Jazz Utils

Jazz Utils - FileMaker Plugin (freeware)

In the process of creating commercial multimedia titles (often in the process of manipulating data) it has been quicker to write a FileMaker plugin function to do a specific task (or part of a task), than it would be to perform the task by other methods. As a result of these ongoing needs, the Jazz Utils plugin has developed. As we choose to work on a Macintosh, many of the plugin functions are Macintosh only.

The plugin includes clipboard functions, HTML formatting (tagging) functions, functions to obtain the mouse location (x, y), cross-platform character conversion, ascii values, and FileMaker script debugging tools. The mini-icons below indicate which functions have been implemented for each platform. Though these have changed slightly in version 1.5 they still provide a good overview of the plugin capabilities. The Windows™-only function allows switching between applications. (On the Mac you can use AppleScript to accomplish the same task).

The functions available are summarised thus:

		Jazz Media-Version			Jazz-Get Mouse Click
		Jazz-Get Clipboard			Jazz-Get Mouse X
		Jazz-Set Clipboard			Jazz-Get Mouse Y
		Jazz-Strip HTML			Jazz-Mac2Win Text
		Jazz-Clip2HTML			Jazz-Win2Mac Text
		Jazz-Debug BBEdit			Jazz-Win Activate
		Jazz-Debug STE			Jazz-CharToNum
		Jazz-Debug STE Slow			Jazz-NumToChar
		Jazz-Get Mouse			Jazz-Common Words (v1.15+)

The functions are by no means comprehensive, but they got me out of a bind, and hopefully will help others too. Download the documentation for more details.

The plugin has been updated for Mac OS X, and to the best of our knowledge is compatible with all versions of FileMaker up to and including version 8.5 on Windows and Macintosh PPC and Intel Computers (Universal Binary), with the following notes:

• Jazz-Clip2HTML does not work from a FileMaker field in FileMaker Pro 7 and later. This is due to the modified clipboard format used in this version of FileMaker. Jazz-Clip2HTML was originally written as a method of extracting style information out of FileMaker. This functionality has been replaced and improved by the Jazz HTML and Jazz Styled Text shareware plugins.
• To take advantage ot the new FileMaker plugin syntax, in version 1.5 of the plugin the function set has changed. Some functions have slight renaming, similar functions have been merged into one, and some functions which are meaninless with Unicode have been removed. Check the documentation for details of the modified function set.

This plug-in is available free of charge for developers to download and use. The plug-in is provided "as-is". No guarantee or warranty is provided of any kind.

FileMaker Pro 7 note (Mac only):

FileMaker Pro version 7 (and later) on Mac OS X now requires that all Macintosh plugins end with the extension ".fmplugin". Long-time users who haven't updated for some time must rename their plugins before using them with FileMaker Pro 7 or later. However we recommend you download a newer version, which has been appropriately renamed and the extension has been hidden.

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Recommended for FileMaker versions 7 and later:

Download Jazz Utils v1.5.1 for Macintosh OS X (86K)     (Universal binary — PPC & Intel)

Download Jazz Utils v1.5.1 for Windows     (Not available. Use v1.15)

Download documentation v1.5 PDF format (300K)

Recommended for FileMaker versions 6.5 and earlier:

Download Jazz Utils v1.19 for Macintosh OS 8, 9 & OS X (Carbon: PPC only) (60K)

Download Jazz Utils v1.05 for Macintosh OS 8 and earlier (Classic: 68K & PPC) (47K)

Download Jazz Utils v1.15 for Windows (48K zipped)

Download documentation PDF (428K)