In this article we want to introduce you the new functions from the MBS FileMaker Plugin in version 16.0.
Search in scripts for Windows and Mac
First, I will introduce a change that will probably make Windows users' hearts beat faster, but the new feature is also an enhancement for Mac users. We have added a new search button that allows you to search through the scripts. Mac already had the option of entering a term in the search field, which would then search the individual scripts and allow you to click through them. Now there is a search function for Mac and Windows that searches all scripts at once and displays the results in a list. This allows you to check, for example, whether you have renamed all global variables when renaming one.
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Nickenich, Germany - (January 13th, 2026) -- Monkeybread Software today is pleased to announce MBS FileMaker Plugin 16.0 for Claris FileMaker for macOS, iOS, Linux and Windows, the latest update to their product that is easily the most powerful plugin currently available for Claris FileMaker produce line. As the leading database management solution for Windows, macOS, iOS and the web, the Claris FileMaker Pro Integrated Development Environment supports a plugin architecture that can easily extend the feature set of the application. MBS FileMaker Plugin 16.0 has been updated and now includes over 7800 different functions, and the versatile plugin has gained more new functions:
Our plugin adds a Search button to the Script Workspace on both macOS and Windows. When clicked, it scans all scripts and opens a search window where you can enter keywords. The results show every location where the text is found. You can enable or disable this button using the SyntaxColoring.ScriptSearchButton.SetEnabled function.
On macOS and iOS, we leverage Apple’s Translation framework to perform fully local, on-device translations. Users simply download the required languages in System Settings. Our Translation functions can then start a session with a selected language pair and perform translations directly within your solution.
Our XL functions now support an additional parameter for passing a password when opening encrypted Excel files. LibXL 5.0.1 supports multiple hashing and encryption algorithms.
The new Hash.CRC16 function provides support for various 16-bit checksum formats. Hotkeys can now be restricted to FileMaker windows only. For JSON output, you can customize which characters are used for pretty formatting.
The Files.GetNodeID function is now available on all platforms and allows you to query a file’s node ID. Markdown text can be syntax-highlighted using the MarkDown.Colorize function. You can also generate multiple linked barcodes using the StructuredAppend parameter and export them as images.
We improved the field picker shortcut and the format button to support HTML in addition to XML and JSON. The web viewer used by the Overlay.AddWebViewer function now supports fmp: URLs. CURL debugging can display SFTP command paths and now uses Apple’s SecTrust framework for certificate verification, replacing the previous UseSystemCertificates option.
Finally we updated the CURL library to version 8.18.0, DynaPDF to 4.0.102.302, GraphicsMagick to 1.3.46, lcms2 to 2.18, mongo-c-driver to 2.2.0, SQLAPI to 5.4.1, LibXL to 5.0.1 and Xcode to version 26.1.1.
See release notes for a complete list of changes. Download here
13. Januar 2026 - Monkeybread Software veröffentlicht heute das MBS FileMaker Plugin für Claris FileMaker in Version 16.0, mit inzwischen über 7800 Funktionen eines der größten FileMaker Plugins überhaupt. Hier einige der Neuerungen:
Unser Plugin fügt im Skriptarbeitsbereich unter macOS und Windows eine Such-Schaltfläche hinzu. Beim Anklicken werden alle Skripte eingelesen und ein Suchfenster geöffnet, in dem Sie Suchbegriffe eingeben können. Die Ergebnisse zeigen alle Fundstellen im Skript. Die Schaltfläche kann mit der Funktion SyntaxColoring.ScriptSearchButton.SetEnabled ein- oder ausgeschaltet werden.
Unter macOS und iOS nutzen wir das Translation-Framework von Apple, um vollständig lokale Übersetzungen direkt auf dem Gerät durchzuführen. Der Benutzer muss die gewünschten Sprachen in den Systemeinstellungen herunterladen. Anschließend können unsere Übersetzungsfunktionen eine Sitzung mit einem Sprachpaar starten und Übersetzungen direkt innerhalb Ihrer Lösung durchführen.
Unsere XL-Funktionen unterstützen nun zusätzliche Parameter zur Übergabe eines Passworts beim Öffnen verschlüsselter Excel-Dateien. LibXL 5.0.1 unterstützt mehrere Hash- und Verschlüsselungsalgorithmen.
Die neue Funktion Hash.CRC16 unterstützt verschiedene 16-Bit-Prüfsummen. Hotkeys können jetzt auf FileMaker-Fenster beschränkt werden. Für JSON-Ausgaben lässt sich festlegen, welche Zeichen für eine ansprechende Formatierung verwendet werden.
Die Funktion Files.GetNodeID steht nun auf allen Plattformen zur Verfügung und ermöglicht das Abfragen der Node-ID einer Datei. Markdown kann mit der Funktion MarkDown.Colorize farblich hervorgehoben werden. Zudem lassen sich mehrere verknüpfte Barcodes mithilfe des Parameters StructuredAppend erzeugen und als Bilder ausgeben.
Wir haben das Feld-Auswahlkürzel sowie die Format-Schaltfläche verbessert, sodass nun auch HTML neben XML und JSON unterstützt wird. Der von der Funktion Overlay.AddWebViewer verwendete Webviewer unterstützt jetzt fmp:-URLs. CURL kann im Debug-Logging die Pfade von SFTP-Befehlen anzeigen und verwendet nun Apples SecTrust zur Zertifikatsprüfung. Dies ersetzt die bisherige Option UseSystemCertificates.
Schließlich haben wir die CURL-Bibliothek auf Version 8.18.0, DynaPDF auf 4.0.102.302, GraphicsMagick auf 1.3.46, lcms2 auf 2.18, mongo-c-driver auf 2.2.0, SQLAPI auf 5.4.1, LibXL auf 5.0.1 und Xcode auf Version 26.1.1 aktualisiert.
Alle Änderungen in den Release Notes.Download hier
Recently LibXL 5.0 was released and we include this update in our upcoming MBS Plugins 16.0 for FileMaker and 26.0 for Xojo.
Version 5.0.1 (2025-12-22)
- added the support of one more encryption algorithm
(LibXL supports ECMA-376 standard and agile encryptions with SHA-1 and SHA-512 hashing algorithms)
- added password verifications with the error message "incorrect password"
- added the Book::loadInfoRaw() for loading only information about sheets from the workbook in memory buffer
- fixed an issue with decrypting password protected xlsx files on Linux and Mac
Version 5.0.0 (2025-12-05)
- added the support of password protected xlsx files (only loading)
- fixed a performance issue with reading cells from some large non-typical xlsx files that don't use "r" attributes in rows
- fixed issues with reading and writing code units above U+FFFF
- fixed an issue with Valgrind warning "Invalid read of size 1"
- fixed an issue with copying sheets with space characters in the name (xlsx)
- fixed issues with using LET, LAMBDA, BYROW and BYCOL functions (xlsx)
- fixed issues with reading some dates
New methods:
The new password feature was often requested and we add the matching password parameters to our Load functions, so you can pass it to the plugin.
LibXL is a powerful library to create, read, edit and write Excel documents in older and newer Excel file formats and without the need to install Microsoft Excel. It allows the developer to automate a lot of tasks related to Excel spreadsheets within your solution or application.
Learn more on our LibXL for FileMaker and LibXL for Xojo pages.
New in this prerelease of version 16.0 of the
MBS FileMaker Plugin:
- Updated CURL library to version 8.18.0.
- Improved script search for Windows when XML data was too big on Windows.
- Fixed script search to work for 175% scaling on Windows.
- Improved script search to expand a group to find a script (one level) on macOS.
- Improved syntax coloring to be a bit more resilient against you closing the window while an asynchronous operation still runs.
- Fixed a possible crash with option clicking in script workspace.
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.
Since macOS 26 (and iOS 26) you can use the Translate framework to perform on-device translation services. You can use this with the upcoming MBS FileMaker Plugin 16.0, currently in beta test. We also back ported it to macOS 15 and iOS 18 for most of the functionality.
Available?
First you may check whether the translation services are available. This basically checks only for whether you have macOS or iOS.
If [
MBS( "
Translation.Available" ) = 1 ]
Show Custom Dialog [ "Translation is available" ]
Else
Show Custom Dialog [ "Translation is not available" ]
End If
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There is a new feature in development for MBS Plugin and you can see it 16.0pr6 (see announcement here). We add the possibility to search in all scripts in the script workspace and find things.
For this we add a new search button (magnifier glass) to the toolbar on macOS on the right:
As well as on Windows with a regular button:
We even got a fancy tooltip to explain the button.
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New in this prerelease of version 16.0 of the
MBS FileMaker Plugin:
- Improved script search with a new look.
- Improved script search to read all scripts and not miss a few.
- Improved performance for script search.
- Improved opening scripts on macOS to scroll script list.
- Fixed a crash with XML conversion for clipboard in older FileMaker Pro.
- Fixed an incompatibility in Swift, which prevented the plugin from loading in older FileMaker versions.
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.
For the old year, we can check our statistics on the FileMaker Servers. The share of Linux continues to raise. In August 2023 Linux overtook Windows, then in July 2024 the Linux share crossed to over 50%. Now we are at about 80%.
If we continue with that adoption, I'd expect Linux to be at 90% end of 2026 and Claris can retired the MacOS and Windows servers in the next years. You all vote withy your wallet, so no complains please. Of course this assumes that Claris sees similar statistics.
Here is a graphics for the OS share:
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We have been using GraphicsMagick functions for years to draw some text, but we can do the same in DynaPDF. We draw text in a new PDF document and then render it as image without ever saving the PDF document. We can even use transparency and render the PDF with alpha channel and save as PNG image.
Our first example places some text on the PDF page using the DynaPDF.WriteStyledTextEx function. This function can take text with styles from a field in FileMaker (or variable) and draw it into the PDF. The styles are converted for DyynaPDF's format commands. The text is wrapped to the desired width of 300 points and we use justify for alignment.
After the text is drawn, we use DynaPDF.GetLastTextPosY to query how big the text block is. Passing -1 as height for the text box allows us to have a variable height. This provides you the information on where to place another text or where to draw additional text. In our example we use the text position and the page height to calculate a new media box. This limits the visible part of the page to only the size of our text box.
Then we close the page and render the 1st page of the PDF document as an image. We pass the page number and the request resolution with 150 dpi. The default format is a RGB image stored as JPEG. In the script you can decide whether you like to save as PDF or render the image.
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Over the last years we had various instructions to install MBS Plugin on a FileMaker Server. Today we have a new way: an installation script wininstall.ps1 (and wininstall.bat).
This script downloads the MBS Plugin and install it. We put a lot of effort into making this secure and verify that the plugin is correct one. Especially we try to
- avoid installing the Windows plugin on Linux/macOS by accident,
- avoid installing the wrong plugin if we mixed them up server side,
- avoid installing a half downloaded plugin or an error page.
This script is to help Windows administrators and we may improve it based on your feedback.
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New in this prerelease of version 16.0 of the
MBS FileMaker Plugin:
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.
Over the last years we had various instructions to install MBS Plugin on a FileMaker Server. Today we have a new way: an installation script macinstall.sh.
This script downloads the MBS Plugin and install it. We put a lot of effort into making this secure and verify that the plugin is correct one. Especially we try to
- avoid installing the macOS plugin on Linux/Windows by accident,
- avoid installing the wrong plugin if we mixed them up server side,
- avoid installing a half downloaded plugin or an error page.
This script is to help macOS Server administrators and we may improve it based on your feedback.
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Over the last years we had various instructions to install MBS Plugin on a FileMaker Server. Today we have a new way: an installation script linuxinstall.sh.
This script downloads the MBS Plugin and install it. We put a lot of effort into making this secure and verify that the plugin is correct one. Especially we try to
- avoid installing the Linux plugin on macOS/Windows by accident,
- avoid installing the wrong plugin if we mixed them up server side,
- avoid installing a half downloaded plugin or an error page.
This script is to help Linux administrators and we may improve it based on your feedback.
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The year 2025 will end in around three days. Do you need some more licenses?
- You can order licenses for 2026 or later and have delivery plus payment done in 2025.
- And of course you can order updates for several years in advance for all your MBS products.
- As all Xojo plugin, LibXL and DynaPDF licenses are per developer, you should check if you got a new developer in your team this year and adjust licenses to match team size.
- For FileMaker please check if you have enough license for the number of seats or servers you have in use.
Especially if you run on a budget and you want to spend some money in 2025, you can buy updates for several years in advance.
Frohe Weihnachten und ein gutes neues Jahr!
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year
Joyeux Noël et Bonne Année
Buon Natale e Felice Anno Nuovo
Franziska, Sebastian, Michael, Monika & Christian Schmitz
Welcome to the last door of the Advent calendar. Today, we would like to take a look at a function in MBS that is particularly popular with users: FM.InsertOrUpdateRecord. This function means that we don't always have to decide whether a data record needs to be inserted if it doesn't already exist, or whether it already exists and just needs to be updated. The function makes this decision for you. It checks whether the entry already exists in the database. If so, it updates the data record; otherwise, it creates a new data record.
This is what the structure of the function looks like:
MBS( "FM.InsertOrUpdateRecord"; FileName; TableName; IDField; IDValue; FieldName...; FieldValue... )
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Welcome to door 23. We have already seen that we can turn an SQL result into JSON, XML, a matrix, CSV, or text. Now I would like to introduce you to another data structure: dictionaries.
These dictionaries are key-value pairs. Instead of addressing values via positions or sequences, you access the desired data directly via a meaningful key. This allows related information to be stored in a clear and structured manner. In addition, dictionaries are very fast at querying data, making them ideal for intermediate results.
Today, we want to look at how we can fill such a dictionary with data using SQL. To do this, we have the functions Dictionary.AddSQLRecord and Dictionary.AddSQLRecords. Both functions are very similar in structure. First, both are passed the references to the dictionary. This is followed by a list of the names for the individual keys to be entered into the dictionary. This is followed by the SQL query we use to select the data for our dictionary. Next, we specify the file on which this SQL query is to be executed. If necessary, you can also pass any number of parameters to the function. We do not need these in our example. If both functions have the same parameter input and a similar description, what is the difference between the two? The Dictionary.AddSQLRecord function takes only the first entry from the SQL result set and stores it in the dictionary. Dictionary.AddSQLRecords, on the other hand, takes all records from the SQL result and enters the data into the dictionary.
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Welcome to door 22. Today's door will be another short one, but no less importantly. Because today I would like to talk to you about the FM.TableStatistics function. This function provides you with table statistics for your tables.
In this function, we first specify the file name and then the table name. Our call then looks like this:
Set Variable [ $Statistics ; Value: MBS( "FM.TableStatistics"; Get(FileName); "Movie" ) ]
Show Custom Dialog [ "Table statistics from the tabl…" ; $Statistics ]
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