I'm a newbie, publishing my first DB on CD for a client. The DB is large
(several hundred Meg), so the client feels the main DB should stay (as
read-only) on the CD, with all actions that actually change the DB
taking place in subsidiary databases that are moved to the hard disk by
an installer.

I've simulated this by making the main database read-only on my hard
disk, and the code works in Filemaker.

Now my question: in a bound runtime, how do I get the runtime to
recognize that it should work with the moved files on the hard disk, not
the original ones on the CD?

Am I missing something obvious or am I approaching the whole problem
from the wrong perspective?

I've read the archives for this group on google groups, searching on
"runtime CD", but I haven't found any thread that addresses this exact
issue.

Gary Vellenzer

In article <3F25E0A5.91BA36C5 (AT) usyd (DOT) edu.au>, tbooth (AT) usyd (DOT) edu.au says...
leaving it on CD.

When the database is on CD, the whole thing runs really slowly because
the images have to be copied each time, so I think most users will
choose to copy them to their hard disk.

But the option of not taking up disk space can be useful, so I'd like to
offer it if it can be done in Filemaker.

Gary

Gary Vellenzer wrote:
All good... until you remember that FileMaker will finf *any* file of
the
correct name if it is available. If there's one on the HD and one on the
CD, it will pick one of the two. And I don't believe anyone has really
worked out *which* one of the two it will pick...
Disk is so cheap these days. If a couple of hundred of meg is a problem,
then they'll also be using FM 3 ;-)

Make the installer copy the lot first time. Be done with it.

Webko

In article <3F2DFE60.96FE927E (AT) usyd (DOT) edu.au>, Tim Booth <tbooth (AT) usyd (DOT) edu.au>
wrote:

If, after reading all that, you DO still want to follow the original plan,
here are some ideas:

1. You could ship two CDs. One has the read-only database on it; the
other has an installer program that puts the modifiable files onto the
users hard drive.

2. I'm not sure about this but you can experiment: I don't think you
have to bind all your files together. You could just bind the ones that
end up on the hard drive to a run time engine, and then have THOSE files
reference the read-only file.

3. Can't you use an installer where the actual files are compressed
inside the installer and then expanded when they are deployed on to the
Hard drive. So the CD would not have any filemaker files on it, except
the one read-only file.

I hope some of that helps...

Greg

--

In article <3F2DFE60.96FE927E (AT) usyd (DOT) edu.au>, tbooth (AT) usyd (DOT) edu.au says...
can't tell the difference between a database and a Windows shortcut
pointing to the database.

So I can move my smaller databases to the hard drive and add a shortcut
in the same folder that points to the big images file on the CD. A
little startup program takes care of setting up the shortcut to point to
the right CD drive letter.

Filemaker then thinks everything is fine.

Dunno if there's a corresponding way on Macs to fool Filemaker into
behaving nicely.

Gary