For a couple of years we do various things in FileMaker Script Workspace like
syntax coloring. We got a copy command once we started to read all lines in a script. Later we added checks to find usage of
undeclared variables, so you easier spot typos in your variable names. Now we go one step further: We scan for variables and present you a list of names we know.
When you have a script open in the Script Workspace and you open a calculation dialog, you can now auto complete. Just go into a calculation dialog for a Set Variable or Set Field or any of the other script steps taking a calculation. Then type something. We have a switch there, so only when you type a $ symbol, our plugin activates. Otherwise it lets the request pass to FileMaker to auto complete field and function names.
To find the variable names, we scan the script from the current selected line for currently up to 500 lines upwards. The limit can be adjusted with
SyntaxColoring.CheckVariableDeclaration.SetLimits function if needed. We hope that is for now enough to find the common variable names you like to use. If you keep working in one script workspace, we retain global variable names, we see, so you may see them in auto complete for multiple scripts.
Like with the variable check, we support declaring variables in comment lines. That is a kind of workaround for the plugin not seeing into global variables list from FileMaker or parsing Let statements. You can define comments with a prefix @variable, @parameter or @constant or actually shorter with @var, @param and @const if you prefer. The plugin will notice them and use them for variable name checking as well as auto complete. If you use common global variables in the script, you may just declare them on the top as a comment:
# This script uses the following global variables, initialized in our start script:
# @variable $$UserName
# @variable $$WebServiceAuth
This feature was developed on the weekend of 27th/28th November 2021 and a bit tuned in the following week. We also got a command for the context menu to copy the list of variables defined in a script. Please try it soon with either pr1 or better pr2 tomorrow. Let us know if you see issues, problems or it just works for you.
If you like to see the IDs for your value lists and later reference them in your scripts, check out the new option in the upcoming
MBS FileMaker Plugin in version 11.6pr2 or newer:
If enabled in preferences dialog or via
SyntaxColoring.SetShowValueListIDs function, the
MBS FileMaker Plugin will query FileMaker's ValueListNames and ValueListIDs functions to assemble the lists and show right in the table the ID.
You can use
FM.ValueListIDForValueListName and
FM.ValueListNameForValueListID later in scripts to pick the name of a value list by ID or otherwise. Or just do the same via custom functions if you prefer that.
We'll provide 11.6pr2 next week, so keep checking our blog or mailing list for the announcement.
Check out the FMTraining.tv website. Richard Carlton and his team do a daily free live stream about FileMaker to watch. And they have a huge library of FileMaker training material to watch and learn all about the Claris FileMaker product family.
A few days ago Christian Schmitz from Monkeybread Software joined a live episode to talk a bit about the MBS FileMaker Plugin. Watch it on YouTube.
We show you what is new for MBS FileMaker Plugin in the upcoming version 11.6 and answer user questions.
Do you like this video?
Please let Richard know and send him your wishes or ideas for future live broadcast as well as topics for training videos. And check out the FileMaker Training bundles as well as their new book for FileMaker, updated for 2021.
New in this prerelease of version 11.5 of the
MBS FileMaker Plugin:
- Added SQL.GetFieldAsNumber, SQL.GetParamAsNumber and SQL.SetParamAsNumber to better handle numeric values.
- Changed how we handles numbers in SQL functions to better handle numeric values and avoid conversion of numeric to floating pointer numbers.
- Changed variable coloring and checks to allow exclamation mark in variable names.
- Changed XML parsing to explicit disable network access.
- Fixed a case where @param comments where not found with several spaces before the variable name.
- Fixed a problem in CURL.GetHeaderAsJSON introduced in v11.5.
- Fixed an edge case for syntax coloring with block comments to color the full comment.
- Fixed Container.ReadFile to read empty files.
- Fixed SyntaxColoring to colorize calculations starting with $ variable.
- Updated archive library to version 3.5.2.
- Updated cpuid library to version 0.51.
- Updated curl to version 7.80.0.
- Updated expat library to version 2.4.1.
- Updated lz4 library to version 1.9.3.
- Updated openssl to version 1.1.1l.
- Updated ssh2 library to version 1.10.0.
- Updated SystemInfo.CPUBrandString to work on Apple Silicon.
- Fixed a potential problem in SQL.InsertOrUpdateRecords function where it could crash with too many primary keys.
Download at
monkeybreadsoftware.com/filemaker/files/Prerelease/, in
Dropbox folder or ask for being added to the dropbox shared folder.
In this article we want to introduce you the new functions from the MBS FileMaker Plugin in version 11.5.
Text
Let's start with the two functions that are new in the Text functions.
With the function Text.Concat we create a text that writes all texts specified in the parameters one after the other. No space is set between the individual texts. Let's have a look at the sample. We have entered the words banana, orange and pineapple in the parameters of this function.
Set Variable [ $Concat ; Value: MBS("Text.Concat"; "Banana"; "Orange"; "Pineapple") ]
In the dialog box we see the text we get back.
The second new function is Text.List. It too will accept as many text parameters as we want. It creates a list from these text parameters. The individual parameters are then the elements of the list.
Set Variable [ $List ; Value: MBS("Text.List"; "Banana"; "Orange"; "Pineapple") ]
(more)
For this year's Thanksgiving in America, we offer again discounted licenses for our MBS Plugins for FileMaker and Xojo.
Please use coupon code
BlackFriday for our web shop to order new licenses with a 20% discount. This includes DynaPDF and LibXL.
Order MBS FileMaker Plugin Order MBS Xojo Plugins Order LibXL
If you have special needs, you can email us to get an invoice or Paypal payment link directly. We know some people need to wait till next week to order, so the offer is valid till Tuesday.
Second if you have purchased previously an individual MBS Xojo Plugin part from the Complete Set within the last two years, but not the whole set, we offer you an upgrade to the Complete set for the update price. Please consider to get the whole collection of over 40 plugins instead of just one plugin.
See also
Xojo Thanksgiving Sale,
piDog sale,
xDev Magazine and xDevLibrary sale.
Please check the Claris™ Engineering Blog with a lot of interesting articles. Just recently they added one for a security fix in FileMaker Server 19.4:
- Mitigating XXE vulnerabilities with the FileMaker 19.4.1 update (November 19, 2021)
- Best practices for importing SSL certificates using the FileMaker Admin API (November 16, 2021)
- Split menus for FileMaker Pro on MacBook Pro computers with Liquid Retina XDR displays (November 16, 2021)
- Protecting FileMaker Admin Console port 443 from brute-force attacks (November 16, 2021)
- Managing and maintaining FileMaker Server with the CLI (October 5, 2021)
- Integrating FileMaker custom apps with Slack (September 3, 2021)
- Deleting interactive container cache files (Windows) (August 11, 2021)
- Working with centralized logs in FileMaker Server (June 30, 2021)
- Enabling plug-ins for FileMaker Data API in FileMaker Server (June 24, 2021)
- Claris FileMaker 19.3.1 Platform bug fixes (June 23, 2021)
As you may know Americans love to shop on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This year Black Friday is 26th November. About half our customers are in North America, so we are happy to offer you a discount if they buy this weekend. Our offer will go live in the next days and should be available in time.
We plan to offer coupon code
BlackFriday for the web shop with 20% off for new licenses of MBS Plugins, DynaPDF and
LibXL.
Updates are already offered with discount (usually 50%) compared to new purchases and and our academic prices already have a discount, too. If you like, you can email us to get an order link for all licenses you need or provide an invoice if needed. Especially if you like to use Paypal for payment, we can provide a link with discount or write a custom invoice.
Order MBS FileMaker Plugin Order MBS Xojo Plugins Order LibXL
As usual the discounted offer allows you to buy whatever licenses you may need in the next year. Especially if your license expired in 2020 or before, this is a great chance to get up to date!
If you need a license from
Xojo Inc. or their third-party store section, you may to check the
Xojo store on the weekend. Everyone interested in a license for the current version 2021r3, should go and buy one. With a current license for iOS (Mobile) or Xojo Pro, you can enter Android testing.
You have a question? Please don't hesitate to contact us by email or phone. We may help to point you to the right offer.
As you may know the
FileMaker Soup is a community organized forum for English speaking Claris FileMaker developers to support each other. The forum is run by a non-profit organization of volunteers elected by forum members.
Currently the Soup runs a
Christmas Funding Drive to gather the $1500 CAD to run the forum for another year.
MBS just donated money to fund the forum for 2 months by donating $250 CAD.
We hope a few more users of the forum can make a donation, even if it's just $20 and
donate via Simplyk.
Nickenich, Germany - (November 16th, 2021) -- MonkeyBread Software today is pleased to announce
MBS FileMaker Plugin 11.5 for macOS, iOS, Linux and Windows, the latest update to their product that is easily the most powerful plugin currently available for Claris FileMaker produce line. As the leading database management solution for Windows, macOS, iOS and the web, the Claris FileMaker Pro Integrated Development Environment supports a plugin architecture that can easily extend the feature set of the application.
MBS FileMaker Plugin 11.5 has been updated and now includes over 6600 different functions, and the versatile plugin has gained more new functions:
For this release we rewrote our
WebView functions to work with WebViewers using Microsoft Edge/Chromium as engine. To use the new plugin functions, you need the upcoming FileMaker Pro in version 19.4. On the way we got a
WebView.ShowDevTools function to show the inspector and new preferences for
WebView.SetPreferences function. If you still need Internet Explorer, you can use
WebView.CreateWithControl function to create a plugin based WebViewer with this older engine.
Our new
WebHook functions allows you to run a tiny web server right in FileMaker Pro, Server or iOS SDK based app to catch callbacks from web services. Whether your phone systems, the door bell or your git server sends a web request to notify you about an event, our plugin may receive the request and trigger a script. We support TLS 1.2 with your own SSL certificate and various options.
For DynaPDF we have a new
DynaPDF.GetPDFVersionEx and
DynaPDF.GetInPDFVersionEx functions to provide details on the PDF version of an import or the working PDF. We improved our
DynaPDF.ConvertStyledText function for styled text to better handle fonts and do double underlined text. The new
DynaPDF.AddButtonImageEx2 function lets you pass image data directly from a container value to a button control on a PDF.
Our
hotkey functions got rewritten for macOS to allow local hotkey which don't interfere with global ones. Great to define custom hotkeys for use in the Script Workspace.
The FileMaker enhancements for macOS in our plugin learnt some new tricks: The relationship graph search now initializes on first click to let you open the dialog quicker. We can now have tags to colorize specific words in a calculation and have comments color in special color based on the first word. When you show script IDs, we optimized the performance for users with script folders.
We implemented
WebView.CallFunction for macOS and iOS in addition to Windows. For MapKit we got
MapView.CoordinateForPoint and
MapView.PointForCoordinate functions to translate between on screen points and coordinates on the map. The new
XML.ItemRefs function helps to achieve higher performance when walking through array style XML data.
Finally we updated CURL library to version 7.79.1, DynaPDF to 4.0.63.161, LibXL to 4.0 and SQLAPI to 5.1.7.
See
release notes for a complete list of changes.
16. November 2021 - Monkeybread Software veröffentlicht heute das
MBS FileMaker Plugin für FileMaker in Version 11.5, mit inzwischen über 6600 Funktionen eines der größten FileMaker Plugins überhaupt. Hier einige der Neuerungen:
Für diese Version haben wir unsere
WebView Funktionen neu geschrieben, um mit WebViewern zu arbeiten, die Microsoft Edge/Chromium als Engine verwenden. Um die neuen Plugin-Funktionen zu nutzen, benötigen Sie den kommenden FileMaker Pro in Version 19.4. Auf dem Weg dorthin haben wir eine
WebView.ShowDevTools Funktion zum Anzeigen des Inspektors und neue Einstellungen für die
WebView.SetPreferences Funktion. Wenn Sie noch den Internet Explorer benötigen, können Sie die Funktion
WebView.CreateWithControl verwenden, um einen Plugin-basierten WebViewer mit dieser älteren Engine zu erstellen.
Unsere neuen
WebHook Funktionen ermöglichen es Ihnen, einen winzigen Web-Server direkt in FileMaker Pro, Server oder iOS SDK-basierten Anwendungen zu betreiben, um Rückrufe von Webdiensten abzufangen. Ob Ihre Telefonanlage, die Türklingel oder Ihr Git-Server eine Web-Anfrage sendet, um Sie über ein Ereignis zu informieren, unser Plugin kann die Anfrage empfangen und ein Script auslösen. Wir unterstützen TLS 1.2 mit Ihrem eigenen SSL-Zertifikat und verschiedenen Optionen.
Für
DynaPDF gibt es die neuen Funktionen
DynaPDF.GetPDFVersionEx und
DynaPDF.GetInPDFVersionEx, die Details zur PDF-Version eines Imports oder des Arbeits-PDFs liefern. Wir haben unsere
DynaPDF.ConvertStyledText Funktion für gestylten Text verbessert, um besser mit Schriftarten umgehen zu können und doppelt unterstrichenen Text zu erzeugen. Die neue Funktion
DynaPDF.AddButtonImageEx2 ermöglicht die direkte Übergabe von Bilddaten aus einem Containerwert an ein Button-Control in einem PDF.
Unsere
Hotkey Funktionen wurden für macOS umgeschrieben, um lokale Hotkeys zu ermöglichen, die nicht mit globalen Hotkeys kollidieren. So können Sie eigene Hotkeys für die Verwendung im Script-Arbeitsbereich definieren.
Die Verbesserungen für Entwickler in FileMaker selbst in unserem Plugin haben einige neue Tricks gelernt: Die Beziehungsdiagrammsuche wird jetzt beim ersten Klick initialisiert, damit Sie den Dialog schneller öffnen können. Wir können jetzt Tags verwenden, um bestimmte Wörter in einer Formel einzufärben und Kommentare in einer speziellen Farbe basierend auf dem ersten Wort einfärben. Bei der Anzeige von Skript-IDs haben wir die Leistung für Benutzer mit Skriptordnern optimiert.
Wir haben
WebView.CallFunction nicht nur für Windows, sondern auch für macOS und iOS implementiert. Für MapKit gibt es die Funktionen
MapView.CoordinateForPoint und
MapView.PointForCoordinate für die Übersetzung zwischen Punkten auf dem Bildschirm und Koordinaten auf der Karte. Die neue Funktion
XML.ItemRefs hilft, eine höhere Leistung beim Durchlaufen von XML-Daten im Array-Stil zu erreichen.
Schließlich haben wir die CURL-Bibliothek auf Version 7.79.1, DynaPDF auf 4.0.63.161, LibXL to 4.0 und SQLAPI auf 5.1.5 aktualisiert.
Alle Änderungen in den
Release Notes.
New in this prerelease of version 11.5 of the MBS FileMaker Plugin:
Download at
monkeybreadsoftware.com/filemaker/files/Prerelease/, in
Dropbox folder or ask for being added to the dropbox shared folder.
If you need to copy a folder with files recursively to another location, you may just call our Files.CopyFile function. Beside the function having file in the name, it does copy folder hierarchies. But sometimes you need to do something special, like only copy some files (e.g. hidden ones), skip over errors or not copy all folders. For this case we can write a script to do the copy process recursively and allow you to customize it.
First we show you the calling script, which passes source and destination path as part of a JSON object:
# CopyFolder in file FileOperation
Set Variable [ $SourcePath ; Value: FileOperation::SourcePath ]
Set Variable [ $DestPath ; Value: FileOperation::DestinationPath ]
#
Set Variable [ $json ; Value: "{}" ]
Set Variable [ $json ; Value: MBS( "JSON.AddStringToObject"; $json; "SourcePath"; $SourcePath ) ]
Set Variable [ $json ; Value: MBS( "JSON.AddStringToObject"; $json; "DestPath"; $DestPath ) ]
#
Perform Script [ Specified: From list ; “CopyFolder Recursive” ; Parameter: $json ]
Set Variable [ $$result ; Value: Get(ScriptResult) ]
#
Show Custom Dialog [ "done" ; $$result ]
(more)
Did you know that you can extract and analyze images from a PDF file with DynaPDF? For this you can use the function DynaPDF.GetImage. In the parameters you can specify which information you want to get for an image. You can choose between the following values:
| BufSize |
The size of the image buffer in bytes. |
| BufSize |
The size of the image buffer in bytes. |
| Buffer |
The image data as JPEG or FILE. |
| Picture |
The image as a picture container. Either JPEG or TIFF. |
| Filter |
The format of image:
Required decode filter if the image is compressed. Possible values are dfDCTDecode (JPEG), dfJPXDecode (JPEG2000), and dfJBIG2Decode. Other filters are already removed by DynaPDF since a conversion to a native file format is then always required. |
| OrgFilter |
The image was compressed with this filter in the PDF file. This info is useful to determine which compression filter should be used when creating a new image file from the image buffer. |
| BitsPerPixel |
Bit depth of the image buffer. Possible values are 1, 2, 4, 8, 24, 32, and 64. |
| ColorSpace |
The color space refers either to the image buffer or to the color table if set. |
| NumComponents |
The number of components stored in the image buffer. |
| MinIsWhite |
If 1, the colors of 1 bit images are reversed. |
| ColorCount |
The number of colors in the color table. |
| Width |
Image width in pixel. |
| Height |
Image height in pixel. |
| ScanLineLength |
The length of a scanline in bytes. |
| InlineImage |
If 1, the image is an inline image. |
| Interpolate |
If 1, image interpolation should be performed. |
| Transparent |
The meaning is different depending on the bit depth and whether a color table is available.
If the image is a 1 bit image and if no color table is available, black pixels must be drawn with the current fill color. If the image contains a color table, ColorMask contains the range of indexes in the form min/max index which should appear transparent. If no color table is present ColorMask contains the transparent ranges in the form min/max for every color component. |
| Intent |
The rendering intent. Default is none. |
| MetadataSize |
Length of Metadata in bytes. |
| ResolutionX |
Image resolution on the x-axis. |
| ResolutionY |
Image resolution on the y-axis. |
| Metadata |
Optional XML Metadata stream as text. |
| ICCProfile |
ICC Color Profile of the colorspace (can be empty). |
| MaskImage |
If set, a 1 bit image is used as a transparency mask. Returns index of that image. |
| SoftMask |
If set, a grayscale image is used as alpha channel. Returns index of that image. |
| FillColor |
The current fill color. An image mask is drawn with the current fill color. |
| FillColorSpace |
The color space in which FillColor is defined. |
(more)
Check out the FMTraining.tv website. Richard Carlton and his team do a daily free live stream about FileMaker to watch. And they have a huge library of FileMaker training material to watch and learn all about the Claris FileMaker product family.
A few days ago Christian Schmitz from Monkeybread Software joined a live episode to talk a bit about the MBS FileMaker Plugin. Watch it on YouTube.
We talk a bit about what's new in MBS FileMaker Plugin in the upcoming version 11.5 and answer user questions.
Do you like this video?
Please let Richard know and send him your wishes or ideas for future live broadcast as well as topics for training videos. And check out the FileMaker Training bundles as well as their new book for FileMaker, updated for 2021.
New in this prerelease of version 11.5 of the MBS FileMaker Plugin:
Download at
monkeybreadsoftware.com/filemaker/files/Prerelease/, in
Dropbox folder or ask for being added to the dropbox shared folder.
Vom 22. bis 24. Juni 2022 findet die elfte deutschsprachige FileMaker Konferenz in Hamburg, Deutschland statt. Das JUFA Hotel Hamburg HafenCity liegt direkt neben dem Ausgang der U-Bahn Station HafenCity Universität, nur drei Stationen vom Hauptbahnhof via U4, so dass sich die Anreise per Bahn empfiehlt. FileMaker Anwender und Entwickler können ihre Teilnahme bald buchen.
Diesmal gibt es einen öffentlichen Zeitplan:
| November/Dezember | Sprecher und Sponsoren gesucht |
| 1. Januar 2022 | Anmeldung beginnt via Xing |
| 12. März | Stichtag für Absage bei zu wenig Anmeldungen |
| 21. Juni | Optionaler MBS Schulungstag |
| 22. Juni | 1. Tag Konferenz |
| 23. Juni | 2. Tag Konferenz |
| 24. Juni | 3. Tag Konferenz |
Bei früheren Konferenzen wurde der Tag für den Start der Anmeldung und der Tag für die mögliche Absage nicht veröffentlicht. Bitte im Januar anmelden und bis zum 12. März nur stornierbare Buchungen für die Reise machen oder erst danach die Reise buchen.
Möchten Sie Sponsor oder Sprecher werden?
Aktuell sucht der FMK Verein Vorschläge für interessante Vorträge.
Die Veranstalter vom Verein FM Konferenz erwarten auch 2022 rund 180 Entwickler, Anwender, IT-Fachleute und Entscheidungsträger aus Wirtschaft, Bildung und Verwaltung. Rund um über 25 Fachvorträge und Workshops wird es viel Zeit zum Vernetzen in den gemeinsamen Pausen und beim Abendprogramm geben.
Gibt es Interesse an einem MBS Plugin Workshop am Tag vor der Konferenz?
Wir planen einen Schulungstag für den 21. Juni 2022. Anmeldung bei uns.
Die Teilnahme kostet 199 Euro inkl. Verpflegung und MWSt., 149 Euro bei Anmeldung bis zum 12. März. Falls die Konferenz abgesagt wird, fällt die Schulung automatisch aus.
Our way to add Microsoft/Edge support for FileMaker continues, the WebView2 control. It will be in
MBS FileMaker Plugin 11.5 and the work for our users once FileMaker 19.4 ships, probably later this year.
(more)
There are more sessions coming up today and next week with Russell Watsons showing his fmCheckMate databases.
And as you see, we got another MBS Q&A session in there for Friday. See you at fmtraining.tv/#LIVE!
Sessions are live broadcasts to Twitch, YouTube and Discord.
New in this prerelease of version 11.5 of the MBS FileMaker Plugin:
- Fixed an issue with duplicate plugin warning on macOS.
- Removed field picker feature, which is no longer needed.
- Added wildcards for Plugin.SetFunctions functions.
- Updated DynaPDF to version 4.0.62.160.
- Fixed a problem with decimal data type for Firebird in our SQL functions.
- Fixed bug in WebView.PrintToFile and WebView.Print functions to make it work for WebKit 2.
- Added XL.Sheet.GetCellPicture function.
Download at
monkeybreadsoftware.com/filemaker/files/Prerelease/, in
Dropbox folder or ask for being added to the dropbox shared folder.
