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New to FM. Not new to development

Question asked by e34m5 on May 18, 2009
Latest reply on May 19, 2009 by deltatango

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Ok. Have much experience in development (C++, VB, Delphi, etc) but I am having a real hard time following FM. I inherited an application. I am trying to somehow trace what the code is doing. All I can do is jump from one script to another.

Two questions:

1- How can I view all the code at once. Not individual scripts

2- How does one trace the code to see what steps are being performed

3- How does one set up a break point and run the scripts inside of the IDE.

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deltatango May 18, 2009 11:31 AM
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1. You can't
2 & 3. You need the Advanced version of the software. I have Filemaker 9.0 Advanced. With this, you can go through scripts step by step to debug them, insert break points, etc.
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philmodjunk May 18, 2009 11:51 AM
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1- How can I view all the code at once. Not individual scripts
With FMP advanced, you can list out all the scripts in a single database design report in HTML format. It's not perfect, but it's a big help when working with complex interrelated scripts.
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e34m5 May 18, 2009 11:53 AM
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Wow....I can't believe this. So I'm trying to download a trial for Advanced but I don't think they have that.
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philmodjunk May 18, 2009 12:04 PM
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FMP advanced is virtually identical to the regular FMP, but with a small number of very valuable (to developers) added features. If you are familiar with FMP 10, you'll find using FMP 10 advanced to be very familiar territory. If you're not familiar, downloading the FMP 10 trial is not a bad place to start.
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e34m5 May 18, 2009 12:10 PM
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I finally figured out how to see what the step in the script was doing. Who would have thought if clicking on "Specify". What an incredibly convoluted application FM is.

How can anyone say it is easy to create applications with this.
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LaRetta_1 May 18, 2009 12:14 PM
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"How can anyone say it is easy to create applications with this."

We can say that because we have created applications using MANY MANY other tools. And FileMaker *is* rapid development tool.
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e34m5 May 18, 2009 12:15 PM
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I suppose it may be a good solution for non-developers.
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deltatango May 18, 2009 12:19 PM
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it's clunky, but it does the job. I wish for a PHP type environment myself. Where you can type out your code.

But then, it wouldn't be "easy"
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LaRetta_1 May 18, 2009 12:44 PM
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"I suppose it may be a good solution for non-developers."

Oh! I didn't realize you were clairvoyant and that you knew everyone that uses FileMaker and knew everyone's background!! Wow!! How impressive!!!!
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philmodjunk May 18, 2009 12:44 PM
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Since FMP 3 at least, developers have asked for a text based script editor. While many improvments have been made, that hasn't been one of them :smileysad: .

I suspect that FMP is concerned that a text based script editor would make FMP "too difficult" for "non-developers". I'd suggest that one approach doesn't rule out the other, they could keep the current script editor in regular FMP and add a text based version to FMP advanced.

When I compare working with FMP to working with MS Access, I find I can usually roll out a working solution in FMP much more quickly than I can with MS Access. Other aspects of FMP's design out weigh this lack--at least when it comes to how fast I can develop.

PS. At least we can copy and paste script steps, import scripts from another file, print the script in a reasonably straight forward format, and we no longer have to delete a bunch of unwanted script steps everytime we start a new script. These are all past complaints that FM Inc. has finally corrected.
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deltatango May 18, 2009 12:46 PM
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What if the advanced version only, had a text based script editor??
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e34m5 May 18, 2009 12:57 PM
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The problem I have is that it's damned near impossible to track what some one has done. And since FMP uses such a non-standard scritping mechanism debuging some one else's code is impossible.

To look at every script in isolation is a dangerous thing. No way to tell where the code thread begins and ends.
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deltatango May 18, 2009 1:00 PM
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you need FMP advanced
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e34m5 May 18, 2009 1:02 PM
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I'm not willing to pay the fee just to try it out. Even some thing as crappy as MSAccess allows to see the code.
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deltatango May 18, 2009 1:04 PM
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LOL, then use the crappy one. I don't know what to tell you.
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deltatango May 19, 2009 7:43 AM
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Look what I found for you.

http://www.fmpromigrator.com/products/fmpro_script_diff/index.html
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New to FM. Not new to development

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