We will be undergoing scheduled maintenance on May 20th, 2013 at 02:00 GMT.
FileMaker and PHP Foundations Tutorials
Introduction / The Development Environment
Subtitles of the Movie (FileMaker and PHP Foundations / Introduction / The Development Environment)
In this tutorial we're going to be talking about the development environment. We just want to make sure that you have FileMaker Server all installed and configured correctly to work with PHP and kind of let you know what I'm going to be using as far as my development environment so that you can follow along with me. First of all let's look at FileMaker Server. Notice that I'm talking about FileMaker Server and not FileMaker Pro. You need to know that PHP cannot communicate directly with FileMaker Pro or FileMaker Pro Advanced. If you want to do custom web publishing with PHP you need to purchase FileMaker Server or Server Advanced. These are the products that FileMaker ships to work directly with PHP. When you installed FileMaker Server you were probably asked about configuration options for setting up custom web publishing. If you're not sure how you answered those questions or whether you want to review that configuration setup, you can always redeploy the server which will walk you through those same sets of questions again. To do this, click on the FileMaker Server Overview in the User Admin Console. And on the right-hand side you'll see the option that says Edit Server Deployment. Here you'll be walked through the same set of questions that you were given when you installed FileMaker Server. To test whether or not FileMaker Server is set up correctly to work with PHP, go up to the icon at the very top in the User Admin Console called the Technology Test Page. When this opens up you'll see an option at the bottom that says Test PHP Custom Web Publishing. If you don't see this link down here at the bottom then you probably haven't configured in that Deployment Wizard your server to work with PHP. When you click on that you should see a list of records pulled from the example database that ships with FileMaker Server. And a green icon on the left-hand side which denotes that everything's running correctly. If you see a red icon and an error message and you don't see data pulled from the database, then something's not working correctly and you're not ready yet to start working with PHP. You'll need to consult your documentation or get help with your FileMaker Server to make sure that you see exactly what you're looking at on my screen right now. Once the technology is working correctly, you're now ready to begin working with PHP. In order to work with php you're going to need a Code Editor. I use a Code Editor called TextWrangler which is actually free. It's got syntax highlighting and is really conducive for writing PHP code. You can get it from Bare Bones software. It's available only for the Macintosh. But if you're running a Windows system and you do a search on the web for free text editors you'll find a whole lot of options to choose from. So once you acquire your text editor and there are some that are more complicated and have more features but you have to pay for. Go ahead and install it and get that ready to go. If you want to try type in this sample code right here and see if you have the syntax highlighting and setup correctly, then you'll be ready to go exactly how I am. You may want to test your code, type it in and make sure that you have syntax highlighting and setup the way you like. And that you're ready to start writing PHP code in your text editor. The other icon you'll see down here at the bottom of my screen on the dock is my web browser. You can use any web browser you want because remember php code is actually going to be processed by the server. It's HTML and JavaScript that will be coming back out to the browser. So go ahead and feel comfortable to use the browser of your choice. I'm using the browser that ships with the Macintosh called Safari. Then I have my FileMaker Applications. I'm using FileMaker Pro Advanced because that's what's installed on my machine. But you can use FileMaker Pro. We're just going to be using that to edit our database, that's our testing or example database that will be shared on the server and set up correctly to work with PHP on the web. The last thing that I'll mention before we quit this tutorial is some editors such as the Text Edit Application that ships with the Apple computers are rich text editors. They allow for complicated styling and formatting such as Microsoft Word or Pages. These types of applications aren't the best for writing code. They actually can bury under the hood special characters that have to do with the styling and the formatting. But those characters will cause problems when they try to get processed by the server and sent out the browser. So try to avoid rich text editors and stick with the simple code editor. Well now that we've covered the development environment, we're ready to move on to working with PHP and custom web publishing.
Tutorial Information
| Course: | FileMaker and PHP Foundations |
| Author: | Lance Hallberg |
| SKU: | 34393 |
| ISBN: | 978-1-61866-077-0 |
| Release Date: | 2012-12-07 |
| Duration: | 7.5 hrs / 97 lessons |
| Work Files: |
Yes |
| Captions: | No |
| Compatibility: |
Vista/XP/2000, OS X, Linux QuickTime 7, Flash 8 |
VTC Sign up & Benefits
- Unlimited Access
- 81,350 Video Tutorials (14,200 free)
- Video Available as Flash or QuickTime
- Over 715 Courses
- $30 for One Month Access
- Multi-User Discounts Available
