Re: Services and FileMaker
Re: Services and FileMaker
- Subject: Re: Services and FileMaker
- From: Ben Waldie <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:57:06 -0500
Hi Bruce,
On Nov 4, 2009, at 2:37 AM, Bruce Robertson wrote:
Ben Waldie' s video of using a Snow Leopard service to get text from
a URL is interesting.
<http://www.peachpit.com/podcasts/episode.aspx?e=3a82cb79-60cd-4209-8eff-96bd8082fc21
>
I tried to do the same thing myself, but ran into two problems. One
problem is that I get better results if I identify the source as
text rather than URL. This also enables you to grab info from a file
URL. If I leave the source as URL, the service is often not visible
in the service menu or contextual menu. After setting up a service
to recognize text, I got it to work OK in apps like Tex-Edit.
The second problem is that it doesn't look like FileMaker handles
text services. Selecting text in a standard FileMaker text field
never reveals any Services. If the text is in a FileMaker web
viewer, then Services become available.
When you create a Service workflow, you specify the type of input it
receives. Based on this, the Service is visible, and therefore
accessible, only when trying to process that type of input. For
example, if you configure a Service to process URLs, then it will only
be accessible when a URL is selected. Mac OS X determines whether
something is a URL, using its data detectors mechanism. Therefore, if
you specify that the workflow can process text, you'll be able to
trigger it in a wider range of situations. You can also limit a
workflow further by specifying the application to which it pertains.
For example, you can set it to only be available in Mail.
In order for a Service workflow to process input, the application in
which you're attempting to trigger the service, must be able to
identify to Mac OS X the type of data selected, and pass it for
processing by the Service. Not all applications provide this support,
and to my knowledge, FileMaker is one of them (although I checked
FileMaker 9.x and not 10.x). For applications like this, you can
still trigger Service workflows from the "Application > Services"
menu. However, you'll just be able to run them, not pass them input.
For FileMaker, as a workaround, you could try creating a Service
workflow that retrieves the clipboard contents, processes them, and
places the results back on the clipboard. Then, you could try using
some FileMaker script steps to put the desired content on the
clipboard, paste it back when the workflow is done, etc. Not the most
elegant solution, but it may be possible with some effort.
For more on Service workflows, check out... <http://www.macosxautomation.com/services/index.html
>.
Regards,
-Ben
Ben Waldie
President
Automated Workflows, LLC
484.744.1831
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