Currently I know those six conferences:
- .fmp[x]Berlin, 2nd to 4th June in Berlin, see dotfmp.com/tiki-index.php
- FM Summit, 9th and 10th October in Den Haag, see fmsummit.info
- FileMaker Developer Conference, 28th to 31st July in San Antonio, see filemaker.com/developers/devcon/
- FM Devcon, 14th to 16th October in Bolonga, see fmdevcon.com
- FileMaker Konferenz, 16th to 18th October in Winterthur, see filemaker-konferenz.com
- fm conférence, 23rd to 25th October in Toulouse, see fmconf.com
Do you know more this year?
One of the great things we can do safely in plugins is to put work in extra preemptive threads. This way your GUI in Xojo stays running responsive while you keep all CPUs in a computer busy. This works by calling the plugin method in a Xojo thread. Now the plugin starts processing on a preemptive thread which can run on another CPU. The plugin function on the xojo thread yields time, so your other xojo threads can do their work. Now in total with 8 xojo threads doing work, you can get 8 CPUs at nearly 100% usage each. And that with a total number of 17 threads running: Your main thread, 8 Xojo threads and 8 threads run by plugin.
Now we recently added functions
CipherMBS.ProcessFile,
DigestMBS.ProcessFile,
MD5DigestMBS.HashFile,
SHA1MBS.HashFile,
SHA256MBS.HashFile and
SHA512MBS.HashFile to process encryption or hashing in background. If you schedule threads correctly, you get the full speed up until hard disk is the bottleneck.
New in this prerelease of the 14.2 plugins:
- Added new functions to hash classes to process a whole file multithreaded in background to MD5DigestMBS, SHA1MBS, SHA256MBS and SHA512MBS classes.
- Added DigestMBS.FinalText and DigestMBS.Process.
- Added CipherMBS.ProcessFile.
- Added console support for zxingBinaryBitmapMBS.CreateWithPicture.
- Reduced dependencies of AVFoundation plugin.
- Updated DynaPDF library to version 3.0.33.92.
- Added more NSButtonMBS and NSButtonCellMBS properties.
- Deprecated ATS classes. Please move to CoreText.
- Deprecated CURLMBS class. Please move to CURLSMBS.
- Added CGContextMBS.SetFont.
- Added functions to NetworkInterfaceMBS for interface index (needed for Bonjour).
- Added more checks and exceptions for LCMS2BitmapMBS picture constructor.
Download:
macsw.de/plugin/Prerelease. Or ask us to be added to our shared Dropbox folder.
New in this prerelease of the 4.2 plugins:
- Added Files.DeleteFolder function.
- Updated DynaPDF library to version 3.0.33.92.
- Added more DynaPDF functions.
Download at
monkeybreadsoftware.de/filemaker/files/Prerelease/ or ask for being added to the dropbox shared folder.
xDev Magazine is having a special one-day sale. On May 26 only, everything on the xDev Store is 20% off with coupon code MEMORIALDAY!
To get the discount, just use the coupon code MEMORIALDAY when placing your order on our store. It's good on any orders of at least $25 (including subscription renewals). But please hurry -- this special offer is only good for the one day!
Main Store:
xdevmag.com/orders.shtml
Renewals Page:
xdevmag.com/renewals/
The voting is done and we have final results:
Wednesday, 11th June,
Xojo Developer Meeting
Thursday, 12th June,
FileMaker Developer Meeting
Please save the date and we'll look for a room.
If you are interested in joining, please email me, so we know how many seats we need.
Meeting will be probably in a beer garden or restaurant somewhere near Vienna.
If you plan to go, please use the early bird pricing to save $300.
MBS will be at the conference with a booth as well as 1000+ attendees.
New in this prerelease of the 14.2 plugins:
- Fixed DynaPDFMBS.GetInBBox function.
- Fixed problem with DynaPDFParseInterfaceMBS class.
- Fixed an issue with Picture.SobelMBS function.
- Added CoreText clases.
- Added CGFontMBS class.
- Added ChromiumBrowserMBS and ChromiumFrameMBS classes.
- Added more AUPlayerMBS properties and methods.
Download:
macsw.de/plugin/Prerelease. Or ask us to be added to our shared Dropbox folder.
New in this prerelease of the 4.2 plugins:
- Added Background parameter for PDFKit.Watermark function.
- Fixed PDFKit.Watermark function to use correct page size.
- Added more DynaPDF functions.
Download at
monkeybreadsoftware.de/filemaker/files/Prerelease/ or ask for being added to the dropbox shared folder.
I just got notice that one of our clients here in Germany, Mr. Daniel Fritzsche, is looking for a xojo developer.
you can find details on their website:
varcess.com/index.php/blog/9-vcblog-20140518-xojo-developer-gesucht
On Windows you can use WebKit for the htmlviewer. And with next plugin prerelease, we'll add new functions for using Chromium there.
Some functions like getting source code, text or image from browser.
Today a FileMaker developer asked if we can use the tiny URL web service functions to create short URLs from FileMaker.
The answer is yes, we can. Here a sneak peak on the script. The example database will be included with next plugins:
The API is explained
here and you can sign up for a developer key
here.
The script itself is not that difficult. First we start a new CURL transfer and set a lot of options. This includes setting up a form with the various parameters for the service. Than we perform transfer and show debug and result texts in some fields for debugging. Once we closed transfer, we can parse the result json and get the state and the url. If state is not okay, we show dialog with error, else we got our short URL.
PS: This would work similar from Xojo, too.
In June, I travel to vienna and I think this is great opportunity to have some parties.
So I plan to organize a FileMaker and a Xojo developer meeting.
I started two surveys to find the best days in the week:
Xojo Developer Meeting FileMaker Developer Meeting
If you like, please vote for a day if you like to come.
New in this prerelease of the 4.2 plugins:
- Added Twain.IsInitialized, OCR.IsInitialized, DynaPDF.IsInitialized and XL.IsInitialized.
- Fixed DynaPDF.RenderPage to pass right file name with image.
- Added more checks to avoid the plugin to return too big data in container.
- Added DynaPDF.GetCharacterSpacing and DynaPDF.SetCharacterSpacing.
- Updated DynaPDF library to version 3.0.33.91.
- Added field Platform for Audit, so you can record where log was written.
- For missing variables, we now explicit show message after line with text like this: $r not found!
Download at
monkeybreadsoftware.de/filemaker/files/Prerelease/ or ask for being added to the dropbox shared folder.
New in this prerelease of the 14.2 plugins:
- Updated DynaPDF library to version 3.0.33.91.
- Fixed a couple of text encoding issues with DynaPDF.
- Fixed an issue with AVAssetWriterInput.appendSampleBuffer causing in exception.
- Added CalCalendarStoreMBS.calendarWithTitle.
- Added gesture events to MapKitViewControlMBS.
- For strings with no encoding the plugin will now mark them as ASCII string if the content allows it.
Download:
macsw.de/plugin/Prerelease. Or ask us to be added to our shared Dropbox folder.
Recently in our FileMaker training day there was an interesting question. If we trigger the plugin function through a script on a server, would that perform the Audit calculations on server? Running it on server would avoid a lot of remote SQL queries and be much better for performance.
So if you like to host database on server and have Audit log being updated from all devices, you can do this steps:
First you create the AuditLog table like usually. You add text fields for FieldName, FieldHash, RecordID, TableName and FieldValue. If you like add more like HostName, FieldOfdValue, Platform, UserName, LayoutName or something from the list in documentation. This table must be in same database.
Next you create two scripts per table to watch. First script calls second script with "Perform Script on Server" script step. This script does not need to wait for the other script to finish.
The second script performs the actual Audit call. For this you only need a script step "Set Variable" with the audit calculation: MBS( "
Audit.Changed"; Get(CurrentHostTimestamp); "Projects"). Projects is here the name of the table. You can of course include or exclude fields like normal audit handling. If you like, you can pass some extra details using script parameter and use them in this script to log extra information. For that you can for example pass an extra parameter with "Info|" & Get ( ScriptParameter ) to fill the parameter's value into a field named Info.
To actually get something running, you now define for each layout a trigger which calls the first script. So for the trigger OnRecordCommit you choose the script and FileMaker calls the script. The script than performs the other script on server which does the Audit operation. Performance is great here, even from iPad with FileMaker Go 13. If you like you can also have the script perform when user moves to layout or leaves layout.
Please try it. If it works for you, you should see new audit logs being written from FileMaker Pro, Filemaker Go and WebDirect. In the sample project we log in Info field the answer from
Get(SystemPlatform), so we record 4 for web direct, 3 for FileMaker Go and 1 for FileMaker Pro on Mac.
There are differences when doing audit on server. Platform on the server is always ServerScripting. The hostname is of course the name of the server. The user name contains the name of script, the login name and and ID. The host IP and time stamps are of course those from the server, not the client.
A new example project and newer plugin is available tomorrow with the next prerelease.
We plan a local Xojo meeting in
Wiesbaden:
14th May 2014, from 19 to 22 o'clock
4D Consulting, Scharnhorststrasse 36, 65195 Wiesbaden.
Topics are current Xojo version and last Xojo conference.
We'd be happy to meet you there if you have time to join us.
Thanks everyone for the great meeting!
For next FileMaker plugin we now added a little text to the script when we detect an unknown variable:
Without plugin, it just looks like this:
To activate the variable name checks for scripts, you need to first have a Mac, second install the plugin and third execute MBS( "
SyntaxColoring.CheckVariableDeclaration.Enable" ) once.
We hope it helps debugging scripts if you see that you have typos in variable names for local variables.
New in this prerelease of the 14.2 plugins:
- Added functions to WinNotificationMBS to listen for any windows message.
- Updated DynaPDF library to version 3.0.33.90.
- Fixed more than 50 classes to have same data size on all platforms.
- Added AUPlayerMBS class for playing sound on Mac with pitch, rate, pan, equalizer and other features.
- Added NSMenu commands to show a popup menu.
- Updated Nikon plugin for newer SDKs.
- Fixed a problem with TWAIN plugin crashing on HP scanner (especially with a Deskjet 2540 where it now works).
- Added TesseractMBS.RecognizeMT method for background OCR.
- Fixed OverlayMBS issue on Cocoa where we got much to much mouse enter/exit events.
- Added stack trace capture functions to SignalHandlerMBS class.
- Improved AuthorizationMBS class.
- Added more commands for ServiceManagementMBS module.
- Improved MKOverlayViewMBS.Constructor so it works better.
- Fixed a bug in MKPolylineViewMBS class.
- Added DaylightName and StandardName properties to TimeZoneMBS class.
- Fixed crash with passing empty string to CountOccurancesMBS function.
- Added Picture.ChangeCustomMBS for three components.
- Added back the help menu entry for the IDE.
- Enabled PictureReaderMBS class for console.
Download:
macsw.de/plugin/Prerelease. Or ask us to be added to our shared Dropbox folder.
New in this prerelease of the 4.2 plugins:
- Updated DynaPDF library to version 3.0.33.90.
- Changed FM.ExecuteSQLOnIdle to set FM.ExecuteSQL.LastError to -1 until the SQL was performed.
- Updated default rule set for syntax coloring. Now includes french. Use SyntaxColoring.FactoryDefaults function if you like to reset.
- Added Midi functions.
- Fixed a problem with TWAIN plugin crashing on HP scanner (especially with a Deskjet 2540 where it now works).
- Added Window.GetTopMost and Window.SetTopMost.
- Added wrap parameter to String.ReplaceNewline function.
- Added DynaPDF.AddValToChoiceField, DynaPDF.CreateGroupField, DynaPDF.GetBorderStyle, DynaPDF.SetBorderStyle, DynaPDF.CreateComboBox, DynaPDF.CreateCreateListBox, DynaPDF.CreateSigField, DynaPDF.CreateSigFieldAP and DynaPDF.CreateRadioButton.
- Added Process.FrontProcessBundleID function.
- Changed how function return numbers. Integers are returned as 32bit signed integer if fit, else as double.
Download at
monkeybreadsoftware.de/filemaker/files/Prerelease/ or ask for being added to the dropbox shared folder.
Recently Todd Geist reported on his
blog that FileMaker has a native MD5 calculation function using:
GetContainerAttribute( "FileMaker 13" ; "MD5" )
Text encoding used seems to be UTF-8, but I don't think FMI specifies that.
If you need more hash functions or options, you can of course check our
plugin hash functions.
Due to the FileMaker Developer Conference, I will visit San Antonio end of July.
As there are a lot of Xojo users out there in the area, I'd like to offer to meet for dinner in a restaurant.
In order to define which days are best for the meetings, I have setup doodle surveys:
San Antonio and
Austin
If you like to join us, please vote for a date. And if I may not know you before, maybe you also email me, so I have your contact details.
We have for some time now support for the
Dash application as a help browser.
And there is also available for Windows and Linux here:
Zeal
So here you can click to launch Dash or Zeal and install our plugin help:
MBS Xojo Plugin and
MBS FileMaker Plugin
You like to talk directly with us about MBS Plugins?
On the following events you can learn more about our plugins:
- 8th May 2014, MBS Xojo Workshop @denkform in Hofheim (Taunus)
- 8th May 2014, local FileMaker meeting in Lorsbach (near Frankfurt/Main, Germany)
- 3rd July 2014, local FileMaker meeting in Hamburg, Germany
- 28th July 2014, FileMaker DevCon 2014, San Antonio, USA
- 16th October 2014, FileMaker Conference, Winterthur, Swiss
The May/June 2014 (12.3) issue of xDev Magazine is now available. Here's aquick preview of what's inside:
*
Updating Xojo * by Marc Zeedar
If you missed what happend at the Xojo Developers' Conference (XDC) in Las Vegas in March, here's a quick recap of the major news.
*
Pretty Print Dialog * by Sam Rowlands
Mac OS includes some nifty tools that allow you to make a much more elaborate print dialog box. Sam shares the code for how to make that happen.
*
XDC 2014 * by Marc Zeedar
This is a comprehensive report of XDC in Las Vegas in March -- if you didn't get to go, read this epic report to find out what it was like. Marc shares his experiences, as well as key tips from the sessions he attended, along with plenty of photos.
*
App Sandbox Guide * by Sam Rowlands
Apple has instituted security "sandboxing" rules for apps on the Mac App Store, which means your Xojo apps are restricted in what they can do. If you're new to sandboxing, here's a guide to get you out of the sand trap.
Plus columns on class interfaces, threads, RegEx groups, Xojo developer profiles, database design, and much more!
