.

 

The photos are in a table called 'pix', and they are related in the usual way with a serial key.

 

I made another table called 'small pix'. I populated it by making smaller versions of the photo data. I did not change the file names (FM is using the file names, I assumed).

 

So now it is very simple, with three tables: data, pix, small pix. Easy scripting to tell the iPhone version to use 'small pix' rather than 'pix'. 

 

But the system is not very robust. Importing new photos, for example, will require some scripting to be sure that the smaller versions are also made. 

 

Am I over-thinking this?