CNS Image

Our CNS Image plug-in can import images into container fields and export images from container fields. What the plug-in can do with images while in FileMaker is where it gets interesting.

Imagine importing a folder of digital photos into FileMaker. There are several tasks you will probably want to apply to your photos. You may want to rotate a photo from landscape to portrait. You may want to crop a photo down to capture the subject of the photo better. You may want to flip or reflect a photo horizontally, vertically, or both. You may want to apply a sepia color tint to the photo to give it that antique look. You may want to sharpen the photo up and adjust the hue or saturation of the photo to make the colors pop out better. All of these things, and more, can be done using CNS Image, and you do not even have to leave FileMaker to accomplish them.

You may want to extract a layer from a Photoshop document. You can even extract pages (layers) from a PDF document which can be useful for viewing documents cross-platform in FileMaker.

You can also use CNS Image to download an image from the internet right into a container field. Such a feature can be used to download webcam images, dynamic images of the earth, road maps, and even images to update the look of your solution. Imagine creating a new backdrop, header, or logo that is automatically downloaded when your users open a solution you have created.

CNS Image also gives you the ability to apply a QuickTime filter to an image. QuickTime comes with several built in filters such as Brightness, ColorSync, HSL Balance, RGB Balance, Blur, Edge Detection, Emboss, Sharpen, Color Style, Color Tint, and more. There are also third party filters available on the net.

Importing and Exporting

CNS Image allows you to import images into FileMaker Pro container objects from any location on your hard drive. You can either specify the complete path to the image file in your calculation or you can use a standard Open File dialog to allow the user to select an image file. You can even specify the types of image files the user can select in the Open File dialog instead of all available files. CNS Image also allows you to export images from container objects to any location on your hard drive. Again, you can either use a hard coded path, or you can use a Save As type dialog to allow the user to specify a location. When you are exporting a File, you can even have CNS Image convert it to a specific format.

Another method of pulling images into your database with CNS Image is with the GetFromURL function. This function allows you to download images from any website directly into FileMaker Pro.

Image Information

CNS Image allows you to get a variety of information about an image that is either in a container in FileMaker Pro or on the hard drive. The GetInfo function allows you to extract the Type of image, whether or not the container is stored or by reference, and what the full path and filename of the image is. You can also determine the width, height, resolution, bit depth, jpeg quality, and others. If the file is a Photoshop file or a PDF file, you can extract the number of layers or pages present in the file.

Image Manipulation

The main focus for CNS Image is not getting images in and out of your database, but instead, it's focus is on what you can do with CNS Image to manipulate those images all from within FileMaker Pro. You can crop, reflect, rotate, and transform any image all from a calculation. If you need an image to be a different format or a different width and height, you can use the Convert function to do that as well as several other things. CNS Image also can take advantage of QuickTime filters to change color balance, brightness and contrast, and tint among other types of filters for adjusting the color of an image. QuickTime also includes filters for adding effects to your images like blur, emboss, and sharpen. QuickTime

CNS Image uses QuickTime to work with the images, so it does need to be installed in order for CNS Image to function. QuickTime is part of OS X, so the plug-in will always work on the Mac. On Windows, QuickTime has to be specifically installed. If you install iTunes for Windows, you have to install QuickTime for Windows as well. CNS Image has a function named CheckForQuickTime which will see if QuickTime has been installed. If not, it can optionally prompt the user to download QuickTime from the internet and install it. If the user does that, then CNS Image can load QuickTime in order to function correctly.

Utility Functions

CNS Image has a number of utility functions to help you, the developer, create your databases. The SelectFileWithDialog and SelectFolderWithDialog functions can be used to present the user with a dialog asking them to select a file or a folder. You can use this to have the user select a file they want to manipulate in some way or a folder to export an image to. The plug-in also includes a GetPath function which will return the hard drive paths to certain system defined paths like the users's Desktop or Documents folder. You can also get the path to the FileMaker Application and other useful paths with this function.

Along with these functions, CNS Image includes the common utility functions from all of our plug-ins. The Version function returns the version of the plug-in and can be used to check that the plug-in is actually installed. If you are using FileMaker Server's Auto Update feature, the Version function can even return the version number in an Auto Update Friendly format. CNS Image also includes the Register function to allow you to register the plug-in from a script. You can either pass in all the registration information directly, or you can have the Register function present a dialog to the user for them to enter in their own registration information. Finally, the ShowConfigDialog function can be used to bring up CNS Image's Configuration Dialog from a script.