ISO FileMaker Magazine

Why on earth would you need/want to know about jquery? Isn't that something to do with the web?

You bet it does! And here's why you need to know about it. One, html/css/javascript skills are always a plus in the ever evolving technology landscape and two, because you can do some darn cool stuff within your FileMaker layouts which FileMaker can't do by itself - and probably won't for many, many years.

This video shows you how to get jquery, a Javascript library, into a global variable for reference within html - which can then be rendered within a Web Viewer. All without referencing any external urls or html files. It's 100% coolness right within FileMaker - and no plugins are required. This is a great way to test the waters and let your imagination run wild!

UPDATE: SPECIAL NOTICE ABOUT THE TECHNIQUE FILE

In the video, I showcase a method of pulling text from the inside of a text block (stored on the layout) in order to get Jquery into a global variable.

The method for doing this accounts for FileMaker's internal merge function within layout text objects. There are special characters, such as ##, //, :: and in particular ||. The double-pipes are converted in to the User Name, as set in the Preferences of the FileMaker client.

I point out, in the video, but not the technique file, that a better way to do this is to "force a known" substitution. This is because double-pipes may not be substituted due to lack of a User Name in FileMaker's Preferences.

In the original implementation I show, if your User name in preferences is blank, then Jquery won't load properly.

I've fixed the technique file to use a known substitution character to account for the double-pipe merge and I'd like to thank Bruce Robertson for sending me an alternative method to adding Jquery into a web viewer. I personally prefer to use the text block method because it has a lower implementation footprint. However, you should know that you can clearly use a dedicated table to store scripts and other code which can be dynamically integrated into web viewers and any other FileMaker aspect such as scripts, layouts and calcs!