One of the things I’ve done manually in BaseElements is to have the some configuration options stored in the user’s preferences folder in a text file. This helps to make it easier to have options unique for each user, but without a user table in the FileMaker file. This has worked well so far, but with this method you need to :
- Manually locate the preferences folder on each platform as there is no Get ( PreferencesPath ) function.
- Manage the reading, writing and creation of the file on disk.
- Develop and maintain your own structure for the content of your preferences on disk.
None of these are insurmountable problems, but they can add to the complexity of a preference system. What would be much simpler would be a simple Get and Set method that handled all of the underlying details for you.
Version 1.3 of our BaseElements plugin now has just that functionality. There is a Get and SetPreference function call which allows you to set user level preferences and have them stored inside the users preference folder without any issue of managing files or storing data.
The documentation on the wiki describes the new functions, and the Todo list page contains download links for the new release.
This new functionality will be in the next release of RefreshFM, and will at some point come into a future release of BaseElements as well.
HTTPS as well
If you’re following the development of the plugin, this version also adds HTTPS to the Get url function. At present this limits the plugin to FileMaker 11, so if you need it on older platforms hold off until a later release resolves this limitation.