Re: Another FMP question
Re: Another FMP question
- Subject: Re: Another FMP question
- From: Paul Berkowitz <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 06 Nov 2000 18:22:09 -0800
On 11/6/00 1:43 PM, "John MacDonald" <email@hidden> wrote:
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I get your problem too.
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This is ringing bells for me.
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You're asking FileMaker to ask another program to ask FileMaker to do
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something. FileMaker is therefore busy asking and can't answer.
That's it (after figuring out I had to activate the applet first, it hangs
again when it gets to the 'tell app "FileMaker Pro"' block)
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When I bumped into this wall before I used the 'Send Apple Event' FM
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script step and told FM not to wait for the reply. This works but may
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knock your scripts out of synch.
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'Send Apple Event' also had another bad effect for me: You specify
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the app to send the event to in a standard file dialog. Sometimes FM
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would pick another app with the same creator (any applet) and it was
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murderous to change them. (This might be fixed in FM5, but I doubt it)
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So, the next thing to do was to embed my scripts resulting in
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duplicating my utility scripts, losing properties, etc. (My
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development cycle is try it in Script Editor, if it works, paste it
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into FM, try again)
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This will still possibly allow you to get out of synch. An embedded
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script *will* initiate a Find, for instance, and the script will
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continue without waiting for the Find to finish.
This particular script only needs to get a few values from some global
fields. So it should be OK. I know about applescript moving on to next
commands without waiting for earlier events to finish.
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The usual symptom for a script out of synch is when the script works
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the second time if none of the data was changed (when the Find or
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sort is already done)
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I had to replace huge chunks of AppleScript with FileMaker functions.
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I still use my 'helper' app for some functions and to show some
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progress (hopefully discouraging users from working the database)
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FileMaker's scripting implementation is not very friendly
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It certainly doesn't interact terribly well with its own FMP scripts. I am
being forced here to interact with my user's FMP scripts, which he wants to
control himself. If I could applescript the whole thing, as Shane has
recommended, I wouldn't have this problem. Or if it could all be done in FMP
scripts without AS, it would work fine. It's the interaction that's clunky
and problem-ridden.
--
Paul Berkowitz