I talked to Russ Kohn today, and he is working on a project using FMProxy. Interestingly, he’s re-tooling it to be used with javascript, which kind of proves the point that FMProxy is not a Flex-only solution. He had some feedback in terms of making better basic examples to help developers get up to speed faster and unleash the power of FMProxy.

So here is I what I put together to make it a bit easier to initially set up and debug your proxy. It’s an HTML form, similar to the one included in the original whitepaper, for submitting simple POST requests, and a very simple proxy.php example that is a bit more useful than the straight passthrough example and a bit simpler than the login example (both shown as examples in the original whitepaper).

See the FMProxy link above, or the direct link to the zip further down in this post if you want to checkout the original whitepaper.

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FMProxy is a PHP class that facilitates authentication of Flex applications connecting to FileMaker Server. Today we are making this class available, along with a comprehensive whitepaper, discussing best practices for building Web authentication systems that handle user credentials responsibly.

You can open the pdf directly, or download a zip archive containing both the whitepaper and FMProxy code.

Enjoy!

RIAForg.org provides discussion forums. The FlexFM one hasn’t gotten used much, but blog reader stefano requested a forum, so I thought I’d promote the use of it.

http://flexfm.riaforge.org/index.cfm?event=page.forums

There was so much cool stuff at FileMaker Devcon this year. On top of the headliner features like ESS, it was really inspiring to see some of the amazing new FileMaker plug-ins that have come out to fully tap the possibilities the WebViewer object.

Todd Geist of Geist Interactive has teamed up with MonkeyBread Software and created a developer-friendly FileMaker version of the versatile MBS plug-in for Realbasic. This plug-in does so much more, but one of the most exciting features of this Swiss-Army-knife of a plug-in are the WebViewer functions. Here is a sampling of possibilities taken from Todd’s Web site:

• Call FileMaker Scripts from Web Pages.
• Read and write directly to and from Web Forms.
• Call JavaScript functions from FileMaker.
• Dynamically control the content of the Web Viewer.
• Makes Data URLs even more useful!
• Include interfaces built with AJAX/DHTML and Flash on your FileMaker layout

…so I’m thinking, “Hmmm, call FileMaker Scripts from Web pages; interfaces with Flash on your FileMaker layout? Me like!”

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In the Putting Flex and FileMaker together section of the How To page on this site, there is a five step lesson called Create a Flex app with FlexFM. I just posted that lesson as a six part screencast.

1. FlexFM App Intro
2. FlexFM App Step 1
3. FlexFM App Step 2
4. FlexFM App Step 3
5. FlexFM App Step 4
6. FlexFM App Step 5

Jeremiah

FlexFM is a newly created library that offers developers greater control and flexibility in using FileMaker® Server as a data back-end for Adobe® Flex-based applications. We at Soliant Consulting developed FlexFM for a specific purpose: to provide an additional, compelling alternative for Custom Web Publishing options available through FileMaker Server.

Indisputably, FileMaker Pro is a great tool for building highly customized LAN-based workgroup applications. Its relational database allows companies (large or small) to deliver rapidly created business tools that can stand alone or complement high-transactional systems written with Oracle, SAP, Microsoft® SQL Server, and the like. For years, we have used the CWP API provided with FileMaker Server to build hybrid applications for many of our clients who have large and complex database systems built in FileMaker Pro and who subsequently need to expose some portion of their systems to the Web.

Flex is a great option for extending a FileMaker application to the Web. It removes browser compatibility issues, delivers rich interfaces similar to what users are accustomed to seeing in desktop applications, and it allows us to stay focused on rapid development cycles with tools like Adobe’s Flex Builder. Flex also offers integrated tools for presenting visual data: charts, data-interactive images, drag-and-drop, greater tightly-controlled printing, and more. With FlexFM, both worlds are well served.

Feel free to browse through these pages to learn more about how FlexFM can bring FileMaker and Flex together. The FlexFM library, written in ActionScript 3, is being released as an open source project under a Creative Commons license.

On a personal note, I have a strong background in both FileMaker and Macromedia (now Adobe) technologies, and as a database developer, I have kept a close eye on the evolution of Flash. It’s always been clear to the folks at Adobe that it was more than an animation tool, and I’m thrilled to see the direction in which they’re taking Flex.

We hope you find FlexFM useful.

Scott Love, Soliant Consulting