{"id":8512,"date":"2015-02-04T05:10:05","date_gmt":"2015-02-04T13:10:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.seedcode.com\/?p=8512"},"modified":"2015-02-04T05:10:05","modified_gmt":"2015-02-04T13:10:05","slug":"filemaker-javascript-custom-web-publishing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seedcode.com\/filemaker-javascript-custom-web-publishing\/","title":{"rendered":"A JavaScript Approach to FileMaker Custom Web Publishing"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the\u00a0beginning of a new, open source project to create a lightweight wrapper for FileMaker Custom Web Publishing designed for use in JavaScript applications.<\/p>\n

Background: DayBack<\/h2>\n
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\"PageLines-<\/a>
DayBack running in a FileMaker layout.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The release of DayBack for FileMaker<\/a>\u00a0last month has started a very exciting time for us here at SeedCode! Bringing the Calendar to a new code base and seeing it successfully deployed in the real world has been nothing short of thrilling. We’ve recently added mobile support<\/a> and are looking forward to the future enhancements of DayBack for Pro and Go.<\/p>\n

However, now that we have this great JavaScript code base, it’s time to get going on DayBack<\/a> for the browser, and starting with FileMaker Server as our first data source is the logical next step.<\/p>\n

Assumptions<\/h2>\n

One of the goals for DayBack is to do as much of the data work as we can in JavaScript. This is based on two big assumptions, and seeing how these bare\u00a0out will be an interesting part of this project:<\/p>\n

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  1. FileMaker Server is a powerful tool, and it can do a lot.\u00a0However, this ability to multi-task tends to lead to deployments where it’s simply trying to do too much.\u00a0On the web publishing\u00a0side\u00a0things like\u00a0portals on target layouts, server side scripting, huge data sets, etc. often\u00a0put a considerable load on the server. Can we architect DayBack to do this kind of work in the browser and therefore put a lighter load on our\u00a0FileMaker Server?<\/li>\n
  2. Supporting server side\u00a0processes requires a different level and type of support than client side ones. \u00a0This is not just the case for FileMaker Server, but any server based application. \u00a0Supporting the server often requires working on a specific machine with specific issues that extend well beyond your app, web servers, permissions, program versions, etc. can all affect how things run. \u00a0By minimizing our server side footprint we hope to minimize the need for this kind of support.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    fmxj.js<\/h2>\n

    With these assumption in mind we’ve built a preliminary<\/em> JavaScript library for building and posting queries to FileMaker Server and converting the results to JavaScript objects in a JSON format. \u00a0We have some working demos here<\/a>. \u00a0We’ve also decided to make this part of the project open source<\/strong> (MIT License), so you can download (or fork) the library and demos from GitHub<\/a>\u00a0for free!<\/p>\n

    \"fmxj.js<\/a>
    fmxj.js – working examples<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    Here is what fmxj lets you accomplish:<\/p>\n

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