New in this prerelease of the 2.7 plugins:
- Added Files.FileSize function.
- Fixed crash on Windows with CURL options using lists.
- Added more parameter for Mac to Webview.LoadURL function.
- Changed CURL.SetUpdateProgressDialog to now also work for uploads.
Download at
monkeybreadsoftware.de/filemaker/files/Prerelease/
One of my users asked what the difference between the plugin
CURL functions and the new insert from URL Script step is. Well, basically the
insert URL script step can do a specific thing which is getting data from an URL and putting it into a media field. If you just need this, you are fine, but if you need a little different feature, you should check our plugin. Like if you need some proxy settings or pass a cookie or some advanced credentials. Also if you use SSL, you should try the plugin as it can verify the peer using a certificate. Encrypting the data without making sure there is no attacker listening doesn't make much sense. Finally you may want to show progress while download and allow the user to cancel?
Our feature comparison:
|
Feature
|
Insert URL Script Step
|
MBS Filemaker Plugin
|
|
FTP and FTPS Protocols
|
Download
|
Download & Upload
|
|
HTTP and HTTP Protocols
|
Download
|
Download & Upload
|
|
File Protocol
|
Download
|
Download & Upload
|
|
Verify Certificate and Host for SSL connections
|
no
|
yes
|
|
Proxy Settings
|
no
|
yes
|
|
SFTP Protocol (File Transfer over SSH)
|
no
|
yes
|
|
FTP Directory Listings
|
yes
|
yes
|
|
Delete File
|
no
|
yes
|
|
Background transfers
|
no
|
yes
|
|
Cookie support
|
no
|
yes
|
|
Authentication (username/password for FTP/HTTP)
|
only within URL
|
yes
|
|
Reuse same connection
|
no
|
yes
|
|
Read/Write Data to file/variable
|
no
|
yes
|
|
Fill and send forms
|
no
|
yes
|
|
Use custom timeouts
|
no
|
yes
|
|
Follow redirects
|
no
|
yes
|
|
Speed limit / statistics
|
no
|
yes
|
|
Show progress and cancel download
|
no
|
yes
|
In our tests a ftp download using login/password worked with the insert URL script. Even ftp directory listings seem to work. Of course for advanced operations like renaming your file after upload or deleting a file, you need the plugin. Also if you want to follow redirects or you need to send special headers including cookie string.
Please don't hesitate to comment or inform us about things we forgot.
New in this prerelease of the 2.7 plugins:
- Improved hidden scrollbars on Mac for Filemaker 12 so they stay hidden even with resizing window.
- Added Window.ScrollbarsVisible function.
- Changed CURL debug output to no longer contain SSL raw data of transfer.
Download at
monkeybreadsoftware.de/filemaker/files/Prerelease/
We started a new
reviews page:
Review from John DeMillion
Christian,
Based on our experiences so far, your MBS plugin for FileMaker is head and shoulders above the other web/URL plugins we've used. We've found the other web plugins extremely time-consuming to use, and they seem to fail on complex sites with lots of cookies and sessions and such to track, even when we took the time to carefully reverse-engineer everything that the site was trying to do. In our current project, while we previously had things working well with another plugin, the website suddenly changed to a more complex model and we tried for many hours to get it working again, without success.
But with the MBS plugin's "WebView" components, we got our solution up and running again in less than a day. The MBS WebView model is absolutely brilliant: let FileMaker's WebViewer object do the heavy background lifting with cookies and sessions, etc, and just concentrate on controlling the WebViewer with the input that a user would normally give to a browser. The result was that it took us significantly less time to code this solution than with the previous plugins that we've used, and the resulting scripts are far more straightforward.
Thank you for the MBS FileMaker plugin and also for your super-quick work on the custom function that we needed; if not for MBS, we'd still be beating our heads on a brick wall trying to get our solution working.
John DeMillion Chester County Intermediate Unit United States
Review from Steve Thomas
the web viewer in filemaker has a great deal of power. Unfortunately, it was not given a voice of its own when the folks at filemaker built and brought it to life. The conversational one sidedness can make things a bit lonely. It turns out that there is a voice in the webviewer. in fact, there's a LOUD voice. Monkeybread's mbs plug in for filemaker is all that is needed to turn it on. Just be warned...uv been throwing rocks into a giant pool of calm water for some time. That calm water may just start throwing rocks at you. TheShortVersion: once u go from being limited to the oneway pushing of filemaker data > webviewer and living with mere "data display", to real 2way communication the likes of what can be accomplished when u can fire scripting from elements inside the web viewer, ur solutions will transform.
- steve thomas
Review from Simon Gerads
The MBS FileMaker Plug-in is a must have for all FileMaker developers. It is a Plug-in with many different solutions and each one of them works great. The power of all functions is amazing and the support is by far the best I have ever had. A question is answered in less the 24 hours and if thats not good enough. A sample is created by Christian to demonstrated the function.
I use the MBS FileMaker Plug-In almost everyday and the great thing is - it just works.
Keep up the great work and all the good ideas. Thanks a lot for your amazing Plug-In is by far the best.
- Simon Gerads
New in this prerelease of the 2.7 plugins:
- Added Window.GetAlpha.
- Fixed bug from pr4 with Javascript callback.
Download at
monkeybreadsoftware.de/filemaker/files/Prerelease/
New in this prerelease of the 2.7 plugins:
- Added Encryption.DecryptBlowfish and Encryption.EncryptBlowfish.
- Added Encryption.DecryptAES and Encryption.EncryptAES.
- Fixed Window.HideScrollbar function for Filemaker 12 on Mac and Windows.
- Added Hash.MD5 and Hash.SHA512 functions to get hashes of UTF-8 text.
Download at
monkeybreadsoftware.de/filemaker/files/Prerelease/
New in this prerelease of the 2.7 plugins:
- Added WebPolicyDelegate functions to decide which files should be downloaded.
- Added WebDownloadDelegate functions so you can get downloads from WebViewer on Mac.
Download at
monkeybreadsoftware.de/filemaker/files/Prerelease/
This morning Filemaker 12 was released. A little surprise. Didn't expect it by now. But well, the plugin seems to work fine. This new version adds better Drag & Drop on Mac, so you won't need our plugin for accepting file drops on a media field. But still you can use our plugins if you want to accept drops with emails, text, url or image data. All the things that are not files.
On the server, they move to 64 bit and we'll have to rework the plugin to support that new 64 bit mode. I'll have to wait for details on this from Filemaker.
So far our WebViewer, Dialog, CURL, GraphicsMagick and other plugin functions seem to work just fine. I tested more than 50 examples so far.
What doesn't work, seems to be the function to hide scrollbars on a Filemaker window. But maybe with new functions of formatting windows, this is no longer needed?
If you see a problem with current plugins, please email us. We'll test more and probably make the 2.7 plugin release with all changes for Filemaker 12 ready in the next weeks.
New in this prerelease of the 2.7 plugins:
- Added FileDialog functions.
- Added Preferences.SetValue and Preferences.SetValue functions.
- Added Files.DirectoryExists, Files.FileExists and Files.ItemExists functions.
- Added PDFKit.Watermark function.
- Fixed GraphicsMagick functions to no longer crash if you call them with Destroyed image reference.
- Improved Drag and Drop. You can now specify email and receive email drags from Apple Mail.
- Added CoreLocation functions to query location of a Mac.
- Implemented Path.NativePathToFilemakerPath and Path.FilemakerPathToNativePath for Windows.
Download at
monkeybreadsoftware.de/filemaker/files/Prerelease/
in
Koblenz / Germany: 5th April 2012 in
Weinhaus Hubertus
in
Bern / Swiss: 12th April 2012 in
Beaulieu. see also
website
See you there!