In FileMaker Plug-ins blog

Receive data from an external device in FileMaker Pro

With Troi Serial Plug-in you can receive data sent from an external device with a serial (RS232) interface in FileMaker Pro. You can have the plug-in start a script upon receiving in order to process the received data in your database.

Receiving the data

Assume you have an external serial device connected to a (virtual) serial port on your computer. You can use a serial-USB adapter to connect to a USB port on your computer, which will then act as a virtual serial port.

To receive data from this device, first open the (virtual) serial port on your computer using the Serial_Open function. Add this script step to a ScriptMaker script:
Set Variable[ $ErrorCode; Serial_Open( "-Unused"; "COM1"; ) ]
This will open the COM1 port.
Continue Reading

In FileMaker Plug-ins blog

Selecting Files in FileMaker

With Troi File Plug-in you can easily let a user select a file on disk, for example to get the contents into filemaker. With the plug-in you can also move or rename it, to indicate the file has been handled.

Selecting the file

Use the TrFile_SelectFileDialog function to open up a dialog which lets the user select a file. By default all the files can be selected. If you want the user to be able to select only files with a certain extension use the TrFile_SetDefaultType function first.

To let the user select any file add these script steps to a ScriptMaker script:
Set Variable [$DontCare; TrFile_SetDefaultType( "-Unused"; "")] Set Variable [$FilePath; TrFile_SelectFileDialog( "-Unused"  ; "Please select a file.") ]
This will return the path to the file for example:
MacHD:Users:John:Documents:FinancialReport2014.xlsx
Continue Reading

In FileMaker Plug-ins blog

Troi URL Plug-in helps Rob connect

Rob Salusbury wrote to us that he is using our Troi URL plug-in to make FileMaker Pro into an incredibly powerful web client, in particular for communicating with SQL databases.

He thinks we are sitting on a real game changer that potential customers might not be aware of. Combined with Troi File and Troi Encryptor it delivers the ability to create very fast (VERY fast), very secure SQL applications that provide a ton of extended capabilities over any browser-only based solutions.

You can find the quote on our comments page.

The link below points to a page on his site that explains a little more about the concept.

http://customdataservices.net/sqlclients.htm.

We have to admit we don’t completely understand how this works, so you’ll have to quiz him on the details. We are amazed what our users can accomplish with the help of our plug-ins.

Many more functions

This is just one of the functionalities added by the Troi URL Plug-in. Another possibility is for example to send tweets to Twitter.

image

On the Troi URL Plug-in page you can download a fully functional demo with all the functions explained:

www.troi.com/software/urlplugin.html

It is a great and easy way to enhance your database for you or your customers.

In FileMaker Plug-ins blog

Second Value List in a dialog pop-up

With the recently released Troi Dialog Plug-in 6 for FileMaker Pro you can create very powerful Input Dialogs in a few script steps.

Below we show how to display an input dialog with a popup, which displays the values of a second value list, while returning the chosen value from the first list.

This (simplified) example uses fixed text to build the dialog, normally you would fill the dialog with data from your database. In ScriptMaker you need to add script steps to a script, but you can of course copy the script from the example files in the download of Troi Dialog Plug-in.

Implementing the InputDialog

First set the values for the popup. For this popup we fill the optional last parameter, which holds a second value list (with item names).
Continue Reading

In FileMaker Plug-ins blog

Troi Dialog Plug-in 6.0 for FileMaker Pro 13

We just released Troi Dialog Plug-in 6.0, our plug-in for displaying flexible, dynamic dialogs in FileMaker Pro 13. This release adds several new features, such as the possibility to show items from a second value list in a pop-up while returning the value from the first, the possibility to choose multiple items from a list dialog and the use of several keyboard shortcuts in the edit fields of the InputDialog and BigInputDialog.
Download a demo here: http://www.troi.com/software/dialogplugin.html

In FileMaker Plug-ins blog

Files and Folders and FileMaker

Did you know that with Troi File Plug-in you can easily see which files or folders are in a folder?

You can get this list easily into FileMaker Pro with the TrFile_ListFolder( ) function. In ScriptMaker add this script step to a script:
Set Field [ result, TrFile_ListFolder( “-Files -Folders” ; “Mac HD:”) ]
This will return a text list of all files and folders on the hard disk “Mac HD”. The two switches -Files and -Folders indicate you want both types returned. This might return for example this:

Test.fmp12
Desktop Folder
Program files
Financial report.xls

and so on…
Continue Reading