360Works Difference Engine User Guide

The 360 Works DifferencePlugin shows differences between blocks of text as styled text.

Customizing Styles

You can customize the color and style of text which is used to represent added, deleted, or modified text.

Each of the three style customization methods accepts values for red, green, blue, styles, as well as optional values for opening tags and closing tags. The red, green, and blue must be numbers between 0 and 255. The styles number can be any combination of Filemaker style codes, such as: bold + italic + strikethrough. Consult the Filemaker reference for the numeric equivalents for these keywords, if necessary. The opening and closing tags are blocks of text that are appended immediately before or after added, deleted or modified text.

Note: In addition to the standard FileMaker text styles, you can pass a -1 as a style parameter, and text of this type will not be returned in the result. This is especially useful for deletions.

You can use the custom tags to generate HTML versions of a difference engine result. For example: 

Set Variable [ $style = diffStyleDeletedText( 0 ; 0 ; 0 ; "plain" ; "" ; "" ) ]
Set Variable [ $style = diffStyleAddedText( 0 ; 0 ; 0 ; "plain" ; "" ; "" ) ]
Set Variable [ $style = diffStyleModifiedText( 0 ; 0 ; 0 ; "plain" ; "" ; "" ) ]

Viewing Differences

Once your styles are set, viewing the differences is very simple, just call the differencesBetween function, passing in the two blocks of text. For example: 
Set Field [ Globals::differenceReport = differencesBetween ( myTable::oldText ; myTable::newText ) ]

Error Handling/Reporting

When something unexpected happens, a plugin function returns a result of "ERROR". This makes it easy to check for errors. If a plugin function returns "ERROR", call the diffLastError function to get a detailed description of what went wrong.

Here is an example of basic error reporting:

Set Variable [ $result = MyPluginFunction("x" ; "y" ; "z") ]
If [ $result = "ERROR" ]
    Show Custom Dialog [ "An error occurred: " & diffLastError ]
End If

Chaining Multiple Functions Together

Since the string "ERROR" evaluates to false when evaluated by FileMaker, and most plugin functions return a 1 when successful, you can chain multiple dependent plugin operations together using the "and" operator. However, in this case the result will be a 1 or a 0, not "ERROR". For example:

// chain multiple calls together
// if any of the functions fail, the calculation will 
// short-circuit with a result of false,
// and none of the subsequent function calls will be evaluated.
Set Variable [ $success = 
    FirstPluginFunction("x") and 
    SecondPluginFunction("y") and 
    ThirdPluginFunction("z") 
]
If [not $success]
    Show Custom Dialog [ "An error occurred: " & diffLastError ]
End If

Note: the above only works for plugin functions which return 1 on success! Check the documentation for each function used in this manner.

Additional Error Checking - Plugin not installed

If a plugin is not installed correctly, calls to a plugin function will return "?". As part of your startup script, you should check for this occurrence and display a warning accordingly that the plugin needs to be installed. Note: when treated as a boolean true/false value, FileMaker will treat ? as true.

Installation

Requirements

FileMaker version 7 or higher.

Java Virtual Machine (JVM) version 1.4.2 or later. If you are running a JVM earlier than 1.4.2, you should upgrade. Download a JVM from http://www.java.com/en/download/. If you are not sure what version of Java you have installed, you can do java -version on the command line in Windows or OS X.

Windows, or Mac OS X version 10.4 or higher.

Note to intel Mac users: running this plugin under Rosetta is not supported. Upgrade to FileMaker 8.5 to run our plugin in native Intel mode.

Install Steps for FileMaker Pro

Drag the plugin from the MAC or WIN folder into your FileMaker extensions, and restart FileMaker.

This will also enable the plugin for use with Instant Web Publishing from the FileMaker Pro client software.

If the plugin does not load correctly, double-check that you meet the system requirements.

Install steps for FileMaker Web Publishing Engine / Instant Web Publishing

You do not need to do this step unless you plan on using the plugin with Instant Web Publishing or Custom Web Publishing with FileMaker Server Advanced. You will need an Enterprise License to use this feature.

For installing into the Web Publishing Engine with FileMaker 9 Server or FileMaker Server Advanced, drag the plugin from the MAC or WIN folder into the FileMaker Server/Web Publishing/publishing-engine/wpc/Plugins folder. If there is no Plugins folder inside the wpc folder, then create it manually. Restart FileMaker Web Publishing, and now the plugins should be ready to go.

Note that due to a bug which we and other plugin vendors have reported to FileMaker, web plugins do not work in FileMaker Web Publishing Engine 8.0v4 on Mac OS X. You will need to use a later version, like 9, or an earlier version, like 8.0v3. The Windows FileMaker Server 8.0v4 does not have this bug, and will work correctly.

The easiest way to test whether the plugin is working is to have a calculation which calls the version function of the plugin, and display that on an IWP layout. If it shows "?", then the plugin is not working. If it shows a number, then the plugin has been installed successfully.

Install steps for FileMaker Server 9 or later

You do not need to do this step unless you plan on using the plugin with scheduled script triggering, a new feature in FileMaker Server 9. You will need an Enterprise License to use this feature.

  1. Drag the plugin from the MAC or WIN folder into the FileMaker Server extensions folder. On Mac OS X, this is located at /Library/FileMaker Server/Database Server/Extensions folder. On Windows, this is at C:\Program Files\FileMaker\FileMaker Server\Database Server\Extensions.
  2. In the Server Admin application, restart FileMaker Server by stoppping and starting it.
  3. Go to Configuration -> Database Server->Server Plug-ins and check the box that says 'Enable FileMaker Server to use plug-ins', and then check the 'enabled' box for this plugin. Click the 'save' button and wait a few seconds to make sure that the 'enabled' check box stays checked. If it does not, then there was an error loading the plugin and you should contact us for help troubleshooting. You should now be able to write schedules that trigger scripts which use the plugin.

Auto Update

360Works has created an AutoUpdate helper database which makes setting up Auto Update much easier. This file includes pre-configured plugin files which you can place on your server, and an auto-update script for each of our plugins which you can paste into your own solution.

You can get the AutoUpdate360Works file at fmp7://autoupdate.360works.com/AutoUpdate360Works. Follow the instructions included in the file to either host your own Auto Update server or pull the files from ours.

Demo mode and Registering the plugin

Plugins will run in demo mode until they are registered. While running in Demo mode, the product will run for 2 hours every time you launch FileMaker / FileMaker Server / FileMaker Web Publishing Engine. The 2 hour time limit will reset every time you relaunch FileMaker. There is no expiration date when Demo mode stops working. There are no feature differences between the Demo version and the licensed version.

Once you have purchased the plugin, you can register it with the license key. Once a valid license key is entered, the product will run for as long as FileMaker is running. After FileMaker starts up with the plugin installed, open FileMaker preferences, click on the Plug-ins tab, select the plugin from the list, and click the Configure button. Enter your license key and company name in this dialog. You will only need to do this once on a given machine. Alternately, you can use the registration function to register the plugin during a startup script.

Note that if you are running the plugin with FileMaker Server / FileMaker Web Publishing Engine, you must use the registration function to register the plugin, since there is no preferences dialog on FileMaker Server to enter the license key and company name.

Feedback

We love to hear your suggestions for improving our products! If you are experiencing problems with this plugin, or have a feature request, or are happy with it, we'd appreciate hearing about it. Send us a message on our website, or email us!

Function Summary

Function Detail

differencesBetween ( someText ; otherText { ; options } )

Returns the highlighted differences between two Strings. Any text which is in 'otherText' but not in 'someText' is considered an addition, and is styled according to the diffStyleAddedText style. Any block of text which has changed from 'someText' to 'otherText' is considered modified text, and is styled according to the diffStyleModifiedText style. Any text which is in 'someText' but not in 'otherText' is considered a deletion, and is styled according to the diffStyleDeletedText style.

Custom Options

Pass "verbose=true" as a custom option to cause modifications to be displayed as a delete then an insert, instead of a modification.

Parameters:
someText - intial text
otherText - revised text
options - options
Returns: Styled text which displays the differences between the two strings, according to highlighting parameters.

diffLastError

Returns defailed information about the last error generated by this plugin. If another plugin function returns the text "ERROR", call this function to get a user-presentable description of what went wrong.

Returns: Error text, or null if there was no error.

diffRegister ( licenseKey ; registeredTo )

Registers the Plugin.

Parameters:
licenseKey - a valid license key string, or the literal string "DEMO" to run in demo mode.
registeredTo - the company name for the license key used.
Returns: 1 on success, or "ERROR" on failure.

diffStyleAddedText ( red ; green ; blue ; styles { ; open ; close } )

Sets the style to use for displaying added text. The default plugin behavior is to display added text as green.

The available styles are:

Parameters:
red - a Number from 0-255
green - a Number from 0-255
blue - a Number from 0-255
styles - Any of the Filemaker style keywords, or -1 to hide text of this type in the diff result.
open - An optional text string appended before an addition
close - An optional text string appended after an addition
Returns: 1 on success, or "ERROR" on failure. Use diffLastError to get more information on the error.

diffStyleDeletedText ( red ; green ; blue ; styles { ; open ; close } )

Sets the style to use for displaying modified text. The default plugin behavior is to display modified text as blue.

Parameters:
red - a Number from 0-255
green - a Number from 0-255
blue - a Number from 0-255
styles - Any of the Filemaker style keywords, or -1 to hide text of this type in the diff result.
open - An optional text string appended before a deletion
close - An optional text string appended after a deletion
See also: diffStyleAddedText
Returns: 1 on success, or "ERROR" on failure. Use diffLastError to get more information on the error.

diffStyleModifiedText ( red ; green ; blue ; styles { ; open ; close } )

Sets the style to use for displaying deleted text. The default plugin behavior is to display deleted text as red.

Parameters:
red - a Number from 0-255
green - a Number from 0-255
blue - a Number from 0-255
styles - Any of the Filemaker style keywords, or -1 to hide text of this type in the diff result.
open - An optional text string appended before a modification
close - An optional text string appended after a modification
See also: diffStyleAddedText
Returns: 1 on success, or "ERROR" on failure. Use diffLastError to get more information on the error.

diffVersion

Returns the version number of the Difference Engine plugin.

Returns: a text version number