Macintosh – FileMakerHacks

This is a quick follow up to A Tip for MBS “Check Variable Names” from earlier this year. The other day I noticed variable name checking wasn’t working in one of my scripts. The culprit turned out to be MBS’s default 500 step limit for variable name checking. According to the documentation, the limit exists for performance reasons, but it turns out it can be adjusted like so.

MBS ( "SyntaxColoring.CheckVariableDeclaration.SetLimits" ; 2000 )

As you can see, I’ve quadrupled the number of script steps that MBS will check. I don’t plan to ever write, or have to work on, a script this long, but you never know. At any rate, problem solved, and so far I have not noticed any performance degradation in the script workspace.

You can read all about this function here on the MBS web site — https://www.mbsplugins.eu/SyntaxColoringCheckVariableDeclarationSetLimits.shtml

Level: Intermediate, Macintosh

A Tip for MBS “Check Variable Names”

March 8, 2025September 12, 2025 Kevin Frank

7 Aug 2025 – See also Another Tip for MBS “Check Variable Names”

If you’re on MacOS, and use the Monkeybread (a.k.a. MBS) plug-in with “check variable names” enabled, you quickly come to appreciate how useful this feature, also known as linting, can be.

For example I recently helped another developer track down a script problem that turned out to be a slight misspelling of a variable name, a misspelling subtle enough that it took us a long time to see it (of course for most of that time we didn’t realize the $var name was the culprit). If he’d had Monkeybread installed and this feature turned on, we’d have saved about 45 minutes. Actually I shouldn’t say “we”… my colleague would have immediately seen the problem and wouldn’t have bothered to contact me. Continue reading “A Tip for MBS “Check Variable Names”” →

Beverly Voth, General, Level: Intermediate, Macintosh, Version: FM 8 or later, Windows

Fixed Width for EDI and Other Reporting

August 29, 2012August 24, 2022 beverlyvoth

Editor’s note: Today it’s my pleasure to present a guest article written by Beverly Voth. Like many other developers, I have enjoyed and benefitted from her ongoing contributions to the FileMaker community.

I do a lot of text manipulation for EDI (Electronic data interchange – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_data_interchange) and plain text exports with fixed-width field data. Some varieties of EDI use XML, but this article is about plain text. EDI may or may not use the fixed-width format. Fixed-width reports may or may not use delimiters and various “padding” characters.

I created two FileMaker custom functions to help me calculate fixed-width and EDI text for export, and if you wish, you can follow along in today’s demo file, Fixed Width EDI.

Continue reading “Fixed Width for EDI and Other Reporting” →

Level: Beginner, Macintosh, Version: FM 8 or later

Keychain Mitigation

September 3, 2011February 10, 2014 Kevin Frank

Recently I developed a system where the client wanted each user to only be able to see his or her own entries, and thanks to Custom Menus, some judicious scripting, and a bit of trial and error, this was accomplished.

I was feeling rather pleased with myself when the client asked, “What about the Keychain?” Well, what indeed? The Macintosh OS has a feature called the Keychain that “helpfully” offers to remember login credentials so that users don’t have to repeatedly type them in.

So imagine a situation where User A has instructed the Keychain to remember login credentials. What happens if User B gains access to User A’s computer, and opens the database? That’s what the client was wondering… actually, he knew what would happen (User B would gain access to User A’s entries). The question he was really asking was, “What are you going to do about it?”

Continue reading “Keychain Mitigation” →