Developer’s Guide

6-8 Developer’s Guide
First, you create a startup script to hide the Instant Web Publishing
interface. Then you create buttons in the layouts to navigate the web
site and perform database functions. To bypass the Instant Web
Publishing home page, you use a custom home page that contains a
redirect statement for opening the database layout in a particular
instant web page.
Overview of using a database layout as the Instant Web
Publishing home page
To create a custom home page that uses a database layout for the
interface:
1. In Layout mode in FileMaker Pro, design the layout for your
custom home page. Create script buttons for every type of interaction
you want the web user to be able to do on this page. (See “Using
script buttons in Instant Web Publishing” on page 6-8.)
2. Create a startup script that hides the Instant Web Publishing
interface. (See “Suppressing the Instant Web Publishing interface”
on page 6-11.)
3. Enable the Web Companion and configure it for Instant Web
Publishing.
4. Set up file sharing for the database through the Web Companion
(see “Sharing the database via the Web” on page 6-5), and click Set
Up Views in the File Sharing dialog box.
5. In the Web Companion View Setup dialog box, choose either Soft
Gray, Lavender, Wheat, or Blue and Gold 1 for the web style. Then
specify the layout you want used for each view (instant web page).
6. Choose Edit > Preferences > Document and set up FileMaker Pro to
switch to the layout you created in step 1 and perform the startup
script you created in step 2 when the database opens.
When the database is opened in the web browser, the layout that you
select for the Switch to Layout option in the Document Preferences
dialog box overrides all layouts selected in the Web Companion
View Setup dialog box for file sharing.
7. Create a web page with a redirect statement that bypasses the built-
in Instant Web Publishing home page and displays your custom
layout in the browser. (See “Bypassing the Instant Web Publishing
home page” on page 6-12.)
8. Configure the Web Companion to open the web page as the default
home page. (See “Specifying a custom home page as the default” on
page 6-6.)
Now when you enter your computer’s IP address or “localhost” in
the web browser, the Web Companion will display the database
layout for your custom home page in the browser window.
Using script buttons in Instant Web Publishing
You can provide special script buttons in your FileMaker Pro layout
to work with Instant Web Publishing. When web users click on a
button in the browser, the script’s URL is sent to the Web
Companion as a FileMaker CGI request.
If the script is a single script step, an onClick JavaScript event
handler is executed and a URL is generated containing the current
state information in the browser and information from the script step
extracted by the Web Companion.
If the script contains multiple script steps, state information from the
first three supported steps is extracted to construct a JavaScript state
object (scriptState) that encapsulates the result of the executed script.
The resulting information is passed to the JavaScript runtime
application (Instant Web Publishing), which interprets the state
object, builds the resulting URL, and sends the CGI request to the
Web Companion.
Note For information about FileMaker CGI requests made in custom
web publishing, see “Generating FileMaker Pro CGI requests using
CDML” on page 8-3 and “Generating FileMaker Pro CGI requests
for an XML document” on page 7-8.