Action Script Variables

Hi there –

We have been busy at DevCon this week – we’ll take a look at this in the next couple of days and let you know what’s happening.

Thanks

Ken

Hi –

I’ve had a chance to look over your post, and run some tests. The script seems to be running as expected.

The design of the script is to provide any variables that you might need when editing or creating an event in the web viewer. The script runs server-side right after the record is created or edited in FileMaker. soSIMPLE passes all the data that is potentially generated from the calendar, or identifies the event in the calendar.

However, since the record is the current record in FileMaker when that step is executed, you can get the data from the current record on that script step by passing the field name directly. When we edit existing events ($event_type=”edit”), the $event_id will match what’s in your database. When we create a new event, the $event_type=”new” and the $event_id is a random ID from soSIMPLE. Once the event is written to your FileMaker file, the event id field is changed to your event id. To get that ID, you pull it from your own record like this:

"event_type: " & $event_type & ¶ & 
"event_id: " & $event_id & ¶ &
"new id: " & calendar_data::Event_ID & ¶ &
"from: " & $from & ¶ & 
"to: " & $to & ¶ &
"from_utc: " & $from_utc  & ¶ &
"to_utc: " & $to_utc  & ¶ &
"text: " & $text &  ¶ &
"unit: " & $unit & ¶ &
"readonly: " & $readonly & ¶ &
"script: " & $script & ¶ &
"url: " & $url & ¶ &
"untimed: " & $untimed & ¶ &
"lat: " & $lat & ¶ &
"lng: " & $lng 

Likewise for other fields such as the description.

You can also break out the timestamp field by using:
getasdate($from) and getastime($from)

For other fields:
$unit will show whatever data is stored in your resource field. If you use IDs for the resources, that’s what will be passed. You can get the resource name from your FileMaker record.
$url is intended to show what’s after the #hashtag on the url. It can be used to redraw the web viewer on platforms that can’t read it directly from getobjectproperties(). It doesn’t appear to be passed server-side – we’ll look into this.
$from_utc and $to_utc should show the UTC mean time for the $from & $to variables. They don’t appear to work server-side either – we’ll look into those.

Please let me know if this helps, or if you have any other questions.

Thanks

Ken

Hi Ken, thanks for the detailed response, that was very helpful. It wasn’t obvious to me at first but your reply straightens things out.

To recap:
On creation SoSimple will have a random ‘event_id’ and pass that along. However, since the record has already been created by the time this Action Script runs, the ‘id’ field for the event will already have it’s proper ID entered. The SoSimple Action Script won’t pass that ID with the other variables in the script but I can grab it, and other fields from that event, because it is the active event record in FM. Then, like you said, I grab the ‘id’ field value via the field name (or whatever field value I like). Got it.

“event_id: ” & $event_id & ¶ &
“new id: ” & calendar_data::Event_ID & ¶ &

Thanks again,
Matt

Ken, can you address this please? It got lost in the shuffle…

$text variable. This is a bit confusing to me. My expectation is that there is a Title(summary) field and Description field. SoSimple only has this one editable $text field. It would be nice to have both the title and description fields editable on the event entry screen. Seems very odd that the title of the event is hard coded in a script and only the description is readily editable. Especially since the Title(summary) field is what’s displayed in the calendar view. Am I looking at this wrong?

The recap is correct.

To followup on the $text variable – this follows the same logic. soSIMPLE is only including variables that can be changed from the calendar. Since the default web window and the inline event editor can only change the ($text variable) that is the only one we pass. Typically, the more detailed description field is calculated by your FileMaker solution, so it’s not useful to pass as a variable since it would have changed by the time the script step is run.

Instead use your FileMaker field to get the description.