Instant Web Publishing Guide

Chapter 1
About publishing FileMaker Pro databases
on
the web
With FileMaker
®
Pro, you can display your databases on the web in a variety of ways. This makes your data:
1 available to many people using a compatible web browser, anywhere in the world. (You can, however,
restrict access to files.)
1 accessible from many locations, for example, while traveling or working remotely.
There are three ways to publish your data using FileMaker Pro.
Instant Web Publishing: With Instant Web Publishing, you can quickly and easily publish your database
on the web. You don’t need to modify your database files or install additional software—anyone with
compatible web browser software and access to the internet or an intranet can connect to your database to
view, edit, sort, or search records, if you give them access privileges. You can use additional software to
perform additional tasks, for example, to configure a firewall to secure your network.
Static publishing: If your data rarely changes, or if you don’t want users to have a live connection to your
database, you can use static publishing. With static publishing, you export FileMaker Pro data to create a
web page that you can further customize with HTML. The web page doesn’t change when information in
your database changes, and users don’t connect to your database. (With Instant Web Publishing, data is
updated in a web browser window each time the browser sends a request to FileMaker Pro.) For more
information, see “Publishing FileMaker Pro data on static web pages” on page 14.
Custom Web Publishing: For more control over the appearance and functionality of your published
database, use the Custom Web Publishing technologies available in the FileMaker Server software.
With XML, XSLT, and PHP, you can:
1 Integrate your database with another website
1 Determine how users interact with data
1 Control how data displays in web browsers
For more information, see FileMaker Server Custom Web Publishing with XML and XSLT and
FileMaker
Server Custom Web Publishing with PHP.
Important Security is increasingly important when you publish data on the web. Review the security
guidelines in the FileMaker Pro User’s Guide, available as a PDF file from
www.filemaker.com/documentation.