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Filemaker Pro data to VW 2009


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Ol? the ignorance of the ignorami!

OLE would not help at all. ODBC would ? and fancy that: the wholly-owned subsidiary of Apple, FileMaker Inc, offers a fine relational database system with ODBC.

wow, you created a new profile just to insult me.

did you remember to switch your IP?

for grins you can read about the advanatages of OLE DB here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms718124(VS.85).aspx

Edited by brudgers
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No: to educate you. And, boy, are you in need of that!

Yes, OLE could be used to do some stuff with some databases, but not everything with anything.

I would indeed love to offer a revised system to an old client of mine, in which I interface Oracle Spatialware and MapInfo via intelligent, managed alphanumeric and MID/MIF exports & imports.

Sorry: your OLE does not bring MapInfo, Oracle, FileMaker Pro etc. tables into VW; ODBC does. But of course you don't want anything that would not be fully controlled by your master, Sauron himself.

I wonder if there are Spatial Information Systems 101 -classes at a Workingman's Institute near you.

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Hi--

Is there any way to bring fields from my FileMaker Pro 9 document into a Vectorworks 2009 document?? Also would be cool to link or reference FM doc so that the data in the VW doc can be updated easily. Any ideas / techniques out there?

No easy way, but with named objects in VW, your FMP database can populate/amend VW records with an FMP script, utilising AppleScript as the pipeline.

EDIT

Well, actually it IS easy, considering the complexity of the operation. However, in this case there is something in a name, so it's not for aspiring Romeos.

Edited by Kool Aid
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No: to educate you. And, boy, are you in need of that!

Yes, OLE could be used to do some stuff with some databases, but not everything with anything.

I would indeed love to offer a revised system to an old client of mine, in which I interface Oracle Spatialware and MapInfo via intelligent, managed alphanumeric and MID/MIF exports & imports.

Sorry: your OLE does not bring MapInfo, Oracle, FileMaker Pro etc. tables into VW; ODBC does. But of course you don't want anything that would not be fully controlled by your master, Sauron himself.

I wonder if there are Spatial Information Systems 101 -classes at a Workingman's Institute near you.

Which part of "OLE DB" link did you not understand?

Or were you afraid that number one would kick you out of Club Cupertino and take away your Members Only jacket if you visit a page using aspx?

BTW Vectorworks support for Applescript but not for OLE is just a another example of how windows users are subsidising the Mac platform.

Edited by brudgers
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No: to educate you. And, boy, are you in need of that!

Yes, OLE could be used to do some stuff with some databases, but not everything with anything.

I would indeed love to offer a revised system to an old client of mine, in which I interface Oracle Spatialware and MapInfo via intelligent, managed alphanumeric and MID/MIF exports & imports.

Sorry: your OLE does not bring MapInfo, Oracle, FileMaker Pro etc. tables into VW; ODBC does. But of course you don't want anything that would not be fully controlled by your master, Sauron himself.

I wonder if there are Spatial Information Systems 101 -classes at a Workingman's Institute near you.

Which part of "OLE DB" link did you not understand?

Ohh, I understand all of it. But what parts of "ANY" and "EVERY" are beyond your comprehension, dearest deputy leader of toilet-cleaning-duty Uruk-hai?

BTW Vectorworks support for Applescript but not for OLE is just a another example of how windows users are subsidising the Mac platform.

Let me guess: AppleScript was supported before we Mac-users paid for the development of the Windows-version.

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I guess the fact that OLE DB is a superset of ODBC was obscured by your Members Only blinders...undoubtedly a prototype to go along with the earphones.

The arguments against OLE (in all it's flavors), Visual Basic, and other Microsoft technologies has been that they're not dual platform.

NNA has no issue incorporating and maintaing Mac only features in Vectorworks and cutting corners for Windows development.

One needs only to compare the cavalier attitude toward the continuing lack of windows logo compliance and the zealous adherence to OSX standards to see that.

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Why has this become what seems to be rather personal argument between too users. I also use filemaker for other parts of my work and would be interested in an answer to the original post. This forum has helped me enormously in the past and I would like to see it used for what it is meant for.

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Vectorworks has no interface for dynamically displaying external data and few options for displaying static external data. Native format display of Filemaker is not among them (nor is there native format display for any other database).

In my opinion, Vectorworks is less likely to provide a means for connecting to an external database due to a lack of emphasis in development tools for OSX relative to the tools provided for windows application development.

One need only look at the akward mechanism by which Landmark communicates with the external plant database (via a static text file), to judge the prospects of a generalized database interface pending a change in attitude.

To put it in perspective, Autocad has had ODBC on the windows platform since 1992 (ASE in r12 under windows 3.1).

Database connectivity is a common activity in the world of windows and windows development tools make incorporating such connections into applications a matter of course.

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To put it in perspective, Autocad has had ODBC on the windows platform since 1992 (ASE in r12 under windows 3.1).

Database connectivity is a common activity in the world of windows and windows development tools make incorporating such connections into applications a matter of course.

Dear me, dear me! ODBC has been a part of the Mac OS since year Sword and Shield. The Benelux distributor of VW created a platform-independent ODBC-interface only a year or two later.

Your paranoia is of course amusing to the extreme, but the fact is that there has not been (perceived) commercial demand for this functionality. I'm not at liberty to quote the comments by (then) Diehl Graphsoft senior staff.

This has nothing to do with your Windows/Macintosh war.

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ditto for de islandmon ...

Filemaker Pro & VW work well together and deserve better treatment ..

and they are both highly regarded successful cross-platform applications .

So cut the BS ... pettiness = powerlessness

Indeed. ODBC would do exactly that. In fact, that would enable VW to communicate with something like MySQL on Linux, too.

Did anyone know that Microsoft Access has no sales at all? No-one buys it. (Ohh ? it does come with MS Office for Windows, but so do 12 steak knives with a genuine timber chopping board.)

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Why has this become what seems to be rather personal argument between too users. I also use filemaker for other parts of my work and would be interested in an answer to the original post. This forum has helped me enormously in the past and I would like to see it used for what it is meant for.

Here's the answer:

You can't have live database links between VW and FMP.

You can, however, transfer data between the two applications, but this requires both effort & discipline by the user and programming at both ends.

It is not just simply an operating system issue, as the resident Orc would like us to believe. In addition, there's even an argument for data transfer vs. live linking. This is accentuated in complex relational database schemas, eg. costings, when unit costs may or may not be varied by the project and by item.

As far as I'm concerned, there's no personal argument here, despite the fact that I do get annoyed by the ignorance of the simpleton ignoramus.

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Brudgers & Kool Aid

Time to back off please.

Section 4 of the Community Guidelines (incorporated by reference in the Terms of Service) that you agree to by using this service states:

4) Avoid publishing, posting, uploading, distributing or disseminating, or offering to do the same (hereinafter "Post") any abusive, harassing, threatening, inappropriate, obscene, pornographic, defamatory, libelous, infringing, vulgar, fraudulent, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, hateful (racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable) unlawful material or information or otherwise violate the legal rights of others. If you wouldn?t talk to colleagues like that face-to-face, then you probably shouldn?t write electronically that way either. Don't be "that guy"!;

While you two have thick skins and seem to enjoy this style of discussion, and would probably say what you have said here face to face, there are many others who don't. We (the moderators) have gotten several complaints and some members have taken it on themselves to try to settle you down.

If you feel a need to continue this discussion in this manner, please take it to Private Message. If it continues here in the same fashion, we WILL escalate our response.

If you need a place to hash out the technical differences between OBDC and OLEDB, let us know and we can probably get you a better location than the General Discussion Vectorworks forum.

Thanks,

Pat Stanford for the Moderators

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Basta, P

I wouldn't bother to discuss with the urk (not you Pat). Like it was worth the effort of typing.

Brudgers,

do everybody a favor, to yourself above all, and keep off this discussion. You obviously don't have anything to say. Never had.

I'd like to read more about FIleMaker/VW connection.

P, What do you see as possibility, as future, as worth implementing?

How would you think the best approach would be?

I am interested in the details.

If the discussion should be moved to a more techical one, please move it.

But don't drop it.

This is well relevant for the future of VW, for advanced sharing, I am very interested.

orso

Edited by _c_
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Hi--

Is there any way to bring fields from my FileMaker Pro 9 document into a Vectorworks 2009 document?? Also would be cool to link or reference FM doc so that the data in the VW doc can be updated easily. Any ideas / techniques out there?

back to the original question, an answer.

Concretely, I use applescript to deal with VW from filemaker databases. I wrote a simple AS second level custom function that deals with the variables and different VW versions. So it's flexible.

The applescript has only the purpose to trigger a vectorscript from inside the database. But it could also do much more.

The vectorscript uses then the xml parser in VW, no matter what you want to do with your data. VS has basic support for xml.

From VW you can launch a command that manipulates your xml data. From the database you need to pass through AS.

So it takes:

* an applescript

* a vectorscript

which is exactly what Kool Aid (grin) explained.

This is one really basic approach.

Since this approach is not optimal, not by far, I wish better things could be done.

With any kind of database.

Personally I dislike OBDC, but why not using it, nevertheless my last stand of the knowledge (very vague by now) is that at least for architecturally interesting data this approach is on its way of dying, in favor of more flexible and easy to manage (from the user's point of view) xml based solutions.

Is OBDC still very actual?

orso

Edited by _c_
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Pat and Archoncad,

Speaking of complaints, I think one should be forwarded to Orso as well. After your warning he still attacked Brudgers. I agree with most of what Brudgers said but you don't see me attacking Kool Aid. We should respect everyone, even those that don't share the same views as you.

My personal view (at the risk of someone attacking me :) ) is I have great respect for the Apple operating system and also for Vectorworks' roots in Mac. Because of that, Vectorworks is an extremely superior and user-friendly CAD software. However, I feel that NNA (then Diehl Graphisoft) made a windows version of VW just for the sake of cashing in on the PC market, seeing it's a huge market compared to the Mac. This IMHO, should have been done NOT half-heartedly but fully embracing all aspects of Windows. It should have been a fully compatible and native windows program. In a sense there should have been 2 completely independant and different versions (but somehow keeping all the commands the same-if that makes sense).

This is why sometimes I get the feeling the windows version is being held up by the Mac. I don't have any experience with VW on the Mac but I think the Mac users might think they're being held up by the PC. This is a tough issue to fix and I hope NNA addresses this soon.

My 2c.

Keep cool guys. :)

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