What is the Web folder?

About the Web folder

The Web Folder is the directory where the FileMaker Pro Web Companion hosts web pages using the built-in http server functionality.  These pages can be static html files or pages designed to interact with FileMaker Pro databases that have been web enabled using the FileMaker Pro Web Companion.  Note that files placed in the Web folder may be accessible from a web browser so make sure that sensitive content is not placed here.

When you want to customize the appearance of your FileMaker Pro databases on the Web, you can do so by creating custom web pages and moving them into the Web folder.

To use custom web solutions from a previous version of FileMaker Pro, simply move your existing CDML files into the Web folder and change any references to .fp3 files to .fp5 files in the html pages. This reference change can be made by using your favorite text editor. Any custom web interfaces to FileMaker should also be placed in this folder.

If you would like to create a different home page other than the one that is provided by the FileMaker Pro Web Companion, you can do so by creating a home page with your favorite web authoring tool and then moving it into the Web folder. 

 

Choose the FileMaker product that suits your needs

FileMaker Pro

FileMaker Developer

FileMaker Pro Unlimited

FileMaker Server

If you use FileMaker Pro 5 with any other FileMaker Pro products, those other products must be version 5 or later.

New FileMaker Pro Web Companion Features

FileMaker Pro Instant Web Publishing now includes web styles that determine the appearance of your database in a web browser. For example, the Lavender style displays titles and buttons in a purple color schedule. You can also choose styles that are specifically designed for searching or creating records. For example, you can create a guest book using the Entry Only style. You can choose a different style for each published database.

Most FileMaker Pro web styles render layouts - they display your layout in a web browser almost as they appear in a FileMaker Pro window. Web styles can render layouts in Form View, New Record, and Edit Record pages. Most FileMaker Pro web styles use Cascading Style Sheets to render layouts. As a note, the browser accessing the FileMaker Pro application via the FileMaker Pro Web Companion must support Cascading Style Sheets for this feature to function properly.

A new security option is available to limit access to your databases. You can now specify the IP addresses that can request data from the FileMaker Pro Web Companion. For example, you can specify that only IP addresses that start with "1.2.3.*" can access your databases. Additionally, there are new options for tracking FileMaker Pro Web Companion activity in log files. 

The FileMaker Pro Web Companion has support for the following technologies: CDML, XML and JDBC. These technologies will be documented in the FileMaker Developer product's documentation. Please visit our website at www.filemaker.com for more information. 

Here is a brief summary the support for XML, CDML and JDBC in FileMaker Pro:

With the new enhanced FileMaker Pro Web Companion, FileMaker Pro can now deliver data from your database in Extensible Markup Language (XML) format. In the same way that HTML has become the standard display language for communicating on the World Wide Web, XML promises to become the standard language for structured data interchange. Using FileMaker Pro XML, data is populated in your Web page programmatically instead of downloading statically from the server. This gives you more flexibility and a more web-like application that allows your visitors to interact with the data after it has been downloaded. For example, when web users add a record from a browser, the record is updated both to the data set in the browser and to the FileMaker Pro database. There's no need to refresh or wait to see the newly added record. Using FileMaker Pro XML capabilities, you are no longer limited to proprietary CDML tags to publish your FileMaker Pro database to the Web.

Based on customer feedback, FileMaker has enhanced several CDML tags and added a handful of new tags. FileMaker Developer includes the CDML Tool, which helps you add CDML tags to HTML documents, CDML examples and a reference database.

If you're a Java programmer, you'll find the new FileMaker JDBC Driver a welcome addition to FileMaker Developer. You can use this driver with a variety of Rapid Application Development (RAD) tools to visually create a FileMaker Pro database-aware Java application.

Unlike the Java class support in the previous version of FileMaker Pro Developer Edition which relied upon proprietary FileMaker Java classes which were not supported by RAD tools, the new Java classes are supported by several RAD tools. Now you can use the FileMaker JDBC Driver to directly access FileMaker Pro data using a RAD tool as you're building your code. The Java application or applet that uses the FileMaker JDBC Driver can access FileMaker Pro data via the FileMaker Pro Web Companion.

FileMaker Developer includes sample solutions that take advantage of these new features.