Custom Web Publishing Guide

Chapter 1
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Introducing Custom Web Publishing 11
1 Security: As the administrator for the Web Publishing Engine, you can individually enable or disable
Instant Web Publishing, XML web publishing, or XSLT web publishing for all databases hosted by the
server. As the FileMaker database owner, you can control web user access to Instant Web Publishing,
XML web publishing, or XSLT web publishing for each database.
1 Server-side stylesheets: Server-side XSLT stylesheet processing prevents unauthorized examination of
confidential database information that might otherwise be possible with client-side stylesheets.
1 Control and filtering of published data: By using XSLT stylesheets, you can control and filter the data
and the type of database information you want to publish, which prevents unauthorized use of the
database. You can also hide metadata, such as database and field names.
1 Based on open standards: You have more access to tools, resources and skilled personnel for Custom
Web Publishing solutions. If you know standard XML or XSLT, then you can immediately start
developing solutions after learning a few unique details about Custom Web Publishing with XML, such
as the URL syntax and query parameters to use.
1 Assisted migration from CDML solutions: The FileMaker CDML Converter tool helps you convert
CDML format files to XSLT stylesheets and is useful in your process of learning XSLT. CDML format
files and XSLT stylesheets are similar and the differences are easily understandable. XSLT stylesheets
can be more complex and powerful than CDML format files.
About Custom Web Publishing with XML
Custom Web Publishing with XML provides the ability to query for data in FileMaker databases, and to
easily use the data in whatever way you want to. By using an HTTP request with the appropriate query
commands and parameters, you can retrieve FileMaker data as an XML document. You can then use the
XML data in other applications, or apply an XSLT stylesheet to the XML data. See
chapter 3, “Accessing
XML data with the Web Publishing Engine.”
About Custom Web Publishing with XSLT
Custom Web Publishing with XSLT provides the ability to transform, filter, or format XML data for use in
a web browser or in other applications. You can use an XSLT stylesheet to transform the data between a
FileMaker XML grammar and another XML grammar for use in another application or database. You can
filter the data by controlling which database fields are published by the stylesheet. You can format how the
data is presented in a web page, and control how the web user interacts with the data. See
chapter 4,
“Introduction to Custom Web Publishing with XSLT.”
The Web Publishing Engine uses your stylesheets to dynamically obtain data from a FileMaker database
whenever a web user sends an HTTP request and a URL that references one of your XSLT stylesheets. The
Web Publishing Engine uses a stylesheet to transform and format the XML data, and generates the resulting
HTML page that the web user can work with.
For additional information about using FileMaker Server Advanced Custom Web Publishing with XML and
XSLT, visit www.filemaker.com/downloads.