Thai Scipt With Filemaker

[salween]

Was not sure if I should post this here or on the computer board, but figured would try here first.

Has anyone had luck with Filemaker 8 on a Mac with Thai script? I did search various forums, and was not successful in finding any reference to this.

When entering data Filemaker does not seem to accept subscript or superscript characters. Basic consonants are fine, but add something to them and “beep”. Interestingly, in naming files or defining fields, etc. there are no problems; the program accepts all characters. Only when actually entering data, the most important action, it fails?

I’ve only found one place in the various preference settings which references (unicode) language settings, and that is for indexing and sorting. But this should have no effect on data entry? I’ve since learned, however, that Filemaker can only index a subset of unicode languages and Thai’s not yet one of them. It will still sort, just not how we’d see things in a dictionary. But this, Filemaker states, is not supposed to impinge on the program’s ability to work with any unicode language that supported by an operating system. Any experience out there?

Thanks.

[salween]

With no response here yet, I've made a similar post on the Internet/Computer Forum.

[Andrew Mac]

** There is a copy of this reply in the other forum as well **

Hi Salween

I'm afraid it's a documented limitation that has been around since FileMaker first began to offer Unicode input (in version 7, if I remember correctly). There are certain characters that FileMaker just won't accept. There is a support document that lists the relevant Unicode code points, but I don't happen to have the link with me. The page is useless anyway, because all it says is that it can't be done. I have often sent feedback asking for the issue to be fixed, but nothing has ever come of it, and I am running out of hope that it ever will.

I don't actually believe the suggestion made in the computer forum about using TypeThaiX 0.96b is actually a solution, but it might work if you use the TTX (non-Unicode) keyboard. But of course you would then need to use a non-Unicode font as well, which I personally would rather not do. But you might like to try it.

HOWEVER ...

You *can* type Thai text into a pop-up custom dialog box (at least, I can on my Mac). So the workaround I use is to have a script that records what field you are currently in, then pops up a custom message asking you to insert the Thai text.

Type whatever you want ... click OK ... and bingo, your text will be there in Thai!

I have a keyboard shortcut assigned to the script as well, so that all I need to do is do is type Command-T (Control-T for Windows) and type away.

It's certainly not perfect, but it works for me. If you want further details about the script itself, please just ask. I'd be happy to share -- as long as you let me know if you make any improvements to it!

Cheers, Andrew

Edited August 4, 2006 by Andrew Mac

[salween]

Andrew,

Thanks much; will give the custom dialog option a try.

I'd about given up, especially as I just heard back from another forum yesterday that Filemaker has stated that Thai text is plainly not supported. Of course one unfortunate part is that the custom dialogue only allows a fixed sized font and input screen, or at least it used to if I remember correctly. I was hoping to get the Thai font nice and big so it was easy to see. Maybe an Apple Script could accopmplish the same thing? But this is far better than nothing. Have you tried 8.5?

All the best, SALWEEN

[Andrew Mac]

Hi Salween

You're right, of course. The font in the custom dialog is limited in size, and the text input area is very small. There may be other alternatives that would work--for instance, there used to be a few plug-ins that provided alternatives to the standard FileMaker input dialog. If one of those plug-ins has the expanded feature set you're after it might be worth looking into, but I'm afraid I've never used any of them and have no idea if they would be any better for your purposes than the standard FileMaker implementation.

One other option you have, though, is simply to prepare the text in another document (like TextEdit, for instance, since it seems you're also on a Mac) ... and then just paste it into FileMaker. That used to work for me before I set up the custom dialog thingy, and has the advantage that it will let you prepare the text at whatever font and size you choose. That formatting, though, might be carried with the text when you paste it into your FileMaker database. If that happened, though, I guess you could have a FileMaker script that removed the formatting you didn't want. I guess you could also run it through one of those clipboard editors that can remove the formatting from text in the clipboard. And I seem to remember that there is, somewhere, a little utility that adds a "Paste as Plain Text" command to the Edit menu in applications (but I can't remember what it was called, or if it worked with all applications).

Your AppleScript idea also sounds interesting, but I've never used it, so I don't know how you'd go about getting things to work. But I've always wanted to learn a bit about AppleScript, so if you give it a go please let me know if you get the results you wanted!

The best solution, though, is the one that I think we both realise has the least probability of ever occurring: that is, for FileMaker just to fix the thing so that it works as it should!

Sorry I can't be of much more help than that.

Regards, Andrew

PS: I forgot to mention that no, I haven't used 8.5 yet. I am thinking about moving up soon, though.

Edited August 5, 2006 by Andrew Mac

[salween]

Andrew,

Well, got the custom dialog box up and running in a revised script. Sorts, finds, etc. all functioning fine. Looks terrible, but works! I too saw some oblique references to editing dialog box parameters associated with the Developer version, but don't have that. My Apple Scripting is limited as well, but plan to see what I can do about this approach to a workaround as I trust it may not be too difficult. I will let you know if I have any luck. Coud you please alert me if you hear anything about 8.5?

Thanks again, Salween