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Here is a table documenting the release versions of our MBS FileMaker Plugin from the last years. You see how regular we release and what the build number the final version had. If you still use an older one like 11.1.0.7, you may notice you have the pre-release version. Pre-release versions usually are not ready for new/changed features and contain some more debug code to do runtime checks. We disable those for final builds.
The CURL project is a well run open source project and includes a command line tool (curl), a library for C/C++ application developers to use (libcurl) and various smaller utilities like trurl, a command line tool for URL parsing and manipulation. Since this is all publicly hosted on curls.se and github.com/curl, everyone can take a look there and contribute.
Everyone can download the current source code and build their own version of the command line tools, add the library to their product like we do for our plugins and modify them as needed. Yes, if you like, you could customize it and make your own version.
From time to time you may have made changes on your copies, which you would like to push back to the project. This could be:
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 what printing functions we have in MBS FileMaker Plugin: PrintDialog functions for macOS, Printer.SetPrinter and Printer.Print functions for Windows, PDFKit.Print, PDFKit.SelectPrinter and PDFKit.SetPrintSetting functions for iOS. You may print on iOS without print dialog to print a receipt in a POS software. And even on server you can print a PDF directly to a nearby printer in the same network with PDFKit.Print or DynaPDF.Print functions.
(more)New in this prerelease of version 14.2 of the MBS FileMaker Plugin:
You can subscribe to our FileMaker mailing list to get notified for new pre-release and release versions.
If you use FileMaker iOS SDK, we can provide a few new print commands for iOS in the MBS FileMaker Plugin in version 14.2. The new PDFKit.SelectPrinter function allows you to pick a printer. And the PDFKit.Print function got extended to print PDF documents as well as images. You can configure printing with PDFKit.SetPrintSetting function.
Let's start with selecting a printer:
If [ Length ( PDFKit Print::PrinterURL ) > 0 ]
Set Variable [ $r ; Value: MBS( "PDFKit.SetPrintSetting"; "PrinterURL"; PDFKit Print::PrinterURL ) ]
End If
# show the dialog
Set Variable [ $userDidSelect ; Value: MBS( "PDFKit.SelectPrinter" ) ]
If [ MBS("IsError") ]
Show Custom Dialog [ "Failed to show printer selecto…" ; $r ]
Else If [ $userDidSelect ]
# and check what we got
Set Variable [ $printerURL ; Value: MBS( "PDFKit.GetPrintSetting"; "PrinterURL" ) ]
End If
New in this prerelease of version 14.2 of the MBS FileMaker Plugin:
You can subscribe to our FileMaker mailing list to get notified for new pre-release and release versions.
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 what is new in version 14.1: New functions, Release Notes and Announcement. Check out the new Overlay functions!
(more)
We are glad to inform you that the new LibXL version 4.3.0 is available now.
What's new in the version 4.3.0:
New methods:
The LibXL library can be used with MBS Plugins in Xojo and FileMaker. Updated plugins will be available soon. As usual we add the new functions soon. If you need help or want to try the new version early, let me know.
At the Spanish developer conference an attendee asked me about whether we have something to show a nice colored progress bar in a portal, preferable possible for Web Direct, too.
After a bit of research, I found an easy way to do this with MBS FileMaker Plugin and without using web viewers and JavaScript. We simply use GraphicsMagick functions to generate a nice picture on demand and show it as a container field. This can either be a script to generate the picture on the fly using a trigger. Or it can be a calculated field to generate it when needed. In both cases you can trigger the recreation of the image by changing a field with the percent value.
First let us show you the sample script. It creates a 300x30 Pixel big image with white background. Then we take the color from a field and if the color is "auto", we calculate the color based on a formula based on the percent value. Once we got a color, we draw a 20 pixel wide line with round caps with the background color. That background color for the bar is dynamically calculated to be lighter than the actual bar color. After the background bar line we draw the normal color bar on top. And save it to the container field, so FileMaker shows it. Don't forget to free the image on the end and avoid the memory get filled with images.
For MBS FileMaker Plugin 14.2 we include new XL functions to create conditional formatting in an Excel file created in a script. While you can always load an existing document with conditional formatting or diagrams and just fill the cells with data, we now can create the rules for conditional formatting in a script. Let us show you four examples from our example file.
Highlighting cells that begin With the given Text
This example defines a conditional format with a bold font. The conditional formatting is applied for the cells in the range B3:B11 to highlight all cells that begin with 'a'. The XL.ConditionalFormating.AddRule function allows you to define rules with various conditions like to highlight empty cells, duplicate or unique values, values starting or ending with a value or by an expression.
Set Variable [ $cFormat ; Value: MBS("XL.Book.AddConditionalFormat"; $book) ]
#
# set font to be folder
Set Variable [ $font ; Value: MBS("XL.ConditionalFormat.Font"; $book; $cFormat) ]
Set Variable [ $r ; Value: MBS("XL.Font.SetBold"; $book; $font; 1) ]
#
Set Variable [ $cf ; Value: MBS("XL.Sheet.addConditionalFormatting"; $book; $sheet) ]
Set Variable [ $r ; Value: MBS("XL.ConditionalFormating.AddRange"; $book; $cf; 2; 10; 1; 1) ]
Set Variable [ $r ; Value: MBS("XL.ConditionalFormating.AddRule"; $book; $cf; 0 /* BeginWith */; $cFormat; "a") ]
Recently Daniel Stenberg, the main developer behind the CURL project, announced the curl://up conference for 2024:
curl up 2024 will take place in Stockholm, Sweden in early May.
📅 May 4-5, 2024
📍 Stockholm, Sweden 🇸🇪
🏨 Best Western Hotel
🎤 English
🌍 github.com/curl/curl-up/wiki/2024
Anyone interested in the CURL project is welcome to join the conference!
For details, please check the website.
Monkeybread Software is proud to be a sponsor for the curl project and we will join the conference.
Did you sign up for FileMaker Conference dotfmp.berlin 2024? Who
dotfmp is an effort of various leading European FileMaker Developers. It is meant to bring all kinds of higher level developers together to share knowledge, educate and challenge each other.
When
dotfmp starts at the 5th June 2024 in the later afternoon with a relaxed "Beer and Sausages" in one of the most famous Berlin Beergarden. The session days itself last from 6th until 8th June with various socializing events in the evenings.
What
dotfmp is a 3 Day-Unconference, Meetup, Hangout or Barcamp. It is an informal and self-organized effort to meet on a personal base.
Where
dotfmp takes place in one of the most famous spots in Berlin. The Schankhalle Pfefferberg is located in a vibrant area with a very short walking distance to all the famous restaurants.
Why
We feel there are far too few possibilities to talk to, learn from, and hangout with fellow developers in a relaxed and informal environment. And we'd like to share work and get feedback from people chewing on similar challenges.
You can do a lot of PDF things with the DynaPDF functions in MBS FileMaker Plugin. One of them is layouting text and images on a PDF page.
Let us show you the output of a new example we made for a client. On the left you see the final page and on the right side the same PDF but with visible boxes for the text output.
As you see on the test page, we got a couple of cool things here:
(more)A recording of my presentation for codewave.es. The Spanish FileMaker conference took place in Valencia from 22nd to 23rd March 2024 and was well received. I talked about what is new in 2024 for MBS Plugin for Claris FileMaker.
All movies Watch on YouTube. MBS-2024-Valencia.mp4 (578M)
(more)New in this prerelease of version 14.2 of the MBS FileMaker Plugin:
You can subscribe to our FileMaker mailing list to get notified for new pre-release and release versions.
Electronic invoices in Italia are nowadays sent as P7M files, digitally signed with a XML and PDF content. Checkout the details about FatturaPA format if you are interested. For storing XML in a PDF or extracting it, please check our DynaPDF functions. Since you may need to receive and decode such P7M invoices, even if you are not in Italy yourself, we have some sample code to handle this below:
First thing is to use PKCS7.ReadFromContainer or PKCS7.ReadFromFile to read in the P7M file and get the reference number. If that works, we can query the main content block of the P7M file with the PKCS7.SignedDataContent function. That block is the XML embedded in the P7M file.
(more)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 a lot about WebView functions.
(more)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 a lot about error handling in MBS FileMaker Plugin. Please check the IsError function to check if last function reported an error. Then check ClearErrors, HadErrors or ErrorLog functions.
(more)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 a lot about our DynaPDF functions and a few other details.
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