Instant Web Publishing Guide

Designing a database for Instant Web Publishing 25
1 Communication from a client to the FileMaker host goes through intermediary technologies with
Instant Web Publishing. When you request data with Instant Web Publishing, you are sending the
request from a web browser to a virtual FileMaker environment, which processes your request,
then requests and retrieves the results from FileMaker
Pro. These results are then passed back to
the browser. This interaction is usually undetectable to web users, but occasionally you must take
action to make sure the results are the same regardless of how clients access your database.
Because web users don’t have a direct connection to the host, they aren’t notified immediately
when data changes. For example, you may need to update your scripts to include the Commit
Record/Request to refresh the browser window. For more information, see
“Script steps tips and
considerations” on page 27 and “Creating a script to log out of a database and close the session”
on page 29.
1 When defining account names and passwords, use characters included in the ISO Latin-1
character set (except colons). To avoid characters that may be interpreted incorrectly on the web,
you may want to limit account names and passwords to alphabetic and numeric characters only.
1 It is best not to set too many field validations on a layout. When web users submit a record, an
error is returned each time a validation has not been met.
1 Typically, third party plug-ins can be used for web published databases if they do not attempt to
display information to an end-user’s screen, if they do not require direct end-user interaction, if
they do not interact with the FileMaker Pro user interface, or otherwise require interaction from
end users.
1 When hosting a database with FileMaker Server Advanced, only use plug-ins that have been
enabled for the FileMaker
Server Web Publishing Engine. (In general, a plug-in designed for use
only with FileMaker Pro will not be compatible with the Web Publishing Engine.) For
information on installing plug-ins on FileMaker
Server Advanced, see the FileMaker Server
Advanced Web Publishing Installation Guide,
included with FileMaker Server Advanced.
1 You should not access the same file from multiple browser windows.
Working with graphics, sounds, and movies on the web
When you publish a database on the web with Instant Web Publishing, web users can work with
data in container fields in limited ways:
1 Web users can't play sounds or display OLE objects in a container field—a graphic is displayed
instead.
1 Web users can't add graphics, sounds, or movies to a container field.
Important Images can either be stored inside the database itself or, for best performance, stored as
file reference using a relative path. If you’re hosting the database with FileMaker
Pro, referenced
image and movie files must be stored in the Web folder, in the FileMaker Pro folder.
Setting the initial layout and view
When a FileMaker Pro database is set to perform a script at startup, users who access the database
through Instant Web Publishing can see the results of that script each time they open the database.