MBS 14.2 Request

Products, Plugins & FM hosting/cloud services MBS Plugins
1

Hi @MonkeybreadSoftware ,

Hoping to see whether this is even doable with the plugin. I have far more success with feature requests for the product from you than Claris !

So, here's the thing. When writing scripts, so often you'll be working in it, and bringin up dialogs that have a table occurrence selection box. Examples would be set field, GTRR, replace field contents, and so on.

The starting table occurrence for these dialogs, is always the current layout you're on. FileMaker assumes you are writing the script for the context you're current layout is on.

This is almost never the case

The problem is unless you switch the layout, you always have to keep selecting the correct TO from these dialogs. It winds me up to no end.

Further to that, often when writing a script, the script itself is switching context throughout, meaning different parts of the script are working from different contexts anyway.

With all that said, I'm wondering if it is possible from a technical standpoint that when a dialog opens (e.g. Set Field), whether you can programmatically set the table occurrence that is chosen in this dialog ?

IF that is possible, it opens up a couple of really awesome options:

  1. A box at the top of the script where you can nominate a "starting" TO. So when writing a script, you set this once, and then all future dialogs you go into in the script default to this TO. It could sit beside the MBS search perhaps, and it could just default to current layouts context for lack of a better option.

Or alternatively / in conjunction with...

  1. Each time you go into a script step, could it look up the script at previous steps to try and establish what the context would that the user might be on at that point in the script? I realise this is actually far more complex and in a lot of circumstances not possible to know until run time.

Just thinking out loud really about personal bug-bears I have when developing.This is always an annoying one.

Or

  1. Perhaps it just always remembers the last chosen TO from the previous dialog. So next time you go back in, it just selects the last chosen.
6 Likes
2

Thanks for the suggestion.
Did you pass this to Claris? Just in case they like to do it in the next release.

For the plugin, we could monitor the windows and see which one you pick when the window closes, remember that and then select that automatically the next time the dialog opens.

Not sure whether this would confuse people.

Can't you not just open the popup and type first letters to pick the TO?

3

Did you pass this to Claris? Just in case they like to do it in the next release.

Yup, not holding my breath based on experience, it's a change almost certain to never happen.

For the plugin, we could monitor the windows and see which one you pick when the window closes, remember that and then select that automatically the next time the dialog opens.

Perfect! Having a remember option would be great, maybe a "reset" option to just revert it back to current layout context in case you do wish to use that behaviour. I could also see just a preference to say you want to use this feature or not.

Not sure whether this would confuse people.

Just make it a preference. That way people need to enable this feature to make use of it, so they should not be confused.

Can't you not just open the popup and type first letters to pick the TO?

Technically yes, but that is what I currently do, and it is tedious. We're talking solutions with potentailly thousands of table occurrence names, and while my naming of TO's is solid, it still often requires 10+ letters typed to land on the TO you want.

Then, imagine a script whcih has a dozen set field script steps one after the other, and then imagine having to type those 10+ letters each time.... you get the idea.

Your options to batch remove/replace TO names within a calculation is awesome and I use this a lot , but there is still a big time saving to be had in having the default starting TO in these dialogs to be set optimally (not to just the layout context every time).

4

Hi. I'm not at my computer right now, but regarding point #3, I use DefaultFolder on Mac, which has a "rebound" feature that remembers your last position in list dialogs, for example in the Finder. Huge time-and-effort saver. I think it works in some apps' internal dialogs, so maybe it might work inside FM.

5

So I added this for one dialog:

Screenshot 2024-04-10 at 12.03.22
Screenshot 2024-04-10 at 12.03.22810×940 76 KB

It's a little text on the top right, which on click switches you to the other table occurrence.
We only show it when we see something picked earlier.

2 Likes
6

Amazing, you've done it again ! A huge time saver right here, thanks !

What would make this ideal is if you could add that link into calculation dialog also. The set field is great, but calculation dialogs always default to the layout context which is the most annoying one because when editing a calc in a script, the layout context you're on is almost always irrelevant - the most important bit is the scripts context - being able to single+click from this dialog would be amazing

7

In the calculation dialog, there is not much space above the popup.
maybe you switch to the given layout before editing the script.

I could add it to more dialogs, but there needs to be a bit space. We already have it in two dialogs so far.

8

What about a shortcut key instead of putting anything in the UI ? or even just another button down the lower right quadrant where the calc formatting & TO buttons are ? Just a thought :slight_smile: