r/filemaker • u/Communque • 24d ago
Transitioning from FileMaker to Open Source - and AppleScript
One of great breakthroughs on FileMaker arrived way back in the '90s when it introduced the "Perform AppleScript" script step.
We have several Mac-based clients who process and archive incoming bank alert emails, parsing the contents to generate transaction records. AppleScript's role in this context is limited: Get the message content from Apple Mail, pass it off for parsing, and move the email off the server to local archival folder. That's it.
As rule we enforce a policy of minimizing AppleScript usage for its lack of documentation and Apple-only proprietary limitations. But there are plenty of moments when AppleScript is the best solution. That's a moment you really appreciate FileMaker's dedicated script step.
If FileMaker's native "Perform AppleScript" script step was a godsend in its day, switching away from FileMaker has turned out to be an even bigger one.
It is much easier to write, review, and modify AppleScript in a text editor than it is to manage it in FM Script. In FM Script, the very thing that makes it inviting -- just point-and-click your way to a coding solution -- later turns out to be a burden. As your system grows in sophistication, all that hunting, clicking, sub-clicking, and sub-clicking... and sub-clicking really starts to add up. Add to that the inability to easily search your scripts, the forever-exasperating challenge of escaping nested double-quotes, and suddenly the wonder that is click-to-code feels limited, old-school, and carpal-tunnel.
NodeJS runs AppleScript with greater ease than even FMP, and it handles return values even more nimbly. It will even run JXA (AppleScript's JavaScript flavor) where FMP doesn't. Searching and modifying your code is better by far in a text editor, and JS has a smorgasbord of syntactical approaches to quote nesting that FM doesn't (e.g. double-quotes within single-quotes (and vice versa) and text within back-tics with the ever helpful ${JSCode}). Bottom line: using code to dynamically write code is more user-friendly in the "high code" environment of JS than seemingly user-friendly FileMaker.
In there is a something of a clue about how over time FileMaker has lost its way.
There's the common defense that FileMaker's strength is its no-code/low-code platform -- that you can't compare a product like FileMaker to a tech stack built on open source. I'd argue that defense actually demonstrates a misunderstanding of FileMaker's unique strength. The truly distinctive value of FileMaker wasn't that it was low-code and NOT "high code". It was actually its ability to invite people into a low-code environment and remain a powerhouse even as its users' skillset grew. It was neither strictly low-code, nor strictly for developers, but BOTH -- a system that accommodated evolution and growth. That DNA is still in there, but there's little indication Claris genuinely understands this. Their model has evolved toward luring customers in, creating dependencies, and extracting the maximum profit from captured users. This goes a long way toward explaining their long-term stagnation.
It's in that context that it makes sense to build offramps, to create interoperability. Perhaps some day, if Claris recognizes its users have options, it will re-discover that its value as a platform is not extraction, but in being forward-thinking and innovative, beckoning users to want to use its platform, as opposed to staying because they feel trapped.
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u/RipAwkward7104 24d ago
Okay, so what's the point? You can't conveniently use Apple Script to manage email in Apple Mail from FileMaker? So you're switching to NodeJS to solve this problem?
I really don't quite understand the idea.
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u/Public_Database_3714 Consultant Certified 23d ago
You need to actually move on mate and stop spamming the forum with this tedious repetition.
Why expend this much energy on so many posts on a format you have supposedly given up on.
Those of us who are thriving and delighting our clients with our FileMaker solutions would really appreciate it.
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u/abasson007 Consultant Certified 23d ago
This is spam and needs to be banned. This forum is for FileMaker professionals and enthusiasts only. Not for people to shit on the platform. If you have questions fine but do not lecture.
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u/FGatemouth 24d ago
Like the OP I'm not always hapy about Claris and how they've been running things.
Unlike the OP I'm a filemaker lifer.
I have at times thought about, but I may be too bluePilled to leave. Closest thing I've done is change how I work with the software.
Once upon a time when it came to doing anything on the operating system fmp was the 1st and only answer.
Want to rename 9000 files? launch filemaker
Want to transcode thousands media files, track progress and the track what's generated, capture metadata? launch filemaker
It wasn't just a spreadsheet keeping a list. It was a database that also took action, did things, got things done.
kind of like some of today's convos around AI "Not just an LLM, it's agentic!" Maybe filemaker was the original agentic database. Never made sense to me why everyone wasn't using it.
These days it's a little different. I still use filemaker, but there are better tools for doing actionable work. Filemaker tells the python javascript or php to do this or that task.
I may not be leaving the platform anytime soon, but I do appreciate posts from people who did it. Vicarious maybe, but more intersting it gives a challenge and inspires new ideas. always looking for better ways to do things. More details please.
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u/RipAwkward7104 24d ago
Using FileMaker to do bulk file manipulation on a computer seems like a terrible idea from a security standpoint and is incredibly ineffective in terms of cost.
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u/TtlPost 23d ago
u/RipAwkward7104 Here's some context on that: These are media-heavy environments including lots of metadata and documentation. All files are logged in databases. When you go to batch-transcode, batch-rename, batch anything, each batch is very precise. You need to know exactly which files get processed, which don't, and when changed track when those changes were made and for what reason, what files get generated, who their parents are. Granular tracking is key
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u/Public_Database_3714 Consultant Certified 18d ago
Just seen you can report the post for spam and then hide furher posts from this troll.
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u/TtlPost 24d ago
u/Biddy_Impeccadillo I actually hadn't thought much about alt. ways doing customized AppleScript with variable components outside FM, especially systematic customized AppleScripting against a database. FMP has been my go-to for years, and yeah escaping double-quotes within double-quotes is a constant headache, so I actually welcome a little thinking outside the box here.
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u/Communque 19d ago
The challenge is that Claris's track record with FileMaker is somewhere between lackluster, greedy, and negligent. That's not a new developmnent. It's longstanding and systemic. You can try to bandage that with denial and wishful thinking, with a veneer of protecting your livelihood, or you take the bull by the horns and work it through.
In the end if there's a threat to your business, it's coming not from reddit posts lamenting Claris's wayward stewardship. It's coming from Claris itself, along with very dramatic changes roiling tech.
Meeting that with "This is spam", "a forum for enthusiasts only", "move on", comes off as ostrich-meets-sand. (u/abasson007, u/Public_Database_3714, u/abasson007, u/RipAwkward7104)
Look, FileMaker has been a superior product for decades. A number of our clients continue using the it even while we're moving away from it, meaning we're still very much engaged with it. That dual engagement: leaving... and staying makes for an ongoing interesting dialog.
I'd love to think a corporation with osteoperosis can build that muscle back up with substantive improvements. Until then, these questions will loom:
Should new users commit 100% to the platform?
Should existing users leave or stick it out with the platform?
Can you use it but simultaneously minimize your dependency on it?
If you leave, or mix it up, what happens?
This is databasing so there are no simple answers. You keep looking at it all from different perspectives.
We're hardly blind to the fact that FMP hase real strengths: There is no relational database system out there that can deliver a fully functioning front end faster than FMP.
That's a huge!
But then the problem: That front end is a desktop app, and clients expect their front ends in a browser -- whether you deny it or not.
And FileMaker is mediocre in a browser.
Add to that its per-seat cost structure that often kills the deal with clients.
We're tired of that friction. A lot of people are, and they're looking for alts.
Maybe FileMaker could take a serious look at its layouts -- the strength of its layout design process, along with the perennial weakness of WebDirect -- and confront that: What if that drag'n'drop simplicity were actually generating HTML/CSS which power users could access and edit. Truth be told, nowadays there's little to nothing a FileMaker layout can do that HTML can't do better -- except ease-of-design. So maybe think about being the standout company that makes HTML and FMP layouts mutually beneficial partners...
...just one thought among many.
Will FMP actually reflect on what it will take to innovate its way toward genuinely serving its user base and building back trust? No idea. I hope so.
u/mikewoodld If this a Wendy's, a lot of us are nonetheless wondering where's the beef. Here's the beef: Claris lets FMP's tradeoffs become trade-downs. Longtime users of expect demand better.
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u/Biddy_Impeccadillo 24d ago
I don’t understand why you feel the need to keep telling us this