Tip of the day: app.BuildDate

If you need to display in your application the build date, you can use app.builddate function to get a date object with the time of the build command started.

You can try it with code like this:

MsgBox app.BuildDate.ShortDate+" "+app.BuildDate.ShortTime

The value does not change in the built application, so it works like a constant. And it's supported for Console, for Web and for Desktop. For more details, see Application.BuildDate. This also implements my feature request 2143 which can now be marked as resolved.

Using a HTML slider in Filemaker with Webviewer and our plugin

Well, the question today is, how do we get this slider to be used in Filemaker solutions:

The idea is to run it in a web viewer control in Filemaker. We want to get update events from the slider to update a value in our filemaker database. Also we want to have a way to update the slider with a value from filemaker. This way we can save the value in our database and load value in database while also updating it when the user changes the slider. Same way you could embed any control you find in web development toolboxes. We found a nice slider for this example. (more)

MBS Filemaker Plugin, version 2.6pr1

New in this prerelease of the 2.6 plugins:
  • Fixed UUID functions which were broken.
Download at monkeybreadsoftware.de/filemaker/files/Prerelease/

Now offering bundles with Real Studio and MBS Plugin licenses

We have been reselling a few Real Studio licenses over the years. And we think we should offer you that service in the future with attractive bundles. So if you need a plugin licenses and Real Studio licenses, you can now order them from us together as a package with a discount.

So in combination with buying a plugin license (new or update), we offer this Real Studio prices:

Real Studio Enterprise with 12 month updates:629 €
Real Studio Enterprise with 24 month updates:939 €
Real Studio Professional with 18 month updates:289 €
Real Studio Professional with 6 month updates:189 €

All prices plus VAT if required.
To make this low prices possible, we have reduce the payment options and limit this to transactions going through Paypal or bank transfer.
As Real Studio has hundreds of update combinations, please ask for a quote for your Real Studio license needs.

Now if you combine this with our existing bundles, you can save some money. For example:

Real Studio Enterprise with 24 month updates:1128 €
MBS Real Studio DynaPDF Pro Plugin:799 €
MBS Real Studio Complete Plugin:199 €
total, sold separated:2126 €
total, with MBS Bundle:1888 €

12% saved. To order simply send us an email and we write an invoice for you.

[ANN] MBS FileMaker Plugin 2.5 for OS X/Windows - 765 Functions In One Plugin

MBS FileMaker Plugin 2.5 for OS X/Windows - 765 Functions In One Plugin - Published on 01/24/12

MonkeyBread Software today announces MBS FileMaker Plugin 2.5 for Mac OS X or Windows, easily the most powerful plugin currently available for FileMaker Pro. The leading database management solution for Windows, Mac, and the web, the popular IDE supports a plugin architecture that enables additions to its built-in feature set. MBS FileMaker Plugin 2.5 is the latest update of this versatile plugin and adds new features and capabilities, including CURL upload/download and CUPS printer functions. (more)

License changes

After some talks with a lot of Filemaker developers over the last months, we change the licenses a little bit.
  • As before we keep the 5 to unlimited seat options for companies doing their in house development with Filemaker and simply buy a license matching their seat requirements.
  • Also we keep the runtime license for people who create runtimes.
  • We add a new license for people who want to use the plugin on Filemaker Server.
  • And as several professional developers asked us, we also add a flat rate, our Pro Developer license. This way a developer can license the plugin once and use in all solutions for all clients.
Of course serial numbers must be hidden, e.g. by putting them in startup script and disallow users to see this script.

I hope this works well for you and as we honor existing licenses, we will certainly find special upgrade deals for you as well as sending out replacement license keys.

New video for writing Excel files

Today we have a new video for you. It's about using our MBS Real Studio XL Plugin to read and write a Microsoft Excel file without using Excel application.

This is very different from the Excel classes in Real Studio which works only on Windows with installed Microsoft Excel.

Our plugin is based on libXL and can read/write older xls and newer xlsx files on Mac OS X, Windows and Linux.

Recent News around Real Studio


MBS Filemaker Plugin, version 2.5pr6

New in this prerelease of the 2.5 plugins:
  • Added CURL examples for posting form data.
  • Added better exception handling for CURL and fixed a couple of bugs.
  • Improved CURL with adding some new form functions to easily fill and send forms.
Download at monkeybreadsoftware.de/filemaker/files/Prerelease/

MBS Releases the MBS Real Studio plug-ins in version 12.0

NICKENICH, Germany (January 17th, 2012) -- Monkeybread Software releases version 12.0 of the MBS plug-in for Real Studio.

The MBS plug-in comprises a collection of several plug-in parts which extend the Real Studio development environment with 1,500 classes featuring over 38,000 documented functions. Our plugins support all three platforms Mac OS X, Windows and Linux with all project types desktop, web and console.

After our very big 11.3 release end of last year, we concentrated now on improving existing things:

We updated our LCMS2 plugin to use version 2.3 and added several new classes, methods and examples to really use much more of this nice library. Like you can now edit, modify or create tone curves. Also you can use the pipeline class to access/edit the stages for a Device to PCS or PCS to Device tag.

For Windows we allow now watching for WMI events and going through an object hierarchy using the new WinObjectMBS class. For this we added methods to run queries asynchronously. For watching for changes in a directory, we have FSEventsMBS class on Mac and now also the WindowsDirectoryWatcherMBS class for Windows.

On the Cocoa target, we added a ton of new classes. Improvements to NSAttributedStringMBS and NSMutableAttributedStringMBS let you handle attributes better. For example when loading a Word document, you can now query metadata like author name. The new NSPathControlMBS class helps to display file paths in a window like the Finder. Also we added new scroll wheel events for custom views and new table view events.

We fixed a couple of critical bugs related to console graphics, text encodings and picture handling, so we recommend this update to all of our users. Especially if you plan to use Real Studio 2011r4.

Web Application event live cycle

Which events come in which order is really a good question and you should know a few facts here. First the order of events in a very small web application with two pages and one button to switch to second page: (more)

MBS Real Studio Plugins, version 12.0fc1

New in this prerelease of the 12.0 plugins:
  • Fixed bug in AESMBS.DecryptCFB which gave wrong results if input and output memoryblocks are the same. Now works well in that case.
  • Updated PortAudio library to current version: v19 20111121
  • Added FilesMBS, FoldersMBS, ItemsMBS, TrueFilesMBS, TrueFoldersMBS and TrueItemsMBS to FolderItem class.
Download: macsw.de/plugin/Prerelease

Tip of the day: Button in window titlebar

Today I was asked how to draw over the whole window in Cocoa. Well it looks like you can simply add a view to NSWindowsMBS.contentview.superview to be able to draw over the whole window, even the title bar. And you can add a button there like on this screenshot:

You simply create a button and use w.contentView.superview.addSubview to add it to the window.
Example project: View in Titlebar.zip

MBS Real Studio Plugins, version 12.0pr7

New in this prerelease of the 12.0 plugins:
  • Updated DynaPDF 2.x plugin to version 2.5.4.567.
    Download on macsw.de/plugin/DynaPDF2
  • ExitWindowsMBS now queries for shutdown privilege.
  • Added more methods for NSAttributedStringMBS and NSMutableAttributedStringMBS to handling attributes.
  • Added currentChart and mainChart functions to CDFinanceChartMBS.
  • Removed OptionProxyUserPassword and OptionUserPassword from CURLMBS/CURLSMBS classes. Please use other properties.
  • Added scrollWheel event to CustomQTMovieViewMBS, CustomQTCaptureViewMBS, CustomNSViewMBS and CustomPDFViewMBS classes.
Download: macsw.de/plugin/Prerelease

MBS Filemaker Plugin, version 2.5pr5

New in this prerelease of the 2.5 plugins:
  • Added CURL examples for sending and receiving emails.
  • Added more CURL functions to get details on transfer.
  • Improved documentation with table formatting.
  • Improved Form Utility:
    • Now shows right commands for textarea, checkbox and select fields.
    • Added Images tab.
    • Now uses $ for variable names.
  • Added WebView.DisableJavascriptAlerts to disable javascript alert on Mac.
Download at monkeybreadsoftware.de/filemaker/files/Prerelease/

More news on user groups

For the London group, we have a poll running for finding the best date to have our meeting.

The Seattle User Group has the next meeting at 28th January 2012.

New Real Studio User Groups for Switzerland and Leipzig (East Germany)

We had discussions about meetings with Real Studio users in Leipzig (East Germany) and in Switzerland. With more than 200 swiss Real Studio users, having meetings in Zurich oder other destinations, sounds like a great idea. And the area near Leipzig where German states Thuringia, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt meet has also more than 100 Real Studio developers. And as other cities like Berlin are close, people can also come from farer away for a meeting.

We started today an user group on google for people interested in joining a meeting:

groups.google.com/group/RealStudioCH for swiss
groups.google.com/group/RealStudioLeipzig for east Germany around Leipzig

Please join us and see you soon there. We gather interested people now, so we can discuss location, date and agenda soon. And please tell other Real Studio developers about this group.

For our london group we a currently waiting for hotel confirmation, so I think we can announce soon a few dates. And the group in Baden-Württemberg has meeting next week (20th January).

MBS Real Studio Plugins, version 12.0pr6

New in this prerelease of the 12.0 plugins:
  • Fixed PhidgetGPSMBS.PositionChanged event.
  • Deprecated PresskeyMBS and KeyCodesMBS classes. Please use RemoteControlMBS module.
  • Updated DynaPDF to version 3.0.12.26.
  • Fixed bug with Picture.Rotate90MBS and RotateMBS with 90 degree rotation.
  • Added more NSFontManagerMBS methods.
  • Fixed bug with CGSizeMBS.Constructor.
  • Added ABAddressBookMBS.EnableEvent method.
  • Internal conversion of Variant to CFTypeRef now supports CGRectMBS/CGPointMBS/CGSizeMBS to CFDataRef and conversion of arrays.
  • Added CGPDFContextMBS class.
  • Added NSPathComponentCellMBS class.
Download: macsw.de/plugin/Prerelease

Winners for Real Studio Developer Magazine 10.2 published

Last friday we announced the new magazine issue here and offered to raffle a free 6 month subscription.
Well, only 4 people commented and we thought about how to raffle the subscription.
The final decision was to simply give away 4 codes so everyone can have one.
So we have 4 winners: Jeremy, Markus, Amando and Alex.

I hope you enjoy the magazine!

PS: Don't miss to meet Marc Zeedar, the publisher of the Real Studio Magazine in Orlando, Florida at the Real World 2012 conference.

MBS Filemaker Plugin, version 2.5pr4

New in this prerelease of the 2.5 plugins:
  • Added options to CURL plugin to run transfer in background, so you can show progress and cancel.
  • Improved GMImage.NewFromContainer so it now also reads references image files.
  • Improved CURL handling of JPEG images. They now should have right size for preview on Windows, too.
  • Added CURL.GetResultAsData function.
Download at monkeybreadsoftware.de/filemaker/files/Prerelease/

Real Studio Developer Magazine 10.2 published


The January/Feburary 2012 (10.2) issue of Real Studio Developer is now
available!
  • Is Outsourcing the Answer? * by Tam Hanna
    Have you considered outsourcing some of your programming (or non-programming) work overseas? Tam shares his experiences and offers advice for those considering the option.
  • Real Studio Database Days * by Bob Keeney
    By all accounts the most recent Real Studio conference in Germany was a rousing success. Most of us couldn't be there, however. Read Bob's report to learn what you missed!
  • Gummy Globals * by Jens Bendig
    We know that using global variables is bad, but why is that and what can you do if you've already done it? Jens shares an interesting solution that doesn't eliminate globals, but minimizes the problems they cause.
  • The Assumption Approach * by Marc Zeedar
    Have you built a project with bailing wire and duct tape because you weren't confident in your skills? You pay for that in the long run. Instead, try assuming you'll succeed and build it the right way from the beginning.
In our regular columns we've got articles on how to use Real Studio's new transparency features, database news, building a Web API, looking back toward the future year, and much more. Enjoy!

PS: Don't have a subscription to read this issue? No problem, post over the weekend a comment here and we raffle a free 3 issue subscription to one of the commenters. Don't forget to leave your email address.

Filemaker Magazine

The Filemaker Magazine (in German) published a new issue a few days ago and it features an article from me about our MBS Filemaker plugin.

We show you how to scale pictures in Filemaker 7 to 11 on Mac and Windows with our plugin using the GraphicsMagick plugin. While working on the article and all the scale options in the plugin, I also improved the documentation on the GMImage.Scale. You can specify a size like "600x400" or a percentage like "50%". Also you can use > and < to scale only if image is bigger/smaller than target size. Also we talk a little about loading and saving images and querying size. Don't hesitate to send us questions about our plugins.

Also if you have time to come to Hamburg next week, don't miss the Filemaker meeting in Wandsbek. 12th January 2012 at 7 pm in the Block House Wandsbek.

MBS Real Studio Plugins, version 12.0pr5

New in this prerelease of the 12.0 plugins:
  • Added more methods for LCMS2StageMBS class.
  • Added NSPathControlMBS class.
  • Added NSBitmapImageRepMBS, NSPICTImageRepMBS, NSPDFImageRepMBS and NSEPSImageRepMBS classes.
  • Added LCMS2CIECAM02MBS class.
  • Added new events for NSTableViewMBS class.
  • Added HTMLViewer.IEReloadMBS.
  • Added tableView property to NSTableColumnMBS and NSTableHeaderViewMBS classes
Download: macsw.de/plugin/Prerelease

Booked trip to Real World 2012

Less than five month left till Real World 2012, so I thought it may be a good idea to get a hotel room and flight tickets. I plan my trip now and I have some extra days in Orlando. Would be nice to meet a few people there and maybe have dinner together, talk about Real Studio, projects and plugins.

For example meet in Tampa / St. Petersburg area on the sunday before Real World with some people from that area?

if you are interested in sharing some time, please contact me and I can include something in my schedule.

MBS Real Studio Plugins, version 12.0pr4

New in this prerelease of the 11.4 plugins:
  • Improved IconFamilyMBS class to work on Cocoa target.
  • Added LCMS2CurveSegmentMBS, LCMS2Mat3MBS, LCMS2UcrBgMBS and LCMS2Vec3MBS classes.
  • Fixed bug with XLBookMBS functions Sheets, Fonts and Formats. The arrays now contain the right things.
  • Improved GZipFileMBS functions with compress to string or decompress from string.
  • Fixed Audio plugin, so PortAudio classes find devices again.
  • Added more methods to LCMS2ProfileMBS class.
  • Added LCMS2ToneCurveMBS class.
  • Added RemoveAccentsMBS function.
  • Fixed bug with AutoLevelCopyMBS.
  • Fixed bug with ScaleImageAndMaskMBS and ScaleMBS functions in picture class.
  • Removed OpenEditableMovieHandleMBS function as it does not work.
  • Fixed OpenAsEditableMovieMBS so you don't get nil object exception.
Download: macsw.de/plugin/Prerelease

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