MBS @ FMTraining.TV - Shell Asynchronously with the FileMaker MBS Plug-in

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 our Shell functions and how to run command line tools asynchronously in the background.

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MBS Plugin documentation now available as Markdown files

We are happy to announce that the MBS FileMaker Plugin documentation is now available as Markdown (.md) files.

Markdown is a simple, portable format that works well with many tools, editors, documentation systems, and AI workflows. If you want to read, process, search, or automate with our documentation, you can now access the Markdown version directly.

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MBS FileMaker Plugin, version 16.3pr4

New in this prerelease of version 16.3 of the MBS FileMaker Plugin:

• Improved display of calculation time.
• Tuned the script search.
• Updated CURL library to version 8.21.0.
• Deprecated CURL.SetOptionStreamDepends and CURL.SetOptionStreamDependsE functions.
• Updated libarchive to version 3.8.8.
• Improved script search. You can skip disabled script steps.
• Updated expat to version 2.8.2.
• Added ScriptWorkspace.Steps function.
• Improved GMImage.WriteToWebPContainer to write WEBP containers instead of FILE containers on FileMaker 26.

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.

FileMaker Script Steps over time

We compared availability of script steps in FileMaker to see what changes from version to version.

We loaded all the script steps in a little database for version 19.0.1, 20.1.2, 21.0.1, 22.0.6 and 26.0.1 and run a few queries on the data.

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Last Chance for Early Bird Pricing at EngageU 2026

The countdown is on! Early Bird registration for EngageU 2026 ends on June 30, giving FileMaker developers one final chance to secure their spot at a reduced rate.

Taking place September 30 – October 2, 2026, in Malmö, Sweden, EngageU brings together business leaders, developers, consultants, and technology enthusiasts from across Europe and around the world for three days of learning, networking, and inspiration.

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Xcode 27

We got a sneak peek on Xcode 27. It brings the SDK for Apple's new operation systems. We can still build our plugins with Xcode 26 and still add new features for the new operation system without using Xcode 27.

We will try the new Xcode version in the next months. But we probably won't move to the new OS before spring 2027. Somewhere in April the new macOS version 27.3 or 27.4 will ship and have most of the smaller bugs fixed.

Same for Xcode. To build the plugins with Xcode, we want to have a .1 or .2 bugfix update for Xcode itself.

Beside a lot of nice new things, Xcode 27 raises the minimum supported deployment target on macOS to macOS 11. The intel target gets deprecated. Xcode 27 comes as an Apple Silicon only application. It can still build Intel code, but by default only builds for Apple Silicon.

There is the expectation, that Xcode 28 may stop building for Intel CPU. Which may mean that we stop supporting Intel Macs at that time. If you still have one in production, consider moving off to newer hardware soon.

See Xcode 27 release notes.

Secure Password Storage with Keychain Functions in MBS FileMaker Plugin 16.3

The upcoming version 16.3 of the MBS FileMaker Plugin introduces a powerful set of Keychain functions for storing and managing passwords on macOS and iOS. These functions allow FileMaker solutions to securely store credentials in the system Keychain without relying on external storage or insecure plaintext fields.

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MBS FileMaker Plugin, version 16.3pr3

New in this prerelease of version 16.3 of the MBS FileMaker Plugin:

• Improved Command-Option-T shortcut for the calculation editor to insert the current selected table occurrence in the popup menu into the text and cut away the field name.
• Added a display of the time needed for the execution of a calculation. Shows time needed in milliseconds or microseconds.
• Improved the DPI awareness on Windows for various window functions.
• Fixed an issue with Window.PositionNextDialog not resizing the window properly.
• Updated FM.InsertRecord to delay getting the field types until we have a field type mismatch.
• When loading schema with Audit functions, we log in trace log how long the SQL requests took.
• Added Window.Screen function.
• Improved WebView.Close to close the WebView window.
• Improved WebView window to be closable with window.close in JavaScript..
• Updated the script search. Added compact view, details toggles, exclusion, RegEx help and more.
• Added List.ColumnMatchesPostfix, List.ColumnMatchesPrefix and List.ColumnMatchesSubString functions.
• Updated DynaPDF to version 5.0.3.12.
• Added ConvGrayToSauvola to the compression filter flags for DynaPDF.Optimize function.
• Added DeleteWatermarks, DeleteWatermarkAnnots and UseSauvolaFilter for DynaPDF.Optimize function.

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.

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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Improve FileMaker Script & Calculation Readability with Custom Fonts Using MBS FileMaker Plugin

One of the small but surprisingly impactful usability improvements for FileMaker developers is choosing a better font for scripts and calculations. While FileMaker's default editor font works reasonably well, it can sometimes make it difficult to distinguish between similar-looking characters.

Have you ever spent several minutes hunting down a bug only to discover that a lowercase l was used instead of the number 1? Or perhaps a capital O was mistaken for the number 0? These subtle visual ambiguities can lead to frustrating debugging sessions and wasted development time.

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MongoDB GridFS in the MBS FileMaker Plugin

Complete developer guide to storing, querying, and managing files in MongoDB GridFS

Introduction

GridFS is MongoDB’s mechanism for storing large files by splitting them into chunks and storing them across two collections. The MBS FileMaker Plugin exposes a complete API for working with GridFS directly from FileMaker scripts.

This allows developers to treat MongoDB as a scalable file storage backend for images, documents, and binary data.

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MBS FileMaker Plugin, version 16.3pr2

New in this prerelease of version 16.3 of the MBS FileMaker Plugin:

• Added GuidedAccessState, RevertTransactionOnErrorState and WindowUUID for the get() functions help links.
• Added SerialPort.Setup function.
• Added SystemInfo.isGoldenGate function.
• Enhanced the Command-Option-T shortcut for calculation editor: If you have no selection, we insert current table occurence name. If you selected text, we select the matching table occurence in the popup menu.
• Fixed a bug in Math.FormatNumber function, introduced in pr1.
• Fixed a bug in ProcessActivity.beginActivity function not passing display sleep correctly.
• Improved PDFKit.Combine to copy metadata values from first document to the new document.
• Improved performance of Hash.RandomHexString function.
• Updated jsoncons to version 1.8.1.
• Updated mongo-c-driver to version 2.3.1.
• Updated openssl to version 3.5.7.
• Warning: The minimum macOS version is currently 10.15, but will change to 11.0 or 12.0 end of 2026.

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.

Playing with Persistent Data in FileMaker 26

Today we try the new Persistent Data functions in FileMaker 26. A way to have per file global and persistent values. Use cases involve:

• Storing XML, JSON, JavaScript, HTML or any other large data block in the structure.
• Storing template PDF or images for logos
• Storing preferences in the file like window position. Then use Get(AccountName) or user id as instance ID.
• Storing data instead of a global variable.

This is not meant to store secure data like oauth keys. Everyone could potentially read the values and they are included in migration and with Save as XML!

Since every write causes a write to a file, it is a bit slower than a global variable. And this doesn't take part in transactions, so you may not want to write this together with multiple values to make sure they are either all written or none. This looks more like write once (or rarely) and read a lot.

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LibXL 5.2 released

Recently LibXL 5.2 was released and we include this update in our upcoming MBS FileMaker Plugin for FileMaker.

Version 5.2.0 (2026-05-15)

• fixed the vulnerability CVE-2026-22184, updated zlib to the version 1.3.2
• added possibility to read data validations from xlsx files
• added possibility to remove filters from tables (xlsx)
• added the support for xlsx files in the Book::loadWithoutEmptyCells()
• fixed a bug with reading strings with incorrect character encoding in the XL.Sheet.CellReadText on Linux/MacOSX (xls)
• fixed an issue with loading some xls files with message "read error: record id can't be 0"
• fixed an issue with corrupting output files in the XL.Sheet.AutoFilter.SetSort function (xlsx)
• fixed the unhandled exception in the XL.Format.GetBorderLeftColor function (xlsx)

• XL.Sheet.DataValidation
• XL.Sheet.DataValidationSize
• XL.Sheet.IsAutoFilter
• XL.Sheet.RemoveFilter

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Installing Multiple Versions of FileMaker Pro on Windows

If you work with different FileMaker solutions, testing environments, or customer deployments, there may be situations where you need multiple versions of FileMaker Pro installed on the same Windows machine.

Unfortunately, the FileMaker Pro installer is designed to prevent this. When it detects an existing installation, it typically refuses to install another version alongside it.

Fortunately, there is a workaround.

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FileMaker 2026 released

Claris released version 26 of the FileMaker product family. As you may have noticed, the version number is finally synchronized to the current year. There are a lot of new features in this release:

• This release brings a lot of new AI integration. You can install a standalone Claris AI Server to handle the workload of AI queries. It is highly recommended to buy a separate machine with lots of RAM and a good GPU to speed up the queries. Mac Studios with M5 Max/Ultra may come handy soon.
  Related to this are new comments for fields to help the AI know what a field is about. In FileMaker Pro you can use the Insert Image Caption script step to use an image model on the AI server to get image captions.
• Claris offers a built-in backup feature. Great to keep the hassle low and it allows the Claris Partner to sell it to their clients. The data is uploaded to cloud storage, preferable in a different region. Of course you must still run your own scripts to upload the nightly backups and all the hourly increments to your own backup server.
• Related to the backup is the standby server. A feature we had in FileMaker 14, but now with a different implementation. It is built on top of the incremental backups Changes are regularly transferred in batches to the standby server via SSH. Your clients can opt-in to this, get a second server and have it wait for a switch over in case of a disaster. But please have the standby server in a different location and on a different Internet provider.
• The installer for FileMaker Server can install just the tools. Great if you like to have the tools on your machine. Once you have the FMUpgradeTool, you may notice that it has a new trick: it can create a new database from an XML representation. Related to this are upgrades to the Save as XML script step and enhancements in the options so you can choose what to export.
• The OData interface got upgrades to better handle metadata. Since OData is the preferred way for AI to talk to FileMaker Server, this helps a lot with various integrations. Please note that Claris like to see you move to OData in favor of ODBC and Data API on the long term.
• There is an updated inspector for layouts. The layout is in context related and only shows features available for the currently selected items. This makes relevant options easier to find and cleans up the old interface. But since not everyone likes changes, you may be able to turn it off in the preferences soon. And this is macOS only as the Windows side is still in development.

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MBS @ FMTraining.TV - FileMaker MonkeyBread Plug-in 16.2 Release

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 new version 16.2 of MBS Plugin. Check out the announcement, the release notes and the new functions.

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The contacts for a license

For our clients with plugin licenses for Monkeybread Software, we have a database with licenses and their email contacts.

Each license has multiple emails:

• a primary email for renewal reminders and newsletters about new versions.
• more emails as CC of licenses.
  e.g. the administrator or developer to install the license.
• older alternative emails that are marked as old.
• sometimes an extra email just for invoices.

If you contact us with one of the emails and we search the database, we find your record.

When you buy a license for a client, we can put your email as developer in our database, so all communication goes through you. We would still like to know the name of the client and use it for the license keys.

Since you may disappear and clients still may need to renew, we appreciate having the client's email in the database as an alternative one. Then we can ask them directly if they like to renew. Since we do this for 20 years, we have seen multiple developers retire already.

When you order a license for a client in the web shop, you put in the billing address. That may be either the client itself if they pay themselves or your company if you buy it for the client and bill them later. When you use your address, consider adding somewhere a few letters for indicating which customer an order applies to. Or better email us the details for the client separately. If you order an update for one of your clients, we may apply it automatically to the one where we sent the last renewal reminder.

If you already have a couple of clients with MBS Plugin licenses, you can contact us if we should change the primary email for their licenses.

MBS FileMaker Plugin, version 16.3pr1

New in this prerelease of version 16.3 of the MBS FileMaker Plugin:

• Added CNContactPicker.CurrentProperties function.
• Added CNContactPicker.GetDisplayedKeys and CNContactPicker.SetDisplayedKeys functions.
• Added Command-Option-T shortcut for the calculation editor to insert the current selected table occurrence in the popup menu into the text.
• Added CURL.GetSizeDelivered function.
• Added flag 4 for WebView.CreateWindow function to make the window a floating palette.
• Added flags to return JSON for SpeechRecognition.Recognize function.
• Added GridFS functions for MongoDB functions: MongoDB.GridFS.Close, MongoDB.GridFS.Drop, MongoDB.GridFS.Find, MongoDB.GridFS.FindOne, MongoDB.GridFS.FindOneByFileName, MongoDB.GridFS.GetChunks, MongoDB.GridFS.GetFiles, MongoDB.GridFS.Open, MongoDB.GridFS.Read, MongoDB.GridFS.Remove, MongoDB.GridFS.RemoveByFileName and MongoDB.GridFS.Write.
• Added JBIG2Lossy as option for DynaPDF.GetImage function.
• Added Keychain.AddGenericPassword, Keychain.DeleteGenericPassword, Keychain.FindGenericPassword, Keychain.ListGenericPasswords and Keychain.UpdateGenericPassword functions.
• Added PageRanges, PrinterName, PagesPerSide, Copies, Collation, ColorMode and Duplex parameters for WebView.SetPrintParameter function on Windows.
• Added Printer.CancelJob and Printer.GetJobsAsJSON functions.
• Added width and height for DynaPDF.GetField to ask for field size.
• Added XL.Sheet.AutoFilter.GetSortEx and XL.Sheet.AutoFilter.SortLevels functions.
• Added XL.Sheet.DataValidation, XL.Sheet.DataValidationSize and XL.Sheet.DataValidations functions.
• Added XL.Table.IsAutoFilter and XL.Table.RemoveFilter functions.
• Fixed a possible crash in GMImage.DrawPath function.
• Fixed an issue on Linux where Barcode.Generate didn't create a picture due to a link issue using the wrong zint library version (broken in 16.2).
• Fixed an issue with JSON.InsertRecord crashing when you have illegal type mismatches in the parameters.
• Fixed DynaPDF.GetField to return the correct BBox.
• Fixed memory leak in MongoDB.NowUTC, MongoDB.Time, MongoDB.ContainerToBinary and MongoDB.TextToBinary functions.
• Fixed memory leaks in Llama.Tokenize and Llama.Detokenize functions.
• Improved fmp: URL handling to work with newer version depending fmp URLs.
• Improved Llama.Chat and Llama.Query to yield time after 1000 tokens.
• Improved memory management for MongoDB functions.
• Updated CURL library to version 8.20.0.
• Updated DynaPDF to version 5.0.2.11.
• Updated expat to version 2.8.1.
• Updated jsoncons to version 1.7.0.
• Updated lcms to version 2.19.1.
• Updated LibXL to version 5.2.0.
• Updated mongo-c-driver to version 2.3.0.
• Updated Xcode to version 26.5.

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.

Announcing Saxon 13.0

We got notice that Saxonica released the version 13.0 of their Saxon Library:

The first release of Saxon 13 has just been published. This is a new release for Java, C#, C/C++, PHP, and Python. The highlights in this release are:

• A redesigned Schema API that allows multiple schemas to coexist. You can now validate an input document with one schema and the result with another, even for the same namespace.
• More than 175 features from the draft 4.0 specifications are now available in Saxon-PE and Saxon-EE, including:
  • JNodes, path navigation over trees of JSON maps and arrays,
  • Lookahead and lookbehind in regular expressions,
  • Functions for CSV parsing,
  • Functions for parsing with Invisible XML, and
  • More flexible XML-to-JSON conversions with fn:element-to-map.
• On the topic of 4.0,
  • Mike recently published a list of 101 new things you can do with Saxon using 4.0 features!
  • (For more information about 4.0, see QT4CG.)
• Support for SaxonC extension functions written in C++, Python, and PHP.
• SaxonCS-HE, our first release of the free Saxon HE product built for .NET with C#.

For more details, please consult the documentation.

If you encounter any issues with Saxon 13.0, please report them on our issue tracker.

Our MBS Plugins include Saxon 12.9 currently. We will soon review the new version and integrate it into MBS Plugins. If any issues prevent that, we may report them and wait for the 13.1 version.

Our Saxon integration for FileMaker and Xojo is a powerful add-on to use XLST 3.0, XPath 3.1 and XQuery 3.1 in your solutions.