We’ve been busy working on our free BaseElements plugin again. This is a minor alpha release, but contains quite a few changes.
JSON
First we’ve added more JSON support in the ability to encode data in the required JSON format. So a new function :
BE_JSON_Encode ( key {; value ; type } )
Allows you to build properly encoded JSON data. Using this one function as a base, you can encode pretty much any FileMaker data into proper JSON. Some structures ( arrays etc ) need a little manual extra work, but the work of having proper JSON data in FileMaker is now simple with both incoming data ( BE_JSONPath ) and now outgoing available.
Value Lists
We’ve also added some basic list manipulation that really should be in the FileMaker function list, but isn’t.
BE_Values_Unique ( listOfValues )
Will trim a list down into only unique values.
BE_Values_Sort ( listOfValues )
Sorts a list alphanumerically.
BE_Values_FilterOut ( textToFilter ; filterValues )
Does the opposite of FilterValues where it leaves in only the filtered values, this one leaves them out. In other words it’s like a NOT function for Value Lists – remove anything in the textToFilter that is in filterValues, leaving only the values NOT in the list.
HTTP PUT
Our first iteration of this function only allows you to upload a file. So we’ve split the functions into two :
BE_HTTP_PUT_DATA ( url ; data {; username ; password } )
and
BE_HTTP_PUT_FILE ( url ; path {; username ; password } )
That will make it simpler to update records in Web Services using the plugin.
Dialogs
We’ve also tweaked some of the progress dialog functions so they display better, especially on Windows.
Download
You can download the Mac, Windows 32 bit and Windows 64 bit versions today, it is version 2.1.0a4.