In 2017, we released several new versions of bBox plugin. In the spirit of yearly retrospective, let’s highlight perhaps the most exciting new bBox feature: JavaScript for FileMaker. The new JavaScript for FileMaker functions in bBox are great for heavy duty JSON processing tasks, repurposing JavaScript code for use in FileMaker, or other computation intensive processing. Here’s a recap…
bBox for FileMaker: Python, JavaScript, SQLite and more!
bBox itself is a free utility plug-in to extend FileMaker solutions to easily use code libraries and macOS-based functions from Python, JavaScript, PHP, Ruby, AppleScript, Bash/sh, XPath, and SQLite.
Included with the download is a FileMaker demo file with more than 180 examples of how you can put bBox functions to work for you.
bBox highlights JavaScript-as-an-engine with FileMaker
The JavaScript for FileMaker functions in bBox are great for heavy duty JSON processing tasks, repurposing JavaScript code for use in FileMaker, or other computation intensive processing.
Your scripts using bBox with JavaScript for FileMaker can run either client-side or server-side. Bear in mind however that the JavaScript engine has no DOM/window object, so you won’t (for example) be able to pop up an alert from JavaScript. But JavaScript makes a very nice “engine” to complement native FileMaker.
To make your integration easier, JavaScript for FileMaker scripts can use the following functions to push or pull data into the JavaScript engine:
- fm.executesql (expression) // execute a FQL statement; currently tab & newline delimited result
- fm.run (scriptName {, parameter} ) // run a FileMaker script
- fm.evaluate (expression) // evaluate a FileMaker calculation
There are more 180 examples in the latest bBox demo file. Some of the recently added examples demonstrate:
- 8 examples of JavaScript for FileMaker functions
- extract data from FileMaker XML exports using Path
- using Curl debug options and sending email
- extracting information on FileMaker layout objects in clipboard
Additionally, other developers have built example solutions using bBox, including:
You can get more details on the bBox plug-in and its functions at http://bbox.beezwax.net/bbox and the bBox Wiki.
We’re looking forward to extending FileMaker even further in 2018. Stay tuned!