I have built a Project Management FM database that contains records
for tasks, the links between the tasks and various ways of calculating
the duration of each task.  A script then calculates the expected
early and late start and finish dates and the critical path.  I have a
report that prints a Gantt Chart but would like to be able to produce
a drawing of the network of tasks with the links between the tasks.

Does anyone have a suggestion on how this could be done.  I expect to
provide the x - y coordinates of the tasks and links to the drawing
program.



Tom

On Mar 23, 9:53=A0pm, TomMcIn <tom_mcint...@shaw.ca> wrote:
> I have built a Project Management FM database that contains records
> for tasks, the links between the tasks and various ways of calculating
> the duration of each task. =A0A script then calculates the expected
> early and late start and finish dates and the critical path. =A0I have a
> report that prints a Gantt Chart but would like to be able to produce
> a drawing of the network of tasks with the links between the tasks.
>
> Does anyone have a suggestion on how this could be done. =A0I expect to
> provide the x - y coordinates of the tasks and links to the drawing
> program.

There are a few ways of drawing in Filemaker Pro.

1) generating ASCII art in text fields. Rudimentary, but often
adequate for simple requirements.

2) Generating an html/css document and loading it in the webviewer.
This is more than enough for very attractive bar charts and other
'box' art, but has limits. You can go beyond basic HTML, and use SVG
or VML. (SVG works with Safari, so it should just work on the Mac.
Internet Explorer's engine which is what FM uses on windows doesn't
support SVG, IE has its own VML which isn't as good but you should be
able to get by with it. Either way you can do full on vector drawing
with these. There are also javascript libaries which abstract the
differences and let you write to a common api, and then have the
javascript emit VML or SVG depending on the browser. (I've never used
them.)

3)  Dynamically generate another type of file, and then have filemaker
open the generated file with another application. A good example would
be to generate an Inkscape drawing, and then open it with Inkscape.
(Actually, Inkscape uses SVG, so its not the best example... but it
gives you a cross platform option. You give up having it displayed "In
Filemaker" doing this.

3a) One other trick you can do is generate an SVG, and then call an
external command line tool to rasterize it to PNG or JPG, and then
view THAT in the Webviewer. This actually works quite well too.

4) Finally, you can use a filemaker plug in that does what you want.

Thanks to D-42 for the points.  I was expecting to create a file of
graphics commands from FM then run these through another program.

I found a program called PlotXY that uses Excel to draw items but it
appears to be Windows only.

I looked up SVG on Wikipedia and found the specs for various objects.
My initial requirements are modest - rectangles for tasks, lines for
links and some text.  Can see adding options for milestone tasks and
critical path links.  Now I just have to give it some thought and
effort.

Tom