We got trial keys about 6 years ago added to our
FileMaker and
Xojo plugins.
A trial key is only valid for a limit time and allows to test all features without demo limitations. Due to the time limitation of the key, you can use it for a few weeks. The key later expires and you are back to demo mode or you order a license to get a permanent license.
We setup a form to request a license key:
Request Trial License Key
We may limit who can get a trial and filter out the requests looking like spam. But so far we issued over 1800 trial keys to various people.
Please understand that trial keys are not intended for deployment of solutions as keys expire. Our regular keys don't expire and can be used forever with the plugin versions released before the license's expiration date.
You can also explicit register for
newsletter, so you know about new releases and events.
There are six conferences left for FileMaker this year and still time for you to sign-up to one and enjoy meeting your fellow developers. Meet Claris staff and us to ask your questions, bring ideas and show what you do with FileMaker.
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We got quite a few utility functions in MBS Xojo Plugins for you to enjoy in your projects.
GetVariantTypeMBS
Let's say you have a variant containing something. Usually you use VarType() or Variant.Type to query the type.
GetVariantTypeMBS(va as variant) as Integer
The GetVariantTypeMBS function does the same, but has an extra code path for UInt32 and UInt64. While Xojo's functions don't distinguish between signed and unsigned integers, the MBS Plugin can do.
| Variant contains | Variant.Type | GetVariantTypeMBS |
| Int32 | 2 | 2 |
| UInt32 | 2 | 102 |
| Int64 | 3 | 3 |
| UInt64 | 3 | 103 |
All other types would be same return values.
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There is a little thing we can easily do in FileMaker when creating new records. We can get the ID of the new record. But if we insert via SQL, we can't get it. Usually we workaround by using UUIDs and then put in a new UUID for the record into the insert command. This way we know in advance which ID the new record will have.
Now in PostgreSQL you can use INSERT command with RETURNING option to return the new record ID. As we can use our SQL functions to connect to PostgreSQL databases, we can use that feature here.
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Today Xojo Inc. released the new version of Xojo, their second release for this year. Let's check what is new.
Release notes - Download
Control Sets for web projects
Better late than never, but this makes it easier to convert older Web 1 projects using control sets to Web 2. And of course you can use array indexes directly instead of putting controls in your own array property. A control set allows you to access an set of controls by the same name and the index.
See also
What’s New in Xojo Web in 2024r2
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New in this prerelease of the 24.3 plugins:
- Added AddRow() variant to SQLDatabaseMBS with returning insert id.
- Fixed ArcShape for DynaPDFMBS to not close the Arc line.
- Updated CubeSQL library to version 5.9.
- Added isSequoia function to SystemInformationMBS module.
- Deprecated isMavericks, isElCapitan, isYosemite and isSierra functions in SystemInformationMBS module.
- Deprecated MacROMBootVersion, MacBoardID, MacVRAMSize and MacHasHardwareAcceleratedCoreImage functions in SystemInformationMBS module.
- Added isValidJSON function for JSONMBS class.
- Updated DynaPDF to version 4.0.89.256.
- Added SearchAsIs flag for DynaPDF.Parser.FindText function.
Download:
monkeybreadsoftware.de/xojo/download/plugin/Prerelease/.
Or ask us to be added to our shared DropBox folder.
You can subscribe to our Xojo mailing list to get notified for new pre-release and release versions.
New in this prerelease of version 14.3 of the
MBS FileMaker Plugin:
Download at
monkeybreadsoftware.com/filemaker/files/Prerelease/
You can subscribe to our FileMaker mailing list to get notified for new pre-release and release versions.
Recently a client asked about whether we can do MQTT inside FileMaker to subscribe to a topic and receive messages or even send messages. Let's summarize what MQTT is for you:
MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport) is a lightweight messaging protocol designed for devices with limited resources and for low-bandwidth, high-latency, or unreliable networks. It operates on a publish/subscribe model which allows for efficient distribution of information to many receivers.
We discovered that we have MQTT capabilities built-in to the CURL library. Just use an URL with "mqtt://" followed by IP or domain name of the server. In the path of the URL goes the subject to subscribe or post to. If you like, set a user name and password. Run the transfer and check the debug messages for success. Let us show you how to this in a script below.
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We recorded the presentations at the MBS Xojo Conference in April 2024 and here is the fifth video with David Cox presenting about Cross-platform development using Convert to Method Pair:
If you have a massively multi-platform project you quickly discover that placing code in 12 locations (in Objects, Methods and Classes for Desktop, Web, iOS and Android) becomes nearly impossible to manage. Using Convert to Method Pair allows you to place all your source code into one external Class per Window/Container/Page/Screen making your applications work consistently and making debugging much easier.
More videos will follow into the playlist.
For MBS FileMaker Plugin 14.3 we add the possibility to evaluate Python code in FileMaker and run scripts. This enables you to integrate existing Python code and use it in FileMaker. That may be a quick calculation to calculate a checksum, process some text, JSON or XML data or to utilize an existing script by running it within FileMaker. Python comes with hundreds of available modules that you can import and use.
Initialization
Depending on the platform, you install Python libraries in different ways. For macOS you can use Homebrew command line tools to install the python package. For Windows you can download the official Python installer and run it. For Linux you use your package manager to get the python package installed. When done, you have on each system a folder with the libraries and you tell the plug-in where to find them.
For macOS you usually check look for the Python.framework:
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/python@3.12/3.12.3/Frameworks/Python.framework
or
/usr/local/homebrew/Cellar/python@3.12/3.12.3/Frameworks/Python.framework
For Windows the path to the dll may include the version number, so please adjust as needed. If you like use our Files.List function to check the names in the path in your script.
C:\Users\cs\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python312\python312.dll
For Linux the package is usually in the library path, so you can just refer to it by the name.
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In the last days we had a discussion with a client about FileMaker 2024 and the quick open feature. The user may press Command-K (macOS) or Control-K (Windows) and search for things. This includes layouts and scripts and they can go to layouts and run scripts, when you wouldn't expect it.
We love to give everyone a reminder on a little security thing: Any script in FileMaker may get called anywhere by anyone.
When you write a script, you usually make assumptions. The script expects to be in a certain layout on a specific record to do its job. You expect it to be called because a user pressed a specific button or used the custom menu to only call it in a specific situation. But your script can be triggered:
- with the open quickly feature in FileMaker 2024.
- using the script menu, maybe after switching back to standard menus.
- via Apple Script
- via Data API
- via fmp:// URL
- via various plugins
- via another FileMaker file where someone writes a script to perform a script in your file.
- via Siri intents
- via notification response trigger
While you could put in some guard rails using the permissions and denying linking your file to another one, we hardly ever want to restrict calling triggers via fmp URLs or plugin since we use that regularly for integrations like with the WebViewer.
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Recently a client asked about whether we can do MQTT to subscribe to a topic and receive messages or even send messages.
MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport) is a lightweight messaging protocol designed for devices with limited resources and for low-bandwidth, high-latency, or unreliable networks. It operates on a publish/subscribe model which allows for efficient distribution of information to many receivers.
RabbitMQ
A quick search here found the RabbitMQ classes we have. They allow you to connect to the a server running the open source message broker software RabbitMQ. You can use our plugin to use a lot of things there and they have a MQTT plugin, so you can connect your MQTT stuff with the RabbitMQ server.
See MBS Xojo RabbitMQ Plugin, the example files and blog posts about it.
CURL
We also discovered that we have MQTT capabilities built-in to the CURL library. Just use an URL with "mqtt://" followed by IP or domain name of the server. In the path of the URL goes the subject to subscribe or post to. If you like, set a user name and password. Let us show you with some example code.
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New in this prerelease of version 14.3 of the
MBS FileMaker Plugin:
Download at
monkeybreadsoftware.com/filemaker/files/Prerelease/
You can subscribe to our FileMaker mailing list to get notified for new pre-release and release versions.
New in this prerelease of the 24.3 plugins:
Download:
monkeybreadsoftware.de/xojo/download/plugin/Prerelease/.
Or ask us to be added to our shared DropBox folder.
You can subscribe to our Xojo mailing list to get notified for new pre-release and release versions.
Recently a client asked how to show 3D models in FileMaker on Windows. We looked for various solutions and on the end came to using JavaScript viewer for 3D objects: js-3d-model-viewer.
To show a file, you would export it to a temporary folder with FileMaker. You put the JavaScript file into the same folder and have your script export also the html file there. The HTML file needs to reference the model file by name. Although you could just name the model file the same each time and just use the same html.
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We recorded the presentations at the MBS Xojo Conference in April 2024 and here is the forth video with Jérémie Leroy presenting about Managing exceptions like a pro:
Detecting bugs and fixing them is very important as a developer.
Managing exceptions can take a lot of time to implement. This session will present Sentry.io using an open-source set of classes written in Xojo.
Watch on YouTube. More videos will follow into the playlist.
We recorded the MBS Plugin talk at the dotfmp 2024 FileMaker conference in Berlin:
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New in this prerelease of the 24.3 plugins:
- Added CanonicalXML function to XMLValidatorMBS class.
- Improved error messages for exceptions raised in OpenSSLMBS module to contain more details.
- Added quotationEndDelimiter, quotationBeginDelimiter, alternateQuotationBeginDelimiter, alternateQuotationEndDelimiter to NSLocaleMBS class.
- Added calendarIdentifier, localeIdentifier, languageIdentifier, collatorIdentifier, regionCode to NSLocaleMBS class.
- Added NSCurrentLocaleDidChangeNotification function for NSLocaleMBS class to use with NSNotificationObserverMBS class.
- Added localizedStringForVariantCode, localizedStringForScriptCode, localizedStringForLocaleIdentifier, localizedStringForLanguageCode, localizedStringForCurrencyCode, localizedStringForCountryCode, localizedStringForCollatorIdentifier, localizedStringForCollationIdentifier, localizedStringForCalendarIdentifier, localeWithLocaleIdentifier to NSLocaleMBS class.
- Added PythonHome, ProgramName, ProgramFullPath, Prefix, Path and ExecPrefix properties to PythonMBS class.
- Changed CURL debug messages to include the full URL you requested for review. We include a warning, if URL has no scheme.
- Updated DynaPDF to version 4.0.88.252.
- Added kKeepUnsupportedAnnots constant for DynaPDFMBS class.
- Added SetLineAnnotPoints and EnableImageCache functions to DynaPDFMBS class.
Download:
monkeybreadsoftware.de/xojo/download/plugin/Prerelease/.
Or ask us to be added to our shared DropBox folder.
You can subscribe to our Xojo mailing list to get notified for new pre-release and release versions.
New in this prerelease of version 14.3 of the
MBS FileMaker Plugin:
Download at
monkeybreadsoftware.com/filemaker/files/Prerelease/
You can subscribe to our FileMaker mailing list to get notified for new pre-release and release versions.
Recently at the dotfmp conference, we talked about storing text vectors for LLMs in FileMaker as container instead of text to save space. But does it? Let's check with current FileMaker Pro.
We can store text in a FileMaker database. The size to store the record is a bit more than the text. Our test table has primary key, two time stamps and the account name for creation and modification. With the overhead for managing the blocks this takes about 270 bytes per record in our test database.
If you store the text in a container field, you basically get the text stored and there is a 12 byte overhead for the container, if you just write text there.
Set Field [ Test::ContainerField ; $text ]
Alternatively we can package the text as UTF-8 with Text.WriteToContainer function. That will package the text as a file. This causes an overhead of about 200 bytes as multiple streams of data are managed including a file name. Total size of the container value itself is 36 bytes more than the text length. But by using container instead of a text field, we can save on indexes.
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We recorded the presentations at the MBS Xojo Conference in April 2024 and here is the third video with Javier Menendez presenting about Mobile Development:
Getting the most out of Mobile Development with Xojo
Watch on YouTube. More videos will follow into the playlist.
New in this prerelease of the 24.3 plugins:
Download:
monkeybreadsoftware.de/xojo/download/plugin/Prerelease/.
Or ask us to be added to our shared DropBox folder.
You can subscribe to our Xojo mailing list to get notified for new pre-release and release versions.
New in this prerelease of version 14.3 of the
MBS FileMaker Plugin:
Download at
monkeybreadsoftware.com/filemaker/files/Prerelease/
You can subscribe to our FileMaker mailing list to get notified for new pre-release and release versions.
You may know that FileMaker has variables within Let(), $ variables in a script and $$ variables as per file globals. But MBS FileMaker Plugin provides higher levels. Our plugin based variables (see FM.VariableSet) stay in the process space of the current loaded plugin. But there is also shared memory to store something per computer, independent of the current application.
On a FileMaker Server you can have three times the plugin installed and also on each web direct worker. You may run one or more FileMaker Pro copy on a machine and each has plugin managed variables for itself. But they can also access the shared memory (see SharedMemory.SetValue) on the same machine and share variables.
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Check out the FMTraining.tv website. Richard Carlton and his team do a daily free live stream about FileMaker to watch.
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 about XL functions in MBS FileMaker Plugin to do custom exports.
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Claris released today FileMaker 2024 in version 21.0. Works fine with MBS FileMaker Plugin 14.2.
You get new AI script steps, writing via Execute FileMaker Data API script step, Let's Encrypt certificates (instructions here), an Open Quickly shortcut, Revert transactions in subscripts and you may enjoy a few bug fixes. But please read details in the release notes:
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We recorded the presentations at the MBS Xojo Conference in April 2024 and here is the second video with Christian Schmitz giving an update on MBS Xojo Plugins:
What is new in the 23 & 24 versions and what is in the pipeline?
Watch on YouTube. More videos will follow into the playlist.
New in this prerelease of the 24.3 plugins:
- Added Python plugin with PythonMBS class.
- Fixed a problem with XLBookMBS when using conditional formatting.
- Updated plugin SDK for Xojo 2024r2.
- Fixed problem with JSON returning negative floating point numbers without leading 0.
- Updated to Xcode 15.4.
- Updated SQLAPI to version 5.3.2.
- Removed deprecation attribute for FFTSingleMBS and FFTDoubleMBS functions.
- Fixed the ReplaceTag function in WordFileMBS, which broke in 14.2.
- Fixed number passing for XojoDOMXPathExpressionMBS class.
- Updated SQLite to version 3.46.0.
- Updated our ICU integration for SQLite to the new SQLite version.
- Changed HotkeyMBS class for Windows to react on right shift/control/option keys, too.
- Updated DynaPDF to version 4.0.87.251.
- Updated curl to version 8.8.0
- Added SetInput method taking ptr to ZLibDecompressMBS, ZLibCompressMBS, BZip2DecompressMBS and BZip2CompressMBS functions.
- Added title property to VNDocumentCameraViewControllerMBS class.
Download:
monkeybreadsoftware.de/xojo/download/plugin/Prerelease/.
Or ask us to be added to our shared DropBox folder.
You can subscribe to our Xojo mailing list to get notified for new pre-release and release versions.
New in this prerelease of version 14.3 of the
MBS FileMaker Plugin:
- Added Python functions.
- Added Plugin.LockedFunctions function.
- Enhanced execute button for calculation dialog to allow pressing option key to only evaluate the selected text.
- Updated for future FileMaker version.
- Improved variable auto completion to better handle custom functions starting with underscore.
- Updated to newer plugin SDK for FileMaker 21.
- Fixed problem with JSON returning negative floating point numbers without leading 0.
- Updated to Xcode 15.4.
- Updated SQLAPI to version 5.3.2.
- Fixed the WordFile.ReplaceTag function, which broke in 14.2.
- Improved the formatting code for calculations to handle special words like or and and better.
- Update LibXL libraries for macOS and Windows to version 4.3.
- Fixed a bug in WebLink() function in DynaPDFMBS class returning negative number.
- Changed XL.Book.Version to have the book parameter optional.
- Added EmailParser.ReleaseAll function.
- Renamed EmailParser.Free to EmailParser.Release, but old name will stay valid.
- Fixed a memory leak in loading Excel file from disk with XL.LoadBook function.
- Fixed a problem with XL functions where license key was not recognized properly.
- Fixed a problem with copying script text would duplicate field names or calculations.
- Changed trace function to not log the password for a Files.Mount call.
- Added check to XL.Initialize and DynaPDF.Initialize to return an error if the license key includes invalid characters like a space character.
- Added Mutex.ReleaseAll function.
- Renamed Mutex.Free to Mutex.Release, but old name will stay valid.
- Updated SQLite to version 3.46.0.
- Updated our ICU integration for SQLite to the new SQLite version.
- Updated DynaPDF to version 4.0.87.251.
- Enhanced format button for calculation dialog to allow pressing shift key to only format the selected text.
- Updated curl to version 8.8.0
- Enhanced check syntax button for calculation dialog to allow pressing shift key to only check the selected text.
Download at
monkeybreadsoftware.com/filemaker/files/Prerelease/
You can subscribe to our FileMaker mailing list to get notified for new pre-release and release versions.
Vom 1. bis 4. Oktober 2024 findet die nächste deutschsprachige FileMaker Konferenz in Malbun, Liechtenstein statt. Die Tickets für die Konferenz sind jetzt verfügbar, bis 20. April noch zum Frühbucherpreis.
Die Hotelzimmer im JUFA Hotel sind begrenzt. Bitte dort bald ein Zimmer buchen. Wenn das JUFA Hotel voll ist, werden Sie automatisch ein Zimmer aus einem anderen Hotel in Malbun bekommen.
Monkeybread Software ist als Sponsor mit Stand und Session vor Ort. Bitte kommen Sie mit Ihren Fragen vorbei!
Wir haben einen MBS Plugin Vortrag, Stefanie präsentiert zu eigenen Funktionen bzw. Entspannungstechniken und wir planen noch für den 1. Oktober einen Wandertag ein (Anmeldung bei uns). Wer mit möchte, kann dann bei hoffentlich schönem Wetter mit uns durch die Berge wandern. z.B. von Malbun aus am Sass-Seeli vorbei zur Alpe Guschg.
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