[FX.php List] Some Community Updates

Joel Shapiro jsfmp at earthlink.net
Tue Jan 28 15:07:40 MST 2014


Hi Chris

FWIW: in the FM API, getLayout() with getFields() will produce a list of fields on a layout
http://www.jsmall.us/apidoc/FileMaker/FileMaker_Record.html#getFields

I agree that it's great that FX.php is open source (thanks for that, Chris!  Dare I wonder aloud if anyone remembers a certain developer offering to sell a modified version of FX.php some years back? ;)


On a separate note...  
There have been a number of posts -- here & on other lists -- from people having problems with FX.php when they upgrade to FMS13.  It would be great if there were a search-engine-friendly place with instructions (e.g. download the latest version from github...).  Would the wiki be the best place for that?

Best,
-Joel


On Jan 28, 2014, at 12:46 PM, Chris Hansen wrote:

> Joel,
> 
> That's good to know.  And I think that framework would be good to have in a list of frameworks up on the wiki (with perhaps a note that it's using FAP rather than FX.php.)
> 
> As for things that you can't do with the FileMaker API for PHP:
> 
> 1) You can't get a list of fields present on a given layout.  I ran into this when creating the Fuzzy Debugger as I could use the list from the XML schema to suggest possible misspellings when a field wasn't found.
> 
> 2) You can't readily add a feature and benefit the entire user base.
> 
> 3) You can't distribute the files as part of an open-source tool.
> 
> Those are the main ones off the top of my head.  There may be others as FAP doesn't give you a way to directly interact with the XML.
> 
> Best,
> 
> --Chris
> 
> On Jan 28, 2014, at 1:20 PM, Joel Shapiro <jsfmp at earthlink.net> wrote:
> 
>> Hi Chris et al.
>> 
>> FYI: Tim Dietrich's just put out a new framework: http://fmwebframe.com  It's specifically FM API, but I thought I'd mention it here.  (I have not really looked at it)
>> 
>> @Chris: Out of curiosity, what are some of the things you "can do with FX, that aren't available with FAP"?
>> 
>> Best,
>> -Joel
>> 
>> 
>> On Jan 28, 2014, at 12:09 PM, Chris Hansen wrote:
>> 
>>> Leo, I had thought of that.  In fact, that was the first thing that I considered.  Two things stopped me:
>>> 
>>> 1) Having templates that are straight HTML is very important too me.  I got the idea from a fairly new Ruby framework called Pakyow.  Using straight HTML as a template not only keeps things clean, it also means that you can prototype the look of your site AT ANY TIME, even if some part of the logic is currently broken (much like a certain database we all know...)  If you know of an existing framework that will do this, please let me know!
>>> 
>>> 2) I haven't found an existing framework that I completely like.  This means that any work that I did to add FileMaker connectivity, or pure HTML templates would have to be in a framework that I wouldn't completely enjoy using.  Blech.
>>> 
>>> Those are my thoughts, and yes, they have a lot to do with personal opinion.  If any of you PHP whizzes out there want FileMaker functionality if your favorite framework (like Laravel, for example) then go for it!  In part, my mention of a new framework was in the hoping of encouraging this sort of thing.  For that matter, a given framework doesn't necessarily work for every project.  It would be nice to even have a wiki page listing available frameworks.
>>> 
>>> Thanks for the feedback.  If you can think of ways around the above, I'm open.
>>> 
>>> Best,
>>> 
>>> --Chris
>>> 
>>> On Jan 28, 2014, at 12:14 PM, Leo R. Lundgren <leo at finalresort.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Why yet another framework? There are hundreds out there, some of which are quite good.
>>>> 
>>>> Maybe a better idea would be to try to make FX.php play well with the most common frameworks, package it up nicely, maybe adhere to some FIGs, and in general encourage modularity. Instead of reinventing the wheel with another framework.
>>>> 
>>>> Just a thought :)
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 28 jan 2014 kl. 20.10 skrev Denis Somar:
>>>> 
>>>>> I'd love to see anything on this framework - sounds as magical as a unicorn to me ;-)
>>>>> 
>>>>> But it would seriously add some fairy dust to the FM web offerings.  I'll add some snippets to the wiki myself ASAP.
>>>>> 
>>>>> D
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Tue, Jan 28, 2014 at 12:51 PM, Chris Hansen <chris at iviking.org> wrote:
>>>>> Greetings all!
>>>>> 
>>>>> First off, I'd like to say again how fortunate I feel to be surrounded by such a great community.  It's the community around FX.php that has allowed it to grow into such a great tool and stay there.  Thank you!
>>>>> 
>>>>> There are also a couple of items that I'd like to make you all aware of that will be of general (or at least nearly general) interest:
>>>>> 
>>>>> 1) Some time ago I recall someone wishing that there were an FX.php wiki.  Well, it just so happens there there IS an FX.php wiki these days, though there's nothing there...  It lives on github with the code.  Here's the URL: https://github.com/yodarunamok/fxphp/wiki   If any of you are able to contribute to the wiki -- even by just moving parts of the documentation up there -- that would be awesome.  Of course, this is something that I need to work on as well, I just wanted to be sure that everyone was aware of its existence.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 2) There's a fair amount of chatter on the list about frameworks.  There has only been a limited amount done to make PHP frameworks work happily with FileMaker, and most of that is not associated with the "latest and greatest".  Recently I was looking at doing some modifications to one of the newer frameworks, and realized that I didn't really care for the guts of the thing, so I decided to build my own.  Granted this doesn't help with the "latest and greatest" frameworks out there, but I know there are people on this list who can do that if they'd like.  My purpose here is to put out feelers for interest in, and feature requests for a totally new framework.  Here are some of the key points so far:
>>>>> 
>>>>> • FileMaker (via FX.php -- there are things I can do with FX, that aren't available with FAP), MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Riak as data sources.
>>>>> • MVC framework
>>>>> • There will be no extra work required to "make" a FileMaker model in the framework, just give it the name of a layout.
>>>>> • Views with be straight HTML pages.  No embedded PHP in the page AT ALL.  The framework will be used to populate your HTML based on the DOM.
>>>>> • Restful paths and operations
>>>>> • Designed to work with or without portals (just set it up how you want it.)
>>>>> 
>>>>> If you have any questions about the above, or have any requests (either for documentation priority or framework features) let's just get a discussion going on this thread.  Again, thank you all so much for making this such a great community, and I look forward to hearing back from you.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Best,
>>>>> 
>>>>> --Chris Hansen
>>>>> Creator of FX.php
>>>>> "The best way from FileMaker to the Web."
>>>>> www.iViking.org
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
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>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> -|
>>>> 
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