MBS Filemaker Plugin, version 2.8pr6

New in this prerelease of the 2.8 plugins:

• Improved SQL functions Unicode string handling. Now using UTF-8 for all strings.
• Updated to SQLAPI++ 4.0.1.

Download later today at monkeybreadsoftware.de/filemaker/files/

SQL and text encodings

As you may know we have SQL functions in both our Real Studio and Filemaker plugins. Getting text encodings right for all cases is a challenge.
So next releases of our plugins have an improved text handling. We use UTF-8/16 everywhere and if the database is also UTF-8 or UTF-16, this should work wonderful and all trouble is gone.
Please if you have a chance, test the new plugin and inform us, if it's working fine for you.
Especially I have to say that MySQLCommunityServer plugin from Real Software seems to return strings without encoding. So there our plugin may be an alternative

MBS Filemaker Plugin, version 2.8pr5

New in this prerelease of the 2.8 plugins:

• Added RemoteControl.GetWindowsList
• Added Window.GetClassName
• Added Preferences.GetTextSelectionWithDragAndDrop and Preferences.SetTextSelectionWithDragAndDrop.

Download later today at monkeybreadsoftware.de/filemaker/files/

Filemaker Conference 2012 in Salzburg

Early bird registration is about to end today, so sign on quickly if you haven't yet.
So if you come to Salzburg for this conference, it would be nice to meet you and talk about plugins with Filemaker.

For more details, please check the filemaker-konferenz.de website.

MBS Filemaker Plugin, version 2.8pr4

New in this prerelease of the 2.8 plugins:

• Added Window.Activate function.
• Added DisableFunction function.
• Added RemoteControl functions.

Download later today at monkeybreadsoftware.de/filemaker/files/

Shrinking Filemaker runtimes

If your filemaker runtime is a little bit too big for you, you can make them a little bit smaller on Mac.

Right click on the application and look into the contents of the application bundle.
First you can look inside Resources folder and find there the language folders. Here you can delete a few if you like. But please keep at least one language.

Next you can check the frameworks folder. There it looks like that you can remove those dylib files:

libxalan-c.111.0.dylib
libxalanMsg.111.0.dylib
libxerces-c.dylib

There you can also delete those PowerPC components in the same folder:

OLEWrapper
OLEWrapperRPCServer

And now with Terminal help you can use lipo command. For each dylib in the Frameworks folder, please rename it. The command in terminal for each file is lipo followed with path to the old dylib, than -remove ppc7400 -output followed by the original path of the file.
You can apply the same to the OpenSSL library in the OpenSSL.framework folder.

And if you still need a few bytes, you can decide if you need icon files like: FM12Dict.icns, FM12Label.icns and FM12Plug.icns.

This tip is of course at your own risk! But for some people it's interesting and as long as everything works, it does not harm you. Maybe someone at Filemaker Inc. can check why they have those duplicate dylibs and why they still ship PPC code.

On the end, the solution is down from 154.5 MB to 65.9 MB. Nearly 90 MB saved and still working with Filemaker 11 and 12!

MBS Filemaker Plugin, version 2.8pr3

New in this prerelease of the 2.8 plugins:

• Fixed a bug in a Mac function which verified window references so you once again can work on multiple windows and not just the front window.
• If trace is on, the webview callback prints the received status message to debug console.

Download later today at monkeybreadsoftware.de/filemaker/files/

Mountain Lion wishes?

I'm working already on new plugins.

Anything you like to have sooner than later?
I want to be ready when Mountain Lion ships.

Please reply directly to me as Mountain Lion is under NDA currently.

Filemaker meeting in Hamburg

There is a monthly meeting of Filemaker users in Hamburg. I had the pleasure to join the latest meeting yesterday and show my Filemaker plugin. There were a lot of questions and quite a few ideas for future plugin function.
We had more than 20 visitors and after the presentation some interesting discussions. Especially when group splits in little groups and people show each other what they do in Filemaker and give a few tips and tricks how they did a few of the solutions they made.

Don't forget to sign up for Filemaker Konferenz 2012 in Salzburg and suggestion something for the FMM Award 2012.

MBS Filemaker Plugin, version 2.8pr2

New in this prerelease of the 2.8 plugins:

• Added new parameter to Window.HideScrollbars to disable our resize event watcher.
• Fixed Window.SetAlpha to return errors on Windows correctly.
• Added Window functions to query left, top, width and height.
• Added Files.List function

Download later today at monkeybreadsoftware.de/filemaker/files/