Setting a Filemaker Pro cell to a Thumbnail of an image file

Scripting Forums AppleScript | Mac OS X
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#1

I’m trying to set a cell in Filemaker Pro 7 to the Thumbnail of an image file rather than the file itself.
This script sets the cell to the image file, but I don’t know how to get just the Thumbnail.


set myfile to "Franny:Users:mercadmin:Documents:Approved_Print:6.39_Zac_Sha_B_213482"

tell application "FileMaker Pro Advanced"
	set cell "cf_AdImage" of current record to file myfile
end tell

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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#2

Hi,

You could just create a calculation field in your datasbase called image_address that would be related to the image id.

so if you had an image in the folder images on an imac main drive, the calculated field would be
“image:/Imac/Images/” &image_id & “.jpg”

That way if you change the image you don’t need to re-import. Filemaker 7 & 8 will just look for the image

Doug

#3

Ah, very cleaver, that saves alot of importing. The only problem is that this again gives me the image, where as when I run the import I get the thumbnail, which displays in my database quicker.

I do think I can incorporate this, so thank you for the post.

#4

The calculation field method is good for some situations, where there a numerous large image files in a highly organized folder structure, whose paths you can calculated within the database. This can be on a local or mounted drive; for the later you need to use the prefix “imagemac:/” and the full path incl. the volume name. Look at the examples in the image path dialog of the Insert Picture script step, or read the Help.

But creating a path to the full size picture is NOT going to show you a thumbnail. It will show you the full size image. You can make the Graphic, “Reduce” size in FileMaker, so it looks like a thumbnail. But it will take just as long to load, hence making it pretty useless. There are a few methods to get a real thumbnail.

  1. Specify Thumbnail when you Import. You do this in the Import Folder script step (or command). It means you have to import an entire folder. If you line up the Thumbnail to a “Thumbnail” container field, a 128 thumb will be created on the fly. The trick is to not line up the Image field (full size picture), if you only really want to create a thumbnail for existing records. Obviously if you’re bringing in new images, then line up the Image field, but be sure to check “As reference only” in the main dialog; otherwise you’ll embed the big image also.

Use the “Matching records” option, and use the File Name (must be unique) as the match field (click its arrow and it will change to an = equals sign). Do not check “Add new records.” You MUST Show All Records first if you want to match all existing records. It can only match within the found set.

  1. Use the calculation method for BOTH the thumbnails and the images. This means you’d have to use either your graphics program (both GraphicConverter and Photoshop have batch operations) or AppleScript’s Image Events app to create a folder of thumbnails from your existing image files. The thumbnails would not be embedded in FileMaker, but they should still be pretty fast.

  2. Similar to above. But use Image Events to produce the thumbnail on command from the image file, then embed it in FileMaker. This gives you the same result as method 1, an embedded thumbnail. It is not that hard to do. Unfortunately the script I have is a more complex applet, which does method 2. You can also use the GraphicsImporter OSAX to do this method 3. It can create a thumbnail without writing a file. But I just got a new iMac Intel and GI (and most other Scripting Additions) no longer show up. So I guess its future is dark.

If you post this question to http://www.fmforums.com I could upload a file with my existing script. It needs its folders, etc., so it would work so well here.