Is SmartPill the ScriptMaster of PHP?
Hello All,
So ScriptMaster from 360Works promises to run and and interact with results from Groovy code (a flavor of java) within FileMaker. Now I discover SmartPill from Scodigo that promises to run and interact with results from PHP code within FileMaker.
So essentially, are the two products doing the same thing but supporting two different code bases?
That is, in SAT-ese is it true the SmartPill is to PHP as ScriptMaster is to Groovy?
(Just as Groovy is to Java as JQuery is to JavaScript.)
A simple Yes-No would be great, but of course, as this is a forum I welcome people to respond more robustly.
I watched a screencast and I was very impressed, but I am still a little bit unsure how this changes my coding paradigm.
Will SmartPill just do things directly and elegantly [like the date() date to string formatting function with functionality long wanting in FileMaker]? And/or will SmartPill let me fully integrate a Web application with a Desktop application? And/or will SmartPill allow me to render custom HTML to FileMaker Webviewer (as PHP's raison detre would imply) which would imply a new and robust reporting paradigm?
I am so excited to get my hands on the 30 day trial, but I want to understand it beyond a "cool toy" to be able to argue persuasively (if indicated) to a client that they should purchase this plugin as a prerequisite cost (lumped in the the client and server license fees).
Thanks in advance for any response...l
Sincerely,
Brad
Belated Thanks!
Hi Micah,
As I am sure you are used to, deadlines, disasters, and nagging support babies all impinge on learning new technologies.
Indeed, the target application for which I am seriously considering SmartPill has reached the point where manually FTPing the key config data to an '.inc' file with data from within the FileMaker application that will be used within the PHP applications is getting tedious -- and most importantly, not instantaneous upon data changes.
So I am back at the learning curve for SmartPill, and justified in concentrating my full effort on it (as opposed to playing with a 'cool tool').
From what I have read, and rewatching some of the videos, I am convinced that more and more can be written in PHP and Executed in FileMaker -- so long as I abstract the code at the proper spot I will be able to write one function, class, method and use it within web-based PHP applications and *also* within FileMaker applications.
I love blurring the line between the power of FileMaker and the ubiquity of the web and with SmartPill it would seem that there is less need for redundancy of code and data -- indeed, where I might use data in a FileMaker script the same way I do in PHP -- where the data is a snapshot collected from MySQL and that FileMaker tables become essentially 'cache' for leveraging the power for FileMaker (reporting, document creation, backend admin).
However, first I only need SmartPill to replace a mail plugin, a file management (read, write, copy, rename) plugin, and an FTP plugin. Which by all accounts it is ready to do pretty much out of the box.
Thank you again for your thoughtful response, and apologies again for the belated thanks.
Brad
Is SmartPill the ScriptMaster of PHP?
Hello Brad,
I think you got a few answers regarding this topic from your post on FileMaker's TechNet. In short I think the answer is yes, SmartPill is to PHP as ScriptMaster is to Groovy. In regards to "cool toy" or "essential tool", I think you have to answer that yourself. If you require functionality that FileMaker doesn't offer, plug-ins are typically the solution. The real power of SmartPill is the wealth of functionality available in PHP. PHP is also a good fit because of FileMaker's PHP API and the fact that many FileMaker developers are familiar with PHP (I would guess that more FileMaker developers know PHP vs. Groovy/Java).
A few of my recent projects include FTP, credit card processing, electronic submission of prescriptions and image resizing.
Also keep in mind that there's often open source code available that can be adapted to provide a solution.
Regards,
Micah