Welcome

What did the discussion at DrupalCon DC consist of?

Curious to find out where this is "at".

How are people currently doing this integration? Is an OS X Leopard server required so that FileMaker can be housed on the same server as Drupal?

Thanks for the group/post!

I'm curious why using custom web publishing via one of the API's didn't come up as a common solution - is it too obvious or not recommended for some reason?

Using either FX.php or Filemaker PHP and the PHP input filter it's pretty simple to publish Filemaker based data as part of a Drupal site. And if the content isn't especially time sensitive adding in the Necode MySQL caching (for either short or long periods) is a great benefit. The Filemaker content even gets indexed as part of the search.

On top of that you can then apply all kinds of jQuery (using Drupal modules) UI tools to your Filemaker data - as in the case of sorting tables or filtering information.

Hi All,

I just wanted to let you know that Micah Woods, head honcho of Scodigo who bring you SmartPill, presented on Drupal integration at FM DevCon 2008.

http://www.scodigo.com/support/downloads/
(it is a drupal site, and not sure whether you have to be authenticated view/download, I signed up for a 30 day trial of SmartPill and there it was)

That is already a long time ago, but it is close enough to make it interesting to poke around in.

Essentially he uses ESS to MySQL views particular to his needs -- and it seems he lets Drupal worry about the rest.

Independently, a few months back and unaware of Scodigo at the time, I too connected my SandBox via FileMaker ESS and it worked quite well.

However, I didn't dare use anything but the SandBox; before I was willing to risk any real data I wanted to work through all the schema requirements so that I 'played nice' with Drupal -- hence why I am excited about the XML-RPC alternative spoken of here and suggested independently by a DevCon 2010 presenter trying to sync with SAP.

I didn't see anything in the cursory look at the Micah Woods presentation that indicated that he worked through all the details, requirements, hooks required by the Drupal Schema (although he might have and it was merely beyond the scope of his presentation).

I recommend that we start with his views SQL code as a starting point and travel the XML-RPC path. However, it isn't clear to me either way that SmartPill is required for this.

I think there are a few interesting things we can look at:
1. What strategy is best for "just getting FileMaker data into Drupal once". This is often the only task that people want, especially when they are abandoning the desktop for the web.
2. What strategy is best for continual interaction with Drupal from within FileMaker where FileMaker houses the core business data and expresses the core business logic within the FileMaker application. That is, you already have a robust FileMaker application that you want to "express" on the web using Drupal. This could be anything, but a most interesting might be allowing an UberCart site to "process" orders in FileMaker
3. What strategy is best for continual interaction with Drupal from within FileMaker where Drupal houses the core business data and expresses the core business logic within the Drupal constellation of modules/cck/views. That is, you already have (or are building and committing to) a full-blown Drupal Site and you want to have the convenience of FileMaker for some Reporting and/or Admin features.
4. Someone could (and it seems maybe a few have) work with FXphp (BTW Chris Hansen granddaddy of FXphp now works for Scodigo from what I read) or anything else to work on an 'Official' Drupal database abstraction layer to make FileMaker a backend. Regardless of cost and performance, there is nothing about Drupal that should rebuff another option of backend database to go with MySQL and Postgres... if it is something people want, then it is something people want. In that case, I think that it would be prudent to use the Drupal Schema in FileMaker as the "back-end" to any "front-end" FileMaker application as well -- hence those SQL Views would still be worthwhile, but more informing the Front-End relationship grid and some resulting layouts.

The key is to start learning from and sharing with eachother. I think we should create a common Sandbox for this and have discreet tasks for benchmarking, testing, researching and so on.

I would love to get my eyes on an XML-RPC screencast or tutorial. Then I would imagine that I could write the "Hello Drupal!" node from there. Anyone got any links to pass on?

Since a 'conversation' was the genesis of this group, maybe we should have a Mikogo usergroup meeting? (I haven't tested it with more than 3, but Mikogo is free for up to 6 and has conference calling.) Anyone up for it?

Thanks in advance,
Ferdly