French Speaking FileMaker Conferences

This year Monkeybread Software sponsors two French speaking FileMaker conferences:

Les Rendez-Vous::FM[2026]
du 23 au 25 Avril 2026 – Aix-en-Provence, France
2026.rendez-vous-fm.fr

Quebec FileMaker Developers Conference
16th to 17th June 2026 - Montreal, Canada
cqdf.ca and fmqc.ca

We visited both conference multiple times in the past and we recommend anyone speaking at least some French to visit them.

Dialogs with fields for Windows

We have our dialog functions in MBS FileMaker Plugin to quickly show a dialog in a calculation. Usually to show a custom dialog in FileMaker at any time to quickly report something to the user or to quickly ask a question with yes or no.

 

For example we can just ask with a Let statement for whether we should delete a file:

 

Let ( 

[

    _ = MBS("Dialog.Reset") ;

    _ = MBS("Dialog.SetDefaultButton" ; "Yes") ;

    _ = MBS("Dialog.SetOtherButton" ; "No") ;

    _ = MBS("Dialog.SetAlternateButton" ; "Cancel") ;

    _ = MBS("Dialog.SetMessage" ; "Delete the old file?") ;

    _ = MBS("Dialog.SetWindowTitle" ; "Backups done") ;

    _ = MBS("Dialog.Run") ;

    button = MBS("Dialog.GetButtonPressed")

] ;

    // 0 -> Yes, 1 -> No, 2 -> Cancel

    button

)

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Search all Scripts improved

After adding grouping and a copy menu, we continue with a few new things:

• Search entries are numbered
• The clicked row is highlighted in blue
• Commented lines show in gray
• The groups are collapsable.

Here is a screen shot:

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MBS FileMaker Plugin, version 16.1pr4

New in this prerelease of version 16.1 of the MBS FileMaker Plugin:

• Changed iOS deployment target to iOS 15.0 as minimum, since that is Xcode's minimum. That is iPhone 6S and newer.
• Improved script search to allow scripts to collapse.
• Changed script search results to show commented lines better.
• Changed script search results to number the search results and allow you to click them to mark where you are in the list.
• Enabled Dialog.ClearFields, Dialog.AddField, Dialog.GetFieldText and Dialog.SetFieldText functions for Windows since we got an alternative dialog with edit fields, which does most of our dialog functions.
• Added Files.ApplicationPathWithBundleIdentifier function.
• Improved variable check to ignore Set Variable lines with $index = $index + 1.
• Updated DynaPDF to version 5.0.0.2.

New functions in documentation

Download Links: Download Mac dmg or Download Windows/Linux zip

Downloads at monkeybreadsoftware.com/filemaker/files/Prerelease/:

You can subscribe to our FileMaker mailing list to get notified for new pre-release and release versions.

Minimum iOS version updated to iOS 15

The world moves forward and so do we with our FileMaker and Xojo plugins. We used to build our iOS Plugins for iOS 11 and for the future we change the minimum to iOS 15. That is the recommended minimum deployment target for the current iOS version 26 with Xcode 26. Everyone will sooner or later this year use Xcode 26 as Apple starts requiring the use of the 26 SDK this spring.

iOS 15 should be fine for everyone as that runs on iPhone 6S and later.
There are older iPads, that won't run iOS 15, but they are also quite old.

I doubt any of our customers builds a new application and needs a plugin to support iOS 14 or older. If you still need iOS 13, 12 or 11 support, then you may use older plugins.

Supported are now iOS 15, 16, 17, 18 and 26. Plus the iPad and VisionOS variants of iOS.

When iOS 27 gets popular we may move to a newer Xcode version, which then increase the minimum to iOS 16. We'll see.

Please let us know if you have concerns.

Use Llama.cpp in FileMaker

For MBS FileMaker Plugin 16.1 we include new Llama functions to use local LLMs on your computer. Instead of paying for a web service to run the LLM on someone else's computer, you can run it locally on yours.

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Claris Engage Japan Keynote

As you may know, I had the honor to visit Tokyo for the Claris Engage Japan in 2025. The videos are now posted on the FileMaker Japan channel on YouTube.

You can watch the English keynote here:

With Ryan McCann - Claris CEO.

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MBS FileMaker Plugin, version 16.1pr3

New in this prerelease of version 16.1 of the MBS FileMaker Plugin:

• Added Llama functions to load local large language models to query them.
• Fixed Archive functions to recognize zstd library within the plugin, so Archive.ZStdVersion reports the version.
• Rebuild libarchive to dynamically load lzma library on macOS/iOS.
• Fixed script search to select scripts on macOS if folder and script names are the same.
• Improved Text.ReadTextFile and other functions to read files on Windows instead of complaining about file in use.
• Added groups for SystemInfo.ADSystemInfo function.
• Changed install name for our plugin on macOS and iOS to be correct with @rpath.
• Implemented Files.GetPathFromNodeID for iOS and Linux. Linux uses recursive search.
• Updated SQLite to version 3.51.2.
• Added EnvironmentVariables.JSON function.
• Changed how we load python on linux to improve handling of custom installations.
• Updated DynaPDF to version 5.0.0.1
• Please note that DynaPDF 5 sets UseTransparency to false by default instead of true in version 4 and the UseImageColorSpace flag is now enabled by default, instead of disabled.
• Changed DynaPDF.ImportPDFPage to only require a Lite instead of a Pro license.

New functions in documentation

Download Links: Download Mac dmg or Download Windows/Linux zip

Downloads at monkeybreadsoftware.com/filemaker/files/Prerelease/:

You can subscribe to our FileMaker mailing list to get notified for new pre-release and release versions.

QRCode with sequences in FileMaker

Some barcode types like QR-Code support structured appends. That means you can have a series of barcodes and carry metadata to identify them as belonging to the same series. And each of them carries the index within the series and the number of barcodes in total. For example you may have 1 or 3, 2 or 3 and 3 or 3.

Our MBS FileMaker Plugin handles this with the Barcode.GenerateJSON function. You pass the StructuredAppend option with the JSON object containing index, count and Id entries for the series. The index is one based up to the value in count. Please note that the ID is limited to a few characters or numbers and this depends on the barcode type.

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MBS at Full Access 2026

We are happy to join the biggest US conference for FileMaker developers in 2026:

[Full Access] 2026

This year’s premier U.S. FileMaker conference.

August 6th – 10th 2026

The Jesuit Retreat Center, Los Altos, California.

Register

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Introducing TOON and JSON.ToToon in the MBS Plugin

TOON: A Compact, LLM-Friendly Alternative to JSON

JSON has become the universal data format for APIs, configuration, and data exchange. It’s precise, machine-friendly, and everywhere. But when JSON is fed into Large Language Models (LLMs), it’s not always ideal: braces, quotes, and repeated field names can waste tokens and obscure the structure that models need to reason about the data.

That’s where Token-Oriented Object Notation (TOON) comes in. TOON is a compact, human-readable encoding of the JSON data model, designed specifically for LLM input. It is a lossless representation of JSON, meaning you can round-trip between JSON and TOON without losing information.

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MBS FileMaker Plugin, version 16.1pr2

New in this prerelease of version 16.1 of the MBS FileMaker Plugin:

• Added OCR.RenderPDF function.
• Added Command-W for the search all scripts window on macOS to close the dialog via shortcut.
• Updated openssl to version 3.5.5.
• Updated expat to version 2.7.4.
• Fixed an issue with If/Loop highlighting causing a crash on MacOS Tahoe.
• Clipboard is now preserved when opening the script search.
• Fixed an issue with JSON.InsertRecord where we passed date as timestamp and FileMaker complained about incompatible types.

New functions in documentation

Download Links: Download Mac dmg or Download Windows/Linux zip

Downloads at monkeybreadsoftware.com/filemaker/files/Prerelease/:

You can subscribe to our FileMaker mailing list to get notified for new pre-release and release versions.

Installing MBS Plugin on macOS into FileMaker Pro

Let's say you like to install the MBS FileMaker Plugin on your Mac for FileMaker Pro.

Download

First you download our MBSPlugin.dmg from our website.

For macOS please use the dmg file. This one is notarized, so Apple had a chance to run their malware scanner on it. While you could also load the zip archive with the same content, you would then get warnings about the plugin being unnotarized. The download may take a while.

You open the disk image and there you find a folder with the macOS plugin and inside the MBS.fmplugin file.

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MBS @ FMTraining.TV - Installing the MBS Plug-in In FileMaker Via Script

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 the scripts to install MBS Plugin automatically.

Blog articles: Linux, macOS and Windows. (more)

Putting an end to the Server Busy Dialog in FileMaker

When using COM functions in FileMaker, you may have seen this dialog:



We saw it a lot recently with WIA for scanning. It's the default dialog for COM for the case a message can't be answered quickly. So with remote method calls, the busy app may not answer to another app quickly, because well, it's busy. The dialog is simply annoying for us and we just prefer to tell COM to wait a little bit and try again.

With our MBS FileMaker Plugin for FileMaker, you can call FM.InitMessageFilter function. It installs a message filter, which will delay & retry all calls automatically without a dialog. Please try.

Search all Scripts with grouping and copy menu

For the next version 16.1 of MBS Plugin, we'll add grouping and a copy menu to the search all scripts feature:

Please try and let us know how well it works.

MBS FileMaker Plugin, version 16.1pr1

New in this prerelease of version 16.1 of the MBS FileMaker Plugin:

• Changed PageSetupDialog and PrintDialog functions to return an error if called on server.
• Changed DynaPDF.InitColorManagement and DynaPDF.InitColorManagementEx, so you can call without profiles to deactivate color management.
• Improved search window to show an error message if the WebView can't be created (on Windows).
• Fixed a crash with Translation functions for macOS 15.x.
• Changed Vision.RecognizeText and Vision.RecognizeTextJSON to auto detect the language
• Added Translation.DetectLanguage function.
• Fixed a problem with the search box for relationship graph disappearing on Windows.
• Added Files.OpenFiles function.
• Added group parameter to ScriptWorkspace.OpenScript function.
• Improved Matrix.InsertRecordsToSQL and FM.SQL.InsertRecordsToSQL functions to pass NULL if a number or date field is empty. Otherwise SQL would complain about passing invalid date or number.
• Implemented Files.USBSerialNumber for Windows.
• Improved Hash.CRC16 function to better handle some special variants.
• Added SyntaxColoring.GetFormatAddSpaceBeforeSemicolon and SyntaxColoring.SetFormatAddSpaceBeforeSemicolon function to set whether to add space before semicolon for our calculation formatting.
• Updated curl to latest pre-release and patched an IMAP regression.
• Improved ClearRegistration to clear more keys on the Registry on Windows.
• Updated LibXL to version 5.1.
• Changed XL.Book.AddConditionalFormat function to take area as parameters.
• Added XL.Book.Clear and XL.Book.ErrorCode functions.
• Added XL.Book.ConditionalFormat and XL.Book.ConditionalFormatSize functions.
• Added XL.Sheet.ConditionalFormatSize and XL.Sheet.ConditionalFormatting functions.
• Added XL.Sheet.RemoveConditionalFormatting function.
• Rewrote FM.SQL.InsertRecords and Matrix.InsertRecords functions to use same code internal.
• Rewrote FM.SQL.InsertRecordsToSQL and Matrix.InsertRecordsToSQL functions to use same code internal.
• Changed tag to tagValue for PhidgetsRFID values to report the tag for a RFID card.
• Improved the field picker link to allow it to link to current table.
• Deprecated FM.GetSQLBatchMode and FM.SetSQLBatchMode.
• Rewrote FM.InsertRecordQuery and FM.InsertRecordQueryIgnoreDuplicates to use newer code base.
• Rewrote SQL.InsertRecords to use newer code base.
• Fixed a text encoding problem with copy & paste of XML from Script Workspace on Windows.
• Improved Files.USBSerialNumber function on Windows to report hard disk and SSD serial numbers, too.
• Added grouping to script search.
• Rewrote FM.InsertOrUpdateRecordQuery to use newer code base.
• Added FM.SQL.InsertOrUpdateRecords and Matrix.InsertOrUpdateRecords functions.
• Added a tool button for search window with a copy results command.
• Added XL.LoadBookInfo function.
• Fixed a bug where the search window could trigger a license dialog even if you have a license.
• Improved Files.RenameFile on Windows to try an alternative way if the rename failed.
• Added FM.SQL.InsertOrUpdateRecordsToSQL and Matrix.InsertOrUpdateRecordsToSQL functions.
• Patched CURL for the check reuse of sessions for verify status with Apple SecTrust.
• Improved functions taking path to report an error about an empty text passed as path instead continuing normally.
• Improved Printer.Print function to wait a bit if the combobox is not yet loaded on Windows.
• Improved search field in relationship graph to resize better on macOS.
• Updated Phidgets library headers to current version (28th January 2026).
• Added CurrentOutput and LEDArray as device for Phidget.Create function.
• Changed XL.Sheet.AddConditionalFormatting so you pass the first range with the function call.
• Improved formatting rules for calculations to better handle ${} in the formulas.
• Added ScriptWorkspace.SelectGroup function.
• Added Phidget.ClearLEDs, Phidget.SetAnimation, Phidget.SetLED, Phidget.SetLEDs, Phidget.StopAnimation and Phidget.SynchronizeAnimations functions.
• Added JSON.ToToon function.
• Updated Xcode to version 26.2.

New functions in documentation

Download Links: Download Mac dmg or Download Windows/Linux zip

Downloads at monkeybreadsoftware.com/filemaker/files/Prerelease/:

You can subscribe to our FileMaker mailing list to get notified for new pre-release and release versions.