New in this prerelease of the 7.4 MBS FileMaker Plugin:
Download at
monkeybreadsoftware.de/filemaker/files/Prerelease/ or ask for being added to the dropbox shared folder.
New in this prerelease of the 17.4 plugins:
Download:
monkeybreadsoftware.de/xojo/download/plugin/Prerelease/.
Or ask us to be added to our shared Dropbox folder.
There are sometimes problems with Containers as you see in various FileMaker forums. Well, the problem may be that FileMaker can do only previews on Mac as they don't include a PDF engine for Windows. So if you try and add files and check with
Container.GetTypes what items are in the container, you get a table like this:
| FileMaker 16 Win |
| Any Container | Insert File | FILE, FNAM |
| Any Container | Insert Picture | FNAM, PDF |
| Interactive Container | Insert PDF | FNAM, PDF |
| After using DynaPDF.GeneratePreview | FNAM, JPEG, MAIN, PDF , SIZE |
| FileMaker 16 Mac |
| Any Container | Insert File | FILE, FNAM |
| Any Container | Insert Picture | FNAM, JPEG, MAIN, PDF , PNGf, SIZE |
| Interactive Container | Insert PDF | FNAM, JPEG, MAIN, PDF , PNGf, SIZE |
| After using PDFKit.Combine function | FNAM, JPEG, MAIN, PDF , SIZE |
We have a couple of common types in the containers:
- "PDF " is the PDF file data.
- FILE is the content of a file.
- JPEG if exists is the JPEG preview data.
- PNGf if exists is a preview as PNG image file.
- FNAM is the file name for the container.
- SIZE is the preview image size.
Now you need to know that FileMaker can render PDF on Mac on the fly (without annotations!), but on Windows it needs the preview. Or for all platforms use a web viewer for the interactive container to let the web engine render the PDF using it's PDF plugin.
You can of course always use MBS functions to check if preview is missing and add it on the fly using both PDFKit and DynaPDF functions. This could even be done on a server with a scheduled script or on a helper machine. The MBS Plugin adds a JPEG preview and you can use
Plugin.SetPreviewSize function to configure preview size.
This is an updated list of our German Xojo Developers available for consulting:
The list is in random order. If you like to be added, please email me with details.
Please join 500+ FileMaker developers at the European developer conferences this year:
|
Conference Name
|
Location
|
Date
|
Registration
|
FM Summit
(Dutch)
|
Sassenheim, Netherlands
|
9 - 11 October
|
Register
Learn more
|
|
FileMaker UK Developer Event 2017 (English)
|
Uxbridge, United Kingdom
|
11 October
|
Register
Learn more
|
FileMaker Konferenz
(German)
|
Salzburg, Austria
|
12 - 14 October
|
Register
Learn more
|
|
FileMaker Devcon Scandinavia (English)
|
Stockholm, Sweden
|
16 - 17 October
|
Register
Learn more
|
FM Conférence
(French)
|
Rouen, France
|
18 - 20 October
|
Register
Learn more
|
|
FileMaker Spanish DevCon (Spanish)
|
Madrid, Spain
|
20 - 21 October
|
Register
Learn more
|
If you like to go to a bigger conference in English, please join the Swedish one and make a trip to Stockholm!
We have a booth at the German conference and I will come for a visit to the Spanish conference.
As of now I am signed up for the
XDC 2018 conference in next April. Hotel is reserved as reservation can be adjusted easily later when flights are booked. Now I am looking for things to do beside the conference. For example:
- In Denver
- 16th street, food walk area with lots of shops and restaurants
- Capitol in Denver with the one mile high step.
- Denver Zoo
- Children's museum of Denver, if you come with family.
- In the Rocky Mountains
- Trail Ridge Road with 3713m high pass
- Independence Pass with 3687m high
- Loveland Pass with 3655m high
- Frisco historic park, behind Loveland pass.
- A trip to the north
- Mount Rushmore National Memorial
- Crazy Horse Memorial
- Devils Tower National Monument
- Scotts Bluff National Monument
- West of Denver
- Colorado Railroad museum
- The Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave
- Golden city with Golden History Museum and Clear Creek Historic Park Trail
- Roxborough State Park
Anything else you can recommend or plan to visit?
If you come by airplane, you should know there is a train from airport, which brings you directly from the main building in the airport down to Union Station. It costs only $9 and you can walk to the conference hotel.
As you may know FileMaker 16 uses WebKit 2.x for the WebViewers and we had to rewrite a lot of plugin functions for FileMaker 16. But some are still missing like
print to PDF or
rendering images. We look forward to macOS 10.13 which should bring a couple of improvements there for the
WKWebView class and so we can improve functions for the next macOS version.
As a lot of clients ask for the functionality they had in FileMaker 15 to work in FileMaker 16, I had a nice idea today: We skip FileMaker's WebView and create our own!
So here you see a WebKit 1.x WebView (the older one) with a website loaded:
You call
WebView.Create to create a new web view on page. The plugin puts it right on the layout independent of all FileMaker controls. So it stays at the position and does not
reload when you switch records. And this allows a lot of new possibilities for navigation and special controls!
Please try it in the next prerelease or email me for a copy to test sooner. Mac only of course.
Today we update our Xojo developer Kits for Updater, Bugreporter and Web Starter. The main point is the move to use Xojo 2017 everywhere and remove the example projects for Real Studio. And over the years we collected a few improvements and bug fixes, which now go in the release for everyone.
- Bug Reporter Kit 1.3
- Added console example project.
- Updated for Xojo 2017.
- Web Starter Kit 1.2
- Added helper functions for WebPopupMenu
- Fixed some back buttons.
- Added low level exception/signal handling classes from Bug Reporter Kit.
- Changed code because some App.File* functions which are not available in newer Xojo versions.
- Renamed Hash Function to not conflict with hash function in other Web components.
- Updated for Xojo 2017.
- Updater Kit 2.1
- Fixed timeout property for CURL.
- Updated for Xojo 2017.
Those updates are free for all current license holders. Of course if you have the code already in your projects, you may just look on our changes and maybe transfer them to your project.
It is still a lot of time till XDC in April. You probably all sign up till end of October to get the $200 discount on the XDC Ticket, right?
So how about a smaller local event in London again?
We could go back to the Antoinette Hotel in Wimbledon, which is located a bit outside of London, so more affordable, but still you can just take a train to center London easily from Wimbledon.
If interest is good, I'd love to organise an event:
- Thursday an optional Xojo training day with me for beginner/intermediate level.
- Thursday the great buffet dinner
- Friday a conference day with a few presentations.
- Friday evening dinner together
- and you can stay the weekend and visit London!
Here is a survey to find interest:
surveymonkey.de/r/CBKZNVT
Please let me know if you are interested, so I can put all people on the list.
Questions?
New in this prerelease of the 7.4 MBS FileMaker Plugin:
Download at
monkeybreadsoftware.de/filemaker/files/Prerelease/ or ask for being added to the dropbox shared folder.
New in this prerelease of the 17.4 plugins:
- Updated DynaPDF to version 4.0.12.33.
- Removed direct dependency for Wmvcore.dll from WindowsPlayerMBS class. If it's missing player can't work, but at least the plugin can be loaded.
- Added LibTag plugin part with new TagLibTagMBS class to read/write audio file tags.
- Added sndfile plugin part with new SoundFileMBS class to read/write audio samples.
- Changed ReplaceTag in WordFileMBS to be case insensitive for ASCII characters.
- Added WordFileMBS.Caseless property for case (in)sensitivity.
- Added GetDIB and SetDIB to WindowsClipboardMBS class to better get/set pictures on clipboard.
- Added SQL_ATTR_CURSOR_TYPE as one of the options we pass from SQL connections down to all command objects.
- Changed code for Xojo 2017 for HBITMAP handling which affected clipboard functions on Windows.
- Added KeyDown/KeyUP and GotFocus/LostFocus events to OverlayMBS class.
- Updated all GTK code to dynamically load GTK+ 3 for Xojo 2017r2 and GTK+ 2 for older versions.
- Fixed problem with TidyAttributeMBS Is* properties.
- Fixed a problem with registration in TimerMBS class.
Download:
monkeybreadsoftware.de/xojo/download/plugin/Prerelease/.
Or ask us to be added to our shared Dropbox folder.
At the
FileMaker Developer Conference 2017 in Phoenix this year I presented a bit about MBS Plugin.
You can watch the presentation and a few questions. Enjoy!
If you like to see this live and bring your questions, you can join future conferences in
Madrid,
Salzburg and
Berlin.
You can see
more videos on our website including
older presentations.
Over the weekend I added two new plugin parts which will come with next plugin release:
LibSndfile, an open source library to read and write sample data with various sound file formats.
We compiled it for all targets and it seems to work well so far. The website has a table for supported audio formats.
Our new
SoundFileMBS class provides the generic interface and allows you to load the library, open or create files and read/write samples in various formats.
Due to being LGPL, you need to build yourself or get the
libraries from us prebuilt. We can’t include GPL code in the plugin, but as it’s LGPL, you can load the library in your closed source app at runtime without problems.
Website:
www.mega-nerd.com/libsndfile/
TagLib, an open source library to read metadata from audio files, e.g. ID3 tags.
Now we first add the generic interface which works for all file formats supported. See
new classes like
TagLibTagMBS.
Later we can add specific classes for individual formats based on demand.
This library is available both with LGPL and MPL. As we have to statically link the library (it’s C++), we need to use the Mozilla Public License, which doesn’t restrict us like the GPL does.
Website:
taglib.org
The last days I enjoyed listening to a couple of episodes of the
Under the Radar podcast.
Originally pointed to by Paul Lefebvre's
tweet, I quickly subscribed as they talk about various topics for independent app developers and those episodes are very interesting. They face similar issues as myself and so I like to hear their solutions.
Thanks to David Smith and Marco Arment for their apps and the podcast.
And thanks to Xojo Inc. for supporting the shows. Xojo is sponsor for episodes
#92 and
#93. Coupon code is RADAR.
Do you like this podcast?
At the
dotfmp conference in Berlin this year I presented a bit about MBS Plugin.
You can watch the presentation and a few questions. Enjoy!
If you like to see this live and bring your questions, you can join future conferences in
Madrid,
Salzburg and
Berlin.
You can see
more videos on our website including
older presentations.
You may know that we have a few clipboard dedicated classes in our Xojo plugins.
Now Xojo’s move to DirectDraw in 2016r4 and subsequent changes in 2017r1 and 2017r2, we had to adjust our plugins to keep working on Windows. So for next plugin version we include fixes to our SetPicture and GetPicture functions to correctly put a bitmap on the clipboard. Our plugin can get/set the bitmaps to the clipboard now in 32 and 64bit.
The clipboard can hold several data types and Windows defines a couple of standard formats. Beside the bitmap type, there is a DIB type for a device independent bitmap and Metafile Picture for vector graphics. Normally Windows should convert from DIB to BITMAP or back.
Still some applications like Excel or Word look for the DIB and the conversion from BITMAP doesn’t work well. So we added new SetDIB/GetDIB functions to put a Xojo picture on the clipboard in the DIB format. This should solve problems people may have with clipboard.
If you like to try the newer plugins, please do not hesitate to contact us.
If you try to run two SQL statements on one connection, you often see this error message:
"HY000 [Microsoft][SQL Server Native Client 11.0]Connection is busy with results for another command"
We regularly see the problem with Microsoft SQL Server, but it also happens with Sybase ASE and others.
To solve you can set the option "SQL_ATTR_CURSOR_TYPE" with the value "SQL_CURSOR_DYNAMIC" to get a server side cursor. This will tell the connection to use a dynamic cursor and you can have several of those.
In
Xojo:
dim cmd
as SQLCommandMBS
cmd.
Option(
"SQL_ATTR_CURSOR_TYPE") =
"SQL_CURSOR_DYNAMIC"
in
FileMaker:
MBS( "
SQL.SetCommandOption"; $Command; "SQL_ATTR_CURSOR_TYPE"; "SQL_CURSOR_DYNAMIC" )
For next plugins we will include code to make sure you can set the option on the connection and pass it down to all commands on that connection.
Alternatively you can use the flag MARS_Connection when connecting inside the connection string:
"bedlam-m\\sql2014en@test;MARS_Connection=yes"
This is global option for the connection.
Xojo Inc. released today Xojo 2017 Release 2. You can
download it on their website.
This update adds more than 250 improvements, with a focus on 64-bit enhancements, Linux GTK+ 3 and HiDPI, and iOS Launch Screen support..
Xojo 2017 Release 2 features:
- 64-bit support for XojoScript
- 64-bit string handling is faster and more consistent
- 64-bit support for Windows icons and version information
- GTK3 for Linux
- HiDPI for Linux
- iOS Launch Screen support
- Additional drag & drop events for ListBox
- IDE and web improvements
The complete list of improvements in Xojo 2017 Release 2 can be found in the
release notes.
If you use MBS Plugins and the GTK classes, please update to
17.4pr2 or newer plugins.
This includes
GTK Window class,
OpenDialogMBS,
Linux WebKit classes and window functions.
But some changes to picture handling for GTK3 affect
all plugins using pictures.
In gerade mal zwei Monaten startet die
FileMaker Konferenz in Salzburg.
So langsam füllt sich die Konferenz und inzwischen steht auch das
Programm.
Vom 12. bis 14. Oktober 2017 treffen sich wieder ca. 200 Teilnehmer im Pitter in Salzburg. Die deutschsprachige FileMaker Entwickler treffen sich um Neuigkeiten zu FileMaker zu erfahren, mit den Mitarbeitern von FileMaker in Kontakt zu kommen und um alte Freundschaften zu pflegen.
Bitte bald
anmelden um ein Ticket zu bekommen. Noch gibt es Konferenztickets zu kaufen.
Die Hotelzimmer im Pitter sind wohl vergriffen, aber es gibt noch freie Zimmer rund um den Salzburger Bahnhof.
Vom Flughafen kommt man übrigens mit der
Buslinie 2 direkt zum Konferenzhotel.
Für die
MBS Plugin Schulung am 11. Oktober sind noch Plätze frei. Nehmen sie sich einen Tag Zeit zu erfahren, was alles im MBS Plugin steckt, was dieses Jahr neu ist und probieren wir direkt einige Funktionen aus. Je nach den Wünschen der Teilnehmer bauen wir gerne neue Beispiele, die dann bestimmte Funktionen zeigen.
New in this prerelease of the 17.4 plugins:
- Updated CURL Library to 7.55.1.
- Added convenience properties Name, Model, Manufacturer and DisplayName for MidiObjectMBS class.
- Improved GTK classes for future.
- Modernized GetInfoCertInfo for newer CURL version.
- Added MemoryUsed and MemoryHighwater properties to SQLite3MBS class.
- Reorganized plugins. From 65 down to 39.
- Merged Nikon and Canon plugins into Cameras Plugin.
- Merged LCMS2, OCR, GIF, PNG, LargeImage, JPEG and Tiff plugins into Images plugin.
- Merged PHP, CUPS, markdown, RegEx and Tidy into Tools plugin.
- Merged Twain into Picture plugin.
- Merged DirectShow, WIA, WinDragDrop, TAPI and WinICM plugins into Win plugin.
- Removed SQLAnywhere plugin part as that functionality is now available in SQL Plugin.
- Removed imedia, TCMPortMapper and FTPParse plugin parts as those were really outdated.
- Removed ImageMagick, LCMS, QTKit and QuickTime plugins. They are archived now.
- Removed QuickDraw based classes: MacPictMBS, PaletteMBS and related graphics methods.
- Removed old MacOS Classic classes: WindowGroupMBS, ClickThroughMBS, NumberFormatMBS, DateFormatMBS, AFPURLMBS and InternetConfigMBS.
- Changed LDAP functions to default to protocol version 3 with UTF-8 as default encoding.
- Fixed NSPipeMBS class to no longer crash app for broken pipes. We set the signal to be ignored in Constructor.
- Fixed bug in SKProductsRequestMBS which could lead to crash if you use the class and release instances before you got the event.
- Updated SQLite to version 3.20.0.
- Added more constructors for CFURLMBS class.
Download:
monkeybreadsoftware.de/xojo/download/plugin/Prerelease/.
Or ask us to be added to our shared Dropbox folder.
New in this prerelease of the 7.4 MBS FileMaker Plugin:
Download at
monkeybreadsoftware.de/filemaker/files/Prerelease/ or ask for being added to the dropbox shared folder.
Handling URL schemes in both Mac and Windows can be tricky.
For Mac you need to define plist entry to declare the URL scheme and later handle the AppleEvent.
For Windows it is more difficult. First you edit registry to declare your URL scheme. Than you need to handle the URL as start parameter. But as a second copy of your app may be launched, you need to talk yourself to the first instance via IPCSocket and pass URL command to main app.
Robert Beier from Dibomedia GmbH in Leipzig recently implemented a helper class to handle this and put it on githup:
github.com/CranberryStackCookie/xojo-url-scheme
Feel free to send feedback including bug fixes to him. And next time you meet him at a Xojo conference, you can of course invite him for a drink!
Quite a couple of FileMaker users and developers ask for help on implementing MBS Plugin functions in FileMaker solutions. So I'd like to start with a list of MBS aware consultants for FileMaker projects:
| Company | Developer | Website | Location |
|---|
| cross solutions | Armin Egginger & Dr. Adam G. Augustin | cross-solutions.de | Munich, Germany |
| Datastudio d.o.o. | Dejan Sunik | datastudio.si | Log pri Brezovici, Slowenija |
| Denkform GmbH | Thorsten & Lars Seliger | denkform.net | Hofheim im Taunus, Germany |
| Filemakergarage e. K. | Nils Waldherr | filemakergarage.com | Berlin, Germany |
| Keeneight l.l.c. | Stefano Morandotti | keeneight.com | Washington, MI, USA |
| Maltacode | Dick Impens | maltacode.com | Malta & Netherlands |
In general they can speak English and the local language of their country. For some projects, you may want to find someone nearby, but most times someone from anywhere could help. See also FileMaker's
partner locator website.
Like to be added to my list? Please contact me.
For next plugin release 17.4, we will have some reorganization in the plugins. Some smaller plugins get merged, some older stuff dropped and some parts move to other plugins. There may some change needed for people who don't have the Complete license key.
As over 80% of our users have the Complete set instead of individual parts, we make a special offer to all users with individual parts:
Buy the
Complete Update in August 2017 to go from whatever part you have to the complete set.
Depending on what part you have, you save up to 50% this way:
Order now
We will not stop selling individual parts right now, but as of today we remove QuickTime, Controls, Lion & Leopard from the price list.
Please do not hesitate to contact us for questions.
If you live near Braunschweig or Hannover area in Germany, you are welcome to join the FileMaker meeting in Braunschweig and meet me there:
Am Mittwoch, 9. August 2017 findet der nächste FileMaker Stammtisch für die Region Braunschweig statt.
Für interessierte Teilnehmer hier noch einmal die wichtigsten Fakten:
Wann: Mittwoch, 9. August 2017 um 19:00 Uhr
Wo: In den Räumen der "Studiowerk - Musikmanufaktur" - Rebenpark Hof C - Eingang C17
Rebenpark, Eingang C17
Nordstraße 42
38106 Braunschweig
Diesmal bin ich wohl auch dabei und kann von der DevCon berichten bzw. das MBS Plugin vorführen. Bitte vorher anmelden, wenn ihr kommen möchtet.
Siehe
Xing Gruppe,
Facebook Gruppe und
Xing Event.
Everyone who attended the FileMaker DevCon 2017 in Phoenix can still use the coupon code to get 20% off the plugin licenses.
We extend the coupon code for another two weeks.
The discount is a thank you to the attendees for joining the conference.
Please see the leaflet you got at the conference for the coupon code.
New in this prerelease of the 17.4 plugins:
- Updated DynaPDF to version 4.0.12.32.
- Fixed memory leak in XL Plugin for Windows (leak of GDI handles).
- Added RAWSocketMBS class.
- Changed DynaPDFMBS.HighlightPattern to create highlight annotations instead of drawing rectangles.
- Fixed bug in BarcodeGeneratorMBS class with generating barcode without text.
- Added exceptions for NSImageMBS constructors. You'll get an UnsupportedOperationException if image creation fails.
Download:
monkeybreadsoftware.de/xojo/download/plugin/Prerelease/.
Or ask us to be added to our shared Dropbox folder.
New in this prerelease of the 7.4 MBS FileMaker Plugin:
- Added AVAsset.TrackInfo function.
- Updated DynaPDF to version 4.0.12.32.
- Changed PrintDialog.Enable to call PrintDialog.Install for you if needed.
- Changed Encryption functions to better handle NULL bytes.
- Removed reference to /usr/local/lib folder for iOS plugin which made trouble for MDM app distribution.
- Added Command-L shortcut to go to Go To Line box in script workspace.
- Added Command-F shortcut to read the search fields for script and relation ship graph search boxes.
- Added optional parameter for FM.RunDataDesignReport to open report after creating it.
- Added CoreImage.Detect.
- Changed DynaPDF.HighlightPattern to create highlight annotations instead of drawing rectangles.
- Fixed bug in Barcode.Generate function with generating barcode without text.
Download at
monkeybreadsoftware.de/filemaker/files/Prerelease/ or ask for being added to the dropbox shared folder.
