What is a helper script?
Specifically speaking in terms of the FileMaker application, a helper script is an "add-on" application to assist FileMaker to produce results that it could not do on it's own because FileMaker doesn't natively have that functionality.
For example, in our Engineering System application, which is under our Products page, our client requested a feature that they could simply click on a button and what this button would do is to read a specific database field name (in this case the Project ID field), and then automatically open the folder to the exact location with the Project ID name in Windows Explorer. If the folder already existed, it would simply open the folder in Windows Explorer and present the contents of that folder to the user. If the folder did not exist, the helper application would inform the user that the folder did not exist and it would ask the user whether they would like to create it. If the user clicks on "Yes", then the folder is created and then it opens the folder to present the contents to the user. And of course, if the user clicks on "No", then nothing is done.
FileMaker does not natively support what was described in the above paragraph and it was not designed to interact with the operation system in that type of manner, but as you can see from the example, having these sort of functions provides a very clever way to get the job done more elegantly. This is just one example. We can work with you to create customized helper applications so that your database can interact with the operation system. Currently, we only program for Microsoft Windows.
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