Field Order in FileMaker Layouts and AppleScript

(Posted the same question at MacScripter, but it is very specific about FileMaker 12.) Background: A plug-in for some other software (“RagTime”) retrieves data from FileMaker via AppleEvents. With FileMaker 12, I have got a problem.

Imagine a simple FileMaker database “contacts” with two tables, “companies” and “employees”. There is a FileMaker layout displaying the address data for a company and in portal rows, the employees are listed.

First script example:

set fm_db to "contacts"
tell application "FileMaker Pro"
    tell window 1 of document fm_db
        set my_result to (get data of current record)
    end tell
end tell
my_result

This returns all values from the record. Fields in portal rows are returned as lists with one entry for each employee.

Second Script:

set fm_db to "contacts"
tell application "FileMaker Pro"
    tell window 1 of document fm_db
        set my_result to (get data of every cell of current record)
    end tell
end tell
my_result

This returns a list where only the first employee appears as a single entry. But there is a second difference: The first script returns the fields in the order of the geometrical arrangement in the layout (top-down, left-right). The second script seems to return the fields in the order in which they have been added to the layout.

A third script to get the field names:

set fm_db to "contacts"
tell application "FileMaker Pro"
    tell window 1 of document fm_db
        set my_result to (get name of every field)
    end tell
end tell
my_result

Now finally the problem: I need the lists of employees as in the first script and I need the field names, the values belong to. But the thirds script uses the same order as the second.

Currently I got stuck. Does any FileMaker scripter know a way to retrieve data from a window including all portal rows and to retrieve the field names in a consistent order?

(FileMaker 5 through 11 used the same order for field names as for the values in script 1.)


Jürgen