Hi!

I want people to be able to take a snapshot of themselves with an attached
webcam, whilst entering a questionnaire in Filemaker Pro, and attaching the
picture to the questionnaire in the Filemaker Database. How should I go
about this? Any insights?

Thanks in advance!

Geroon

The snazzy way would be for FileMaker to send an event to the camera
instructing it to take a picture, with the preview image appearing right
within FileMaker itself. But that isn't very likely so you'll have to settle
for the cam dropping a picture into a directory continuously (using the same
filename all the time) and FileMaker importing that picture when you click a
button.

Bill

"Geroon" <fredfred (AT) tijd (DOT) com.killthislastbit> wrote

On 18/10/05 7:10 AM, in article
4rU4f.118956$xE3.4472 (AT) blueberry (DOT) telenet-ops.be, "Geroon"
<fredfred (AT) tijd (DOT) com.killthislastbit> wrote:

have a demo file that does exactly that.

Brad

Assuming you are a Mac user, this sounds like a job for Applescript. It
is surprisingly easy to use Applescript to perform actions with one
program (eg your webcam) and use the clipboard or other means to send
output to other applications (eg Filemaker). See this example for
controlling iMovie:
http://scriptbuilders.net/files/imov...ording1.0.html
(has an example of clicking a button using Applescript when a keyboard
shortcut or menu selection is not available)
and this one for taking screen snapshots:
http://scriptbuilders.net/files/snap2gc1.1.html
(has an example of sending a sequence of keystrokes to an application).

I am not sure about calling Applescript from an FM8 Script but I hope
this can be done.

Of course, a limitation of Applescript is that your users must also Mac
users.

Michael Paine

Geroon wrote:

"Bill Marriott" wrote in message newsOadncXWcLP8qsneRVn-hg (AT) comcast (DOT) com...
That would be snazzy!

Any ideas on to how I might go about this, on a Windows XP system?

Thanks already!

Geroon

If your webcam software doesn't support saving a snapshot to a specified
location every N seconds, then you might check out the TimeShot PowerToy
from Microsoft...

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/d...powertoys.mspx

Be sure when you use this, you import the actual file, not a reference to it
(because of course the image is constantly changing).

Bill

"Geroon" <fredfred (AT) tijd (DOT) com.killthislastbit> wrote

The method I outlined is free. Troi Grabber is $79.

Not only that,

"Troi Grabber Plug-in has reached the end of its lifecycle. You can still
use it and buy it, but we have decided that we will no longer update the
plug-in and that we will phase out support for it as well. Version 1.5 is
compatible with FileMaker 6 and earlier. It will probably work with
FileMaker 7 too, but your milage may vary."

- from http://www.troi.com/software/grabberplugin.html

Finally, I have issues with Troi's upgrade policies, when they do update
their software. Upgrade pricing is not based on the version number you
bought but rather on an arbitrary date when you purchased it. They are quite
inflexible on this. I bought a copy of their Troi File plugin just before
their published free window for the FileMaker 7 update, but they refused to
budge. (And therefore, I didn't either, and no longer use/recommend it.)
Seems to me they could be more accommodating to their users.

Bill

"brad anderson" <whaletx (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> wrote

"Bill Marriott" <wjm (AT) wjm (DOT) org> wrote

I tried it, but after a couple of minutes / a couple of snapshots, this
stopped working and starting returning error codes instead. I'm not sure
whether it may be caused by my webcam or my XP install or how it originates,
but this problem effectively keeps me from using the plugin. I think I'll be
using the "save to file, then import in filemaker" method, even though it is
less 'snazzy'.

Thanks anyway,...

G.

Well, it shouldn't be "thanks anyway," because I didn't recommend the
plugin. I steered you away from the Troi solution (or tried to). It should
be "thanks for your forethought to recommend the free and simple solution in
the beginning, potentially saving me the effort of downloading, installing,
and trying a buggy, never-to-be-updated, and expensive plugin!"

Here's detailed instructions for the free method:

1) Download and Install the webcam Timershot PowerToy from Microsoft.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/d...powertoys.mspx

2) Run it and click the >> button in the lower-right to expand the settings,
if they aren't already showing.
3) Specify: Take a picture every 1 second
4) Specify File name: WebCamCapture.jpg
5) Specify Save In: D:\My Documents\My Pictures

[or wherever is convenient for FileMaker]

Make sure "Save a new copy of the file every time a picture is taken" is OFF
[you want the same filename to be used over and over].

6) Click Apply Settings; then you can close the Timershot window. It will
run in the background now, accessible through the task bar.

In FileMaker,

1) Create a container field, "CamPhoto" to hold the picture.
2) Create a script, "Grab Cam Photo" as follows:

Go to Field [YourDB::CamPhoto]
Insert Picture ["D:\My Documents\My Pictures\WebCamCapture.jpg"]

Make sure the option to "Select/Perform" is OFF in the Go to Field step [or
FileMaker will try to make you record audio], and the "Store only a
reference" option is OFF in the Insert Picture step [or FileMaker will
always show the current image in all records].

3) Save this script and go to Layout mode.
4) Add a button to the layout near the CamPhoto field which triggers the
"Grab Cam Photo" script.

When you go to Browse mode and try it out, you'll see that whenever you
click the button, the picture field is updated with the latest snap from the
web cam. If a user doesn't like that picture, they can pose and click the
button again to take a new one.

The only drawback is no live preview. But you could perhaps consider that an
advantage if you don't want non-FileMaker windows popping up. You can keep
clicking the button until it's right, and updating the picture every second
is not too bad a refresh rate. I don't notice any performance hit leaving
Timershot running that way in the background, either.

The only other thing I can think of is that you might want to have a "Lock
Picture" field that is checked by the script, since it would be easy to
replace the picture unintentionally.

Bill

"Geroon" <fredfred (AT) tijd (DOT) com.killthislastbit> wrote

"Bill Marriott" <wjm (AT) wjm (DOT) org> wrote

Thanks a lot - sorry about the misunderstanding.

You are VERY kind to provide this complete detailed instruction! I got this
thing rolling in no time. A live preview would have been nice, but this is
very close and very good already.

Thanks & have a nice day!
I'll keep following this group and adding my findings concerning this
matter.

- Geroon