FileMaker and OmniGraffle

The Desktop Publishing Revolution of the late 20th century flourished because of User Automation and scriptable applications like FileMaker Pro, QuarkXPress, and Adobe InDesign. Documents and databases became “connected” via AppleScript, with its power to automate the transfer of data and control the creation and contents of page geometry. Because of such tools, the Macintosh computer became the default publishing platform of the world.

Over twenty years later, macOS and desktops have been augmented with the incredible mobile platform of iOS, driving the creation and deployment of innovative light-weight portable tablets like the iPad Pro. New devices mean new abilities and new challenges for delivering productivity solutions to a mobile world. It is interesting that as technology advances, some workflow principles and techniques remain viable and constant: connecting containers and content.

The workflow examples presented on this website include automations between FileMaker applications (FileMaker Pro (macOS), FileMaker Go (iOS) and OmniGraffle (macOS & iOS) from the Omni Group.

The demonstrate how a combination of FileMaker and Omni Automation scripts can be used to transfer data to and manipulate data in an OmniGraffle documents. All with simple clicks, taps, and drags.

I guess it’s true: the more things change, the more they remain the same.

Explicit “localhost”

The provided examples all include Omni Automation scripts expressed in URL format. It is important to note that when encoding your Omni Automation scripts for use with FileMaker Pro (macOS) or FileMaker Go (iOS), it is essential to add an explicit reference to the localhost in the link URL, like this:

• use: "omnigraffle://localhost/omnijs-run?script=%2F%2F%20etc."
• instead of: "omnigraffle:///omnijs-run?script=%2F%2F%20etc."