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Using an HTML Text Editor in FileMaker 10! — 05/23/2009

Updated 9/13/2009

Demo File is using a new editor that requires less php code and is much more interactive with the webviewer.

Enjoy,

Joe

Original Post:

One of FileMaker's strengths is that of being both flexible and extensible with the web viewer.  GetAsCSS(text) is a powerful function, but what if you want to display content on your website using the CSS of the site?  You have the option to hard code HTML in a field and then using the FileMaker API for PHP, query and render the HTML, but when you already have the easiest to use database at your fingertips, it would just not make sense to code HTML.

The Solution:

Using a web viewer and a text field, you can accomplish this ease of use. Next you need to create a PHP page that queries the current record of yourt database and renders a wordprocessor in the web viewer. I'm going to omit any coding for now, because you can download the sample file below.  On this HTML form we are using fckeditor, a very powerful word processor that writes and renders HTML.  It allows you to work in FileMaker in a web viewer as though you are in a word processor. How Cool is that? No knowledge of HTML is required. However, it does let you edit the HTML by clicking on the source button at the top left.

Limitations:

On the Mac it is more secure than Windows and does not let you insert images, etc, but if you open the link in a Safari Browser window it will work.  So there are a few hurdles, but for basic editing like writing this blog entry, it rocks!

Here are the sample files.  You will need FileMaker Server.

NEW! Text Editor Demo in FileMaker

Original Download as seen at Devcon

By -- Joe Scarpetta