Need to run AppleScripts from FileMaker, but want to call an AppleScript from inside a calculation expression or easier methods of passing parameters back and forth? Beezwax has a new version of our bBox plug-in, which we are making freely available that can help with this.
Since the bBox plug-in is a toolbox of functions, there’s actually a wide variety of things it can do besides AppleScript calls. Here’s a brief run-down:
What functions does it provide?
¢ execute AppleScripts, with parameters passing and return value as the function's result
¢ execute shell scripts, with the output returned as the function's result
¢ filter text through a direct call to grep (no shell intermediate call), the powerful pattern matching command
¢ return the current time with milliseconds
¢ sort lines of text (optionally allowing you to specify a column or character range)
¢ find out what types of data are currently in the clipboard and extract them as text
¢ get path type (file or directory), file size, creation, modification and last date opened, POSIX permissions
What can I do with it?
¢ get an XML version of FileMaker script, fields, layout, and table objects in clipboard
¢ extract emails or phone numbers from text
¢ run perl, php, python, or ruby based scripts
¢ check if a file is present
¢ strip duplicate values from a return-delimited list
¢ present a dialog asking user to select a file or choose from a list of values
¢ determine if a needed type of data is in the clipboard
¢ execute a command requiring admin authentication
¢ time execution of scripts down to the millisecond
Includes an extensive demo file. Download it or find out more by going to:
Simon Brown
Beezwax Datatools, Inc.
http://beezwax.net