[FX.php List] [OT] (mostly) CTRL-N in browser

Thu Sep 6 15:09:09 MDT 2007

Hi Joel,

Yeah, I was pretty pleased with where I was heading until I ran into the
issue with the browser responding to the CTRL key combination. Kevin F.
confirmed what I had feared that there was no way round with without
something hideous and proprietary like ActiveX, so I've put that aspect of
the idea on hold.

As to why go down this route, the answer is simple, cost...! My client has
spent a number of years developing an excellent solution for behaviour
management in schools, which they've been able to sell into a number of
schools who were already using FMP for other administrative tasks. The next
step was to try and sell it into non-FMP schools, at which point they found
that the cost of licensing FMP server, and enough clients became
prohibitive, even at educational licensing prices, for many schools...

Enter stage left, one copy of FMSA on their server, a db for each school,
and a replacement web front-end that I'm in the process of developing... it
enables them to continue selling their product, but now to any school that
is interested, since all the school needs is a web browser to operate the
solution, rather than either a copy of FMP for every member of school staff,
or the inconvenience for those staff of having to use specific computers
with FMP on them...

I've been using FMP since v3, and find it still to be an amazingly useful
and flexible application, however these days I seldom use it as a front end,
for exactly the reasons you outline, the PHP/CSS/JavaScript combination,
especially now with Ajax reaching the levels that it has, to be a vastly
superior combination to the available front-end tools in FMP.

This probably leads many people to wonder why I use FMP over one of the more
'traditional' web backends like MySQL or the like. My answer is because it's
smart... it can think for itself and perform all manner of things much more
easily than other database solutions that I've worked with can, especially
when you add a couple of relatively inexpensive plugins to the mix.. In one
recent app I developed it sent faxes, emails, text messages, bar codes to
mobiles, printed swipe cards, received emails, ran real-time auctions with
auto-bid facilities, made coffee... well sadly it couldn't actually make
coffee, but it did do everything else... when you put that power behind the
flexibility of PHP/CSS/JavaScript you've got an awesome combination.

Okay, I'll get off my soap box and return to the topic at hand...because of
the nature of the site and the development I'm afraid that it's not publicly
accessible, however I'm about to head away on holiday for a couple of weeks,
which will involve several hours on trains and planes so I'll undertake to
develop a 'proof-of-concept' from what I've done which I will make available
online, and the source of which I'll provide to members of the list that are
interested...

Cheers
Steve

-----Original Message-----
From: fx.php_list-bounces at mail.iviking.org
[mailto:fx.php_list-bounces at mail.iviking.org] On Behalf Of Joel Shapiro
Sent: Thursday, 6 September 2007 6:20 p.m.
To: FX.php Discussion List
Subject: Re: [FX.php List] [OT] (mostly) CTRL-N in browser

Hi Steve

I think this is interesting, and it sounds like what you've done so  
far is pretty cool.  Can you say a little about why you're re- 
creating the FMP interface on the web -- and why you're switching  
over in general from client to web-based?  I agree that more apps are  
heading to the web, but as Dale mentioned, FMP and the Web each have  
their own strengths.  Are you trying to mimic the FMP GUI as well?   
Because here at least it seems that a web interface can be so much  
more user-friendly, with CSS and JavaScript...  (Which I think makes  
FM9's brand new "Conditional Formatting" feature seem so limited and  
elementary. ;)

Any chance this site is public, to see what you've done?

Best,
-Joel

On Sep 5, 2007, at 7:54 AM, Steve Winter wrote:

> Hi Dale,
>
> All good and interesting points, however with the increasing  
> convergence
> between the web and the 'client-server' world that is occurring, I  
> guess I
> was trying to push the boundaries a little here...
>
> With the exception of the new browser window opening I had in fact  
> been able
> to code a solution which works as seamlessly on the web as it does  
> in FMP
> client. When the user selected CTRL-N the webpage refreshed to a blank
> record from the one that they were viewing, and they could begin  
> entering
> data. As soon as they entered a field, entered some data, and then  
> left that
> field Ajax created the record and wrote that data back into the db,  
> as well
> as setting a php session flag with the recID of that record, as  
> they moved
> from field to field this seamlessly happens in the background, just  
> like it
> does in the FMP client... maybe a nice idea before its time...
>
> Cheers
> Steve
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: fx.php_list-bounces at mail.iviking.org
> [mailto:fx.php_list-bounces at mail.iviking.org] On Behalf Of Dale  
> Bengston
> Sent: Wednesday, 5 September 2007 3:44 p.m.
> To: FX.php Discussion List
> Subject: Re: [FX.php List] [OT] (mostly) CTRL-N in browser
>
> Hi Steve,
>
> I think it's important to let a browser window be a browser window
> and a FileMaker window be a FileMaker window. There are certain
> things that will just work differently from one to the other.
>
> While control-n can be used to create a new record directly in
> FileMaker, no such mechanism exists in a web browser because the
> browser window is not directly connected to the data; it is by nature
> separated from the data. (I consider this one of the great advantages
> to using the web as an interface - I don't have to create an
> environment in FileMaker if I want to separated data from structure
> from interface.) At best, you could hope to use control-n to fake out
> a browser to load a web page that allows the user to enter data for a
> new record and then submit it to FileMaker. This is already different
> than creating a new record in FMP and filling it in.
>
> So, I guess my long-winded point is, play to the strengths of your
> environment. The web may offer you some better ways to do certain
> things than straight FMP client-server, and some workflows will
> probably have to change because you can't replicate certain FMP
> behaviors. Import and export come to mind. I also recall someone on
> the FBA list once lamenting that FMI had not arranged it so they
> could pop up custom dialog boxes via the web like they could in FMP.
> (Huh?)
>
> My rule of thumb is, when developing FileMaker client-server, I think
> like a FileMaker developer. When developing for the web, I think like
> a web developer.
>
> Dale
>
> --
> Dale Bengston, Partner
> Streamline Studio, LLC
> (a division of The Whole Brain Group)
> Member, FileMaker Business Alliance
>
>
>
> On Sep 5, 2007, at 1:51 AM, Steve Winter wrote:
>
>> Hi Kevin,
>>
>> Thanks for your reply... that's much as I feared would be the case,
>> i.e. bad
>> luck, can't be done...
>>
>> And yes, Exchange web client is definitely using ActiveX, and
>> you're quite
>> right that I don't want to go anywhere near that...!!
>>
>> I guess my only option is to locate key combinations which no browser
>> currently recognises, but at that point there's no point, since I
>> won't be
>> able to use the regular FM ones like CTRL-N, CTRL-S etc so I should
>> just
>> save myself the grief... wasn't really critical, just a 'nice to
>> have' cool
>> feature...
>>
>> Thanks
>> Steve
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: fx.php_list-bounces at mail.iviking.org
>> [mailto:fx.php_list-bounces at mail.iviking.org] On Behalf Of Kevin
>> Futter
>> Sent: Tuesday, 4 September 2007 11:23 p.m.
>> To: FX.php Discussion List
>> Subject: Re: [FX.php List] [OT] (mostly) CTRL-N in browser
>>
>> On 5/9/07 12:18 AM, "Steve Winter" <steve at bluecrocodile.co.nz> wrote:
>>
>>> Nice thought, but no cigar... browser still does it¹s own thing,
>>> as well
>> as
>>> loading my desired page L
>>>
>>
>> There's no way around that Steve. The browser intercepts all calls
>> first and
>> then passes them to the JavaScript interpreter as appropriate. If  
>> your
>> keystroke or combination already invokes an action in the browser,
>> it's
>> already happened before JavaScript gets to see it. The Outlook Web
>> Client
>> probably uses ActiveX in IE to manage it, and those features are
>> probably
>> not available to other browsers.
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> Kevin Futter
>> Webmaster, St. Bernard's College
>> http://www.sbc.melb.catholic.edu.au/
>>
>>
>>
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