This document covers changes to the WEB FM CGI for FileMaker Pro since version 1.2.1.
New Features
Enabled an "error" input field for SEARCH, FIND, and QUERY forms. The error field works just like the header and footer fields, but is used instead to override the default error message when no records are found in the database.
Enabled the "doscript" field for use with more WEB FM commands. DoScript can now be used with the SEARCH, FIND, QUERY, ADD, UPDATE, and FINDSET commands.
Enabled the ADD command to work as a href link. This means you can now click on an ancor that adds a new record to a database.
It's now possible to insert the browsers IP address into a new database record or be used in perfoming a database search. Simply include in your href link or on your html form a field with a value of *CLIENT_ADDRESS*. This might be useful in shopping cart types of applications for retaining a unique user id across database transactions. One problem with this, however, is that proxy servers for AOL, etc., don't have a unique IP address for each user. Food for thought.
Changes
IMPORTANT!!! The "doscript" and "html" parameters when using the ADD, UPDATE, or DELETE commands are no longer declared in the URL, but are instead input fields (normally hidden) on the html form. This allows for user selection of the doscript or html values if desired. For example, one ScriptMaker script could be executed for one type of selection, while another ScriptMaker script can be executed for another type of selection.
IMPORTANT!!! The WEB FM feature which allows you to return an html file rather then a database cell value has been changed slightly. The html parameter should now only have a file name with a ".html" suffix as it's value. WEB FM now uses the directory tree as specified in the URL to find this html file. In other words, the file location is now relative to the URL.
When performing a search and no records are found, the search values on the reply error message are now seperated with a comma rather then just a space.
The FINDUSER command was modified slightly to enforce an authorization dialog when the browsers username or password are null.
Bug Fixes
The WEB FM feature which allows you to return an html file rather then a database cell value now works when the database contains a picture field.
Also, the RETRIEVE command now properly returns a ".html" file.
Known bugs
The WEB FM feature which allows you to return an html file rather then a database cell value may still crash the computer under unknown circumstances when inserting database cell values into the html file. We've been unable to duplicate this problem, but know it exists. So, use this feature with caution, and only after testing it thoroughly.
FM.acgi may sometimes hang the computer on Power Macs if you quit WebSTAR before quitting FM.acgi. Therefore, please make a habbit of quitting FM.acgi before you quit WebSTAR.
Please report any additional problems you may find with WEB FM to support@macweb.com
