Where can I find CDML books and tutorials?

August 9, 200124 yr

Newbies

HI, can anyone tell me where can I find some good CDML langauge and tutorial books?

I am trying to use CDML to customize the search interface for the web publishing.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

SongPerk Sem

University of Kansas

August 10, 200124 yr

Hi, Ku:

If you don't already have it, you need to get the CDML tag reference.

One good book that I have is "Database Publishing With Filemaker Pro on the Web", by Maria Langer. It is pre-FMPro 5.0, but still has alot of good information on CDML coding.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Philip Sommers

Huntsville, Alabama

August 21, 200124 yr

"One good book that I have is "Database Publishing With Filemaker Pro on the Web", by Maria Langer. It is pre-FMPro 5.0, but still has alot of good information on CDML coding."

I would add that it has a lot of bad information on cdml coding as well. I am familiar with this book as I too have read it. She demonstrates the use of the -op tag as an example. Wait till you try it. Will you be surprised. If I recall she sends scripts to a printer to make an invoice. She fails to mention the single-thread engine of FileMaker and its relationship to the multi-user environment of the web. There are several other things which she does in which she is just parroting the FMI line. I know because I used her work as a guide and so much of it was erroneous I was amazed. (Incidentally, she offers no guarantees.)

[Not cdml, but a reflection on her work, on p. 317 {if you have her book} you will find a calculated field's calculation. This is to allow the display of two decimal places in the browser solution. There is an error in the formula as printed. I doubt very much that an errata comes with the book to make you aware of this. I know there was none when I read the book a few years ago. I know she has been made aware of this.]

I also read the FMI book by Feiler.

By the time I had taught myself cdml, I was so dismayed by what was available I decided to develop a demonstration, which I did. You will find it discussed around the beginning of April under either "SIMPLIFY ..." or "-scripts run safely over the web".

You will find that Anatoli BELIEVES that the workaround which I developed does not work. Every TEST I have DONE of running the demo and making near-simultaneous requests - no matter what machines have been used - have proved that the workaround I developed is a success.

If you can get beyond the script argument, you will find that the demonstration I have written is perhaps the best solution available for the developer beginning to figure out how to use cdml.