BaseElements FileMaker Plugin

BaseElements is very powerful free plugin from Goya . Among it’s dozens of useful features is the ability to create FileMaker code in the form of ClipBoard objects and place them on the clipboard so you can paste them into your solution.  We used this to add a hidden feature to our GoSign Configurator to make integrations even easier.

FileMaker has a special clipboard format that it uses when you copy and paste things like scripts, custom functions, layouts, etc. BaseElements has the ability to read and write that format. The formats are basically data object wrapped around an XML representation of the FileMaker code. It is almost exactly the same schema as the one used by the FileMaker Database Design Report.  BaseElements can take the clipboard objects and turn it into xml and it can take properly formatted XML and turn it into a valid clipboard object that can be pasted back into FileMaker.

This feature is often used bey developers to create libraries of little code snippets that they use all the time.  They copy the useful code, use BaseElements to turn it into XML and then store it a database or a text file for easy retrieval later. Whats done less often is to generate the proper XML format for something like a Script or a Layout Object from scratch, and convert that to the clipboard object and paste.  This is what we did with GoSign v3.0

Configurator Generates a WebViewer

GoSign v3 has a Configurator that developers can use to configure the Signature Pad to look and act the way they want. If you have BaseElements installed, GoSign’s Configurator can generate the entire properly setup WebViewer that you just need to past on to your layout.  We create the XML that describes the WebViewer complete with the user’s configurations. Then we pass it to BaseElements which converts it to the proper clipboard format and places it on the ClipBoard.  Then it just  a simple paste on any layout and you have your configurator.

If you want to see it action download the

 file, and make sure you have BaseElements installed. Watch the movie to see how it works.