Full-Featured PDF Viewer in FileMaker, FileMaker 17 In-Depth Video
Add a Full-Featured PDF Viewer to FileMaker
Christopher Edwards, from Beezwax, figured out a way to embed a full featured PDF viewer in FileMaker. And the best part is, he includes a Free FileMaker Example file, as well (click on the link below to get the download). I played around with it this morning, and one of the observations Edwards made is true – it is not as fast as one would like, but it gets the job done. And this version runs only on a Mac, due to the use of shell commands to do some unzipping. And it requires the use of some Javascript. But don’t worry about that:
Now you—like me—may be thinking, “I’m not a JavaScript developer!”. Don’t worry, we won’t touch even a single line of JavaScript. And the functionality benefits to your users are well worth the small integration effort.
In the screenshot you can see users now have the ability to search; highlight; view the table of contents or thumbnails of each page; open, download, and print; and more—use a truly full-featured PDF viewer, right within FileMaker. My focus from here isn’t on everything you can now do with PDFs—you’ll find your own business case there—but rather how to build this functionality into your FileMaker solutions.
Edwards makes it easy to implement the Javascript library, taking away the pain of integrating variables and such.
And the speed difference was overcome in the end, but only if you host it on a server and use Perform Script on Server (PSOS). I highly recommend that any developer download this example file and dig deep into the code.
Source: Full-Featured PDF Viewer Embedded in FileMaker – beezwax > blog
Atlanta FileMaker Users Group – FileMaker 17 in-depth
David Nahodyl presents a 75 minute deep dive into FileMaker 17, including FileMaker 17 Server and the new command line options, get and set.
David Nahodyl from Blue Feather will be presenting on the new features in FileMaker 17. Come learn about the new scripting, behaviors, functions, and completely overhauled FileMaker Server interface which come as part of the latest version of FileMaker.
I learned several new tricks while watching…but if I tell you all of them, you won’t watch. One more hint: watch the part about adding local notifications, including bringing FileMaker to the foreground. Or background. From an iPad. Impressive.
As I often say, it’s well worth watching.