We are pleased to release bBox version 0.86. bBox 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 is a demo file that has over 180 examples of how you can put bBox functions to work for you.
New Features: JavaScript-as-an-engine
The big feature for this release is a new JavaScript function. Use it for heavy duty JSON processing tasks, repurposing JavaScript code for use in FileMaker, or any other computation intensive processing. Your scripts can run either client 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.
To make your integration easier, JavaScript 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 over 180 examples in the bBox 0.86 demo file. Some of the recently added examples demonstrate:
- 8 examples of the new JavaScript 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.
Simon