Re: File Maker field definition
Re: File Maker field definition
- Subject: Re: File Maker field definition
- From: ehsan saffari <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2001 00:00:02 -0600
On 30/12/2001 19:36, Brian Loomis <email@hidden> wrote in part:
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In the past to rebuild my own databases I have used applescript to pull all
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the field names from the database and write them to a text file, then used
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Excel to take the text file and import the excel file into filemaker letting
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me make new field names off the excel headers. I can also pull the
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calculations fields as text too. This works great if the number of fields
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in filemaker is less than the total column limitation of excel.
There's a better way, use the merge format. Write a merge file and drop
the file on FMP, a new db will be made using the field names, all of them
text though. You can change types and definitions later. To see how,
export in merge format from a db with one blank record, examine the
resulting text file's format.
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tell application "FileMaker Pro"
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activate
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set xfields to name of fields of layout 0 of database xcurrent
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repeat with x from 1 to number of items in xfields
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set xField to item x of xfields
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show document xclone
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create field with properties {name:xField}
Fields (and rels, vls and layouts) cannot be defined or edited via AS,
period. That's were the error message comes from. Take a close look at
the classes and their properties in the FMP AS dictionary, those marked
[r/o] are read only, thus not modifiable.
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(*get properties of field "TodaysDate" of document "MainMenu.fp5"
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get formula of field "TodaysDate" of document "MainMenu.fp5"
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get best type of field "TodaysDate" of document "MainMenu.fp5"
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get class of field "TodaysDate" of document "MainMenu.fp5"
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get default type of field "TodaysDate" of document "MainMenu.fp5"
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get choices of field "TodaysDate" of document "MainMenu.fp5"*)
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end repeat
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end tell
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And I get the message "objest or property not modifiable. I have looked in
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some news groups and done some google searches and am starting to thing that
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I can't create a file with AS, maybe am just going to have to define them
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and then use AS "get formula" to "cut and paste" the calculations.
With a lot of help from OneClick (
http://www.westcodesoft.com) you can
use a text file as a source for the elements of a db's definition and
have OneClick drive the UI and build the db for you. But strictly
speaking creation/modification of a db is still mostly a human's job.
cheers
ehsan