PHP, ASP, CDML, someone help?

[timmy]

do to some of the limitations of CDML, i'm looking into using another scripting language to process a few of my pages.

i've looked at that new Viking solution, trying to get it to work.

anything anyone can tell me about ASP and Filemaker or PHP and Filemaker would be extremely helpful. any advice?

tim.

[MpWiedemann]

Trying to get Filemaker working, and working well, with another web scripting solution is a waste of time. Filemaker's ODBC connectivity is weak and slow. If you are truly serious about developing for the web, use PHP and MySQL. If your coding skills are lacking there is a great product called "Code Charge" www.codecharge.com that creates all the code you need for even the most complicated data driven web sites. It works with ASP, PHP, .NET, CGI and more. On the database side it works with MySQL, MS-Access, Oracle, SQL Server, and others. Perhaps Filemaker Pro version 6 will have better, faster and more stable ODBC connectivity. It would make it easier to connect to and really use. I still like Filemaker very much, but not for web driven solutions. Why do think this forum uses PHP and MySQL? Because they are open-source, cross platform, fast and best of all FREE.

[timmy]

well, i'm very interested to see how the filemaker gurus respond to this one!

i have been coming to the same conclusion, however, as i am already very involved in filemaker, the switch to MySQL would be painful at best.

is there anyone out there that has done the ASP-Filemaker combo or the PHP-Filemaker combo? Furthermore, is there anyone out there who has found it works well?

[Keith M. Davie]

timmy, you wrote, "do to some of the limitations of CDML, i'm looking into using another scripting language to process a few of my pages."

To what "limitations of CDML" are you referring?

[Anatoli]

Yep.

We can give you the truth answer, but you must tell us more. My car doesn't work is not exact description of the problem.

Compared to "other" languages, the CDML is fast and small. It can do many things like does in my case.

It has limitations. But to do e-commerce on average scale is OK.

It is very cheap to develop something in CDML, much cheaper, than ODBC and ASP.

It runs up to 9 full transactions in second of processor time on my Celeron based machine.

[timmy]

heh heh, how did i know everyone was gonna say "what limitations?!?" :-P

there have been a few small problems that i've tried to work around but couldn't. one example is formatting search results. in one of my databases i have a thumbnail image with each record. i wanted the search results to tile from left to right and then when a row is filled, continue on the next row. seems simple enough, but its hard in CDML. i posted this question at:

http://www.fmforums.com/threads/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=UBB22&Number=38987&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=0&vc=1

i got a great answer, and now have it working, but as you can see, the solution is hardly elegant.

for the time being filemaker meets my needs, but as i encounter more and more problems and am forced to do more and more work arounds i'm merely looking into ASP or PHP. it may be that CDML is better for use with filemaker. who knows? not i.

[timolous]

I have been working with both asp (vbscript) and CDML. The ODBC conection on Filemaker really sucks.. On hevy load it start to give unexpecly error messages.... etc etc.. And its slow.

We have now moved some critical(time consuming) task to SQL server from Filemaker.... Becouse of those error messages. And becouse of filemakers security problems (when working with both filemaker and asp pages)..

Another good solution could be using filemakers xml (and litlebit CDML) with serverside xmlhttp and asp . With this kind of solution you can retrive data from filemaker and manage it with asp (mailings, filehandling, variaples, application variaples, loops, for nex, iserts to other databases etc etc.)

I really hope that Filemaker 6 vill have powerfull and workking ODBC!

[Garry Claridge]

Check my method for solving your query in the CDML forum. As staightforward, and elegent, as any ASP/VBScript, PHP solution.

Happy hunting and lots of luck!

Garry

[gdykema]

We've used FX.php (is that what you're referring to as "that new Viking solution"?) on a couple of applications now and are quite happy with it. All data comes from FMP and all web pages are generated by PHP. We've also got an approach that lets you add PHP incrementally to an existing CDML solution--process a page first with CDML and then with PHP.

[Anatoli]

What is the advantage of using CDML and then php?

[gdykema]

"What is the advantage of using CDML and then php?"

You can reformat data, perform calculations, suppress redundant data, color alternating rows, merge in data from another (non-FMP) data source, make use of PHP session data, work around the flaky email functionality in Web Companion, implement file upload, etc.

Even better, start with PHP in the first place and build a more secure and flexible system than you could with CDML. CDML has improved since 4.0 but is still quite limited compared to PHP/ASP/Lasso/CFM/Perl.

[Keith M. Davie]

"The ODBC conection on Filemaker really sucks.."

Okay. Don't use it. Use cdml and write a custom solution which you can host with a dedicated machine.

Nothing personal, I've fallen into that trap myself so when I see comments such as the above quote, I am always reminded that it is the poor workman who blames the tool.

[Anatoli]

The question was about usage of CDML and then php.

You can reformat data, perform calculations, suppress redundant data, color alternating rows, merge in data from another (non-FMP) data source, make use of PHP session data, work around the flaky email functionality in Web Companion, implement file upload, etc.

Generally speaking I am doing almost all that in CDML/HTML/JavaScript and FM.

Reformat data -- no problem

Calculations -- no problem

Suppress redundant data -- no problem

color alternating rows -- no problem

flaky email?:??

the other don’t apply

file upload can be handled outside FM in million ways.

Sure, the php is nice, but also complicated and producing larger code.

Also, we have data web server handy and it is doing good job.

I do not need session data so far.

So, where is the benefit for FileMaker to use CDML and php together?

[gdykema]

"Generally speaking I am doing almost all that in CDML/HTML/JavaScript and FM."

Sure, it can be done that way. Now assume that the user has disabled JavaScript and that changing the database is not an option. Now what do you do?

"So, where is the benefit for FileMaker to use CDML and php together?"

I just answered that. If you don't need it for your applications, don't use it.

[Keith M. Davie]

"Now assume that the user has disabled JavaScript and that changing the database is not an option. Now what do you do?"

I suppose that you test for this and advise the user that they must enable JavaScript. What do you do when you use port 591 and the potential client is a corporate employee whose IT professional unknowingly has installed the firewall such that they cannot access your site. I face this problem. I figure it is their loss, not mine. Cavalier I know. Oh well.

[Anatoli]

The same here. 591 was biggest problem and forced us to use unreliable WSC to get to the port 80.

Not single visitor ever complained about JS ON. Our whole concept of improved FM security is based on JS. And for visitor the JS ON is no problem and not security compromise etc.