Full Transcript for Two logging tools walk into a conference :: Jesse Barnum of 360Works

plugin. 00:03:48.560 --> 00:03:48.719 Okay. 00:03:48.960 --> 00:03:54.000 But the way it's installed is it's all done through a f an FMP12 file that we distribute called Layout Logger. 00:03:54.159 --> 00:03:54.319 Right. 00:03:54.479 --> 00:03:57.759 So all you need to do is just put the layout logger file maker data. 00:03:58.319 --> 00:04:01.199 Host it on the server, and then you call it from your startup script. 00:04:01.280 --> 00:04:02.479 You just call a script in that file. 00:04:02.800 --> 00:04:03.120 Got it. 00:04:03.280 --> 00:04:08.000 That will then automatically install the plugin on the server, install the plugin on the client, enable the plugin on the client. 00:04:08.080 --> 00:04:10.639 And there's no walking around to people's computers or doing anything like that. 00:04:10.879 --> 00:04:12.319 I'm playing dumb, but I've actually done all that. 00:04:12.560 --> 00:04:12.879 Yeah. 00:04:13.199 --> 00:04:13.439 Yeah. 00:04:13.680 --> 00:04:17.279 Um so uh but then I want to ask more questions too. 00:04:17.360 --> 00:04:18.720 Where does the log data get stored? 00:04:19.199 --> 00:04:22.959 The log data gets stored in the same place as your FileMaker server log files. 00:04:23.279 --> 00:04:24.879 So it's so it's a text file. 00:04:25.120 --> 00:04:29.680 It's it's uh it's it is literally just it's actually two JSON files. 00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:30.240 Okay. 00:04:30.480 --> 00:04:32.240 Um two JSON text files. 00:04:32.399 --> 00:04:34.079 It's not being stored in FileMaker Pro. 00:04:34.399 --> 00:04:34.639 Right. 00:04:34.800 --> 00:04:35.920 Um Yeah, interesting. 00:04:36.160 --> 00:04:36.399 Yeah. 00:04:36.480 --> 00:04:41.839 And so the server-side plugin, it's the server-side plugin is not really doing anything with FileMaker. 00:04:42.240 --> 00:04:48.079 It's just basically a glorified HTTP server that receives events from the clients and appends them to a text file log. 00:04:48.160 --> 00:04:51.920 Aaron Powell What's the communication that's happening from the plugin on the client? 00:04:52.079 --> 00:05:00.959 So like if I'm on my Mac and I go to load a layout um and the plugin gets called, uh how how does the data get transmitted? 00:05:01.360 --> 00:05:05.839 So what the plugin will do is it will turn that into a JSON format and add it to a queue. 00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:10.319 Well, first of all, what it does is it compares it to see if it's identical to the previous thing or not. 00:05:10.560 --> 00:05:10.639 Okay. 00:05:10.879 --> 00:05:12.240 If it's identical, it just throws it away. 00:05:12.480 --> 00:05:14.800 So this is the little 20 28 millisecond polar. 00:05:15.199 --> 00:05:15.439 Yeah. 00:05:15.519 --> 00:05:21.199 So 99.99% of the time, the event it gets is going to be identical to the event it just got and it's going to throw it away. 00:05:21.519 --> 00:05:32.079 But in those, you know, one in a thousand cases where the user just clicked on another field or another record or switch layouts or something like that, then we convert all the information about where they're currently looking at to JSON. 00:05:32.720 --> 00:05:35.279 We append that to an in-memory queue. 00:05:35.439 --> 00:05:41.600 Uh and on a separate thread, once that queue hits 25 events, then we use an HTTP call to send it to the server-side plugin. 00:05:41.839 --> 00:05:42.000 Okay. 00:05:42.079 --> 00:05:43.680 So it's not slowing down FileMaker Pro at all. 00:05:43.759 --> 00:05:44.000 It's only like that. 00:05:44.079 --> 00:05:44.879 Yeah, it doesn't sound like it. 00:05:45.040 --> 00:05:47.759 Yeah, it only gets called when FileMaker Pro is idle anyway. 00:05:47.920 --> 00:05:53.519 So it can't possibly make it slow when it's working because we that we wouldn't get idle event calls during that time. 00:05:53.759 --> 00:06:01.600 Um and uh and because it's all happening on a separate background thread for the processing and the sending to the server, it's never interfering with the users. 00:06:01.680 --> 00:06:03.839 It's not gonna like block them or give them a beach ball or anything like that. 00:06:04.240 --> 00:06:04.639 Right, right, right. 00:06:04.800 --> 00:06:04.879 Yeah. 00:06:05.040 --> 00:06:06.800 Uh FileMaker Go, WebDirect? 00:06:07.040 --> 00:06:09.199 No, no support for FileMaker Go or WebDirect. 00:06:09.439 --> 00:06:11.600 We are working on WebDirect, and we had it. 00:06:11.680 --> 00:06:18.480 We got it to the point where it would install and enable in WebDirect, but it seems like there is a bug in the calculation engine that the Wait, a bug in FileMaker? 00:06:18.560 --> 00:06:18.800 No. 00:06:19.120 --> 00:06:20.879 Well, you know, I will say this for FileMaker. 00:06:21.759 --> 00:06:22.720 I know, I know, I know. 00:06:22.879 --> 00:06:32.240 Um but I have uh I send my bug reports usually just to Clay, and he knows me pretty well, and he's really highly responsive by getting these things fixed. 00:06:32.319 --> 00:06:37.360 So I anticipate that there will be a fix for this before long and then he knows me really well too and never responds. 00:06:38.399 --> 00:06:40.160 I don't ever I don't uh ever do that. 00:06:40.240 --> 00:06:44.240 But I'm not at that same level with you for for you're being a plug-in developer. 00:06:44.560 --> 00:06:50.160 I've gotten to know Clay because every year at DevCon, when we had DevCons, he would host a plug-in developer meeting. 00:06:50.399 --> 00:06:51.040 Yep, oh yeah, yeah. 00:06:51.279 --> 00:06:55.600 Uh and so we'd all get together and you know I tend to ask a zillion questions. 00:06:55.759 --> 00:06:57.839 Uh so I got to know him pretty well from doing that. 00:06:57.920 --> 00:06:58.800 He's a fascinating guy. 00:06:59.279 --> 00:06:59.759 He's amazing. 00:06:59.920 --> 00:07:00.079 Yeah. 00:07:00.240 --> 00:07:00.800 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:07:00.879 --> 00:07:02.639 On the personal and uh work stuff. 00:07:02.720 --> 00:07:03.040 It's great. 00:07:03.120 --> 00:07:03.519 Yeah, yeah.

00:07:03.680 --> 00:07:04.800 Um so let's see. 00:07:04.879 --> 00:07:06.879 Um tell me about the audit log product that you've got to do. 00:07:07.040 --> 00:07:08.240 I'm not done asking you questions. 00:07:08.480 --> 00:07:09.439 Uh ask away. 00:07:09.680 --> 00:07:13.680 Um so so the you've got this uh JSON text file on the server. 00:07:14.160 --> 00:07:17.600 Um are there tools to like analyze that, or what do you do with that after? 00:07:17.920 --> 00:07:20.720 So there's two ways to analyze it: the boring way and the cool way. 00:07:20.879 --> 00:07:31.199 So the boring, simple, fast way is uh we ship a little utility, a command line utility that you can run that takes the JSON files and generates an HTML single file report. 00:07:31.519 --> 00:07:31.759 Okay. 00:07:31.920 --> 00:07:36.000 Um and it's all uh you know clickable and sortable and stuff like that. 00:07:36.079 --> 00:07:46.639 So you can see who's connecting and what versions of FileMaker Pro and which layouts they looked at the most, which scripts they looked at the most, and Mac or Windows, what application languages, tons, tons and tons of statistics that you can see in that. 00:07:46.959 --> 00:07:47.120 Sure. 00:07:47.279 --> 00:07:55.839 But that's the not the cool way, uh, which I which I just demoed in my in my session here, is you take those files and you feed them in my case to Claude. 00:07:56.319 --> 00:07:59.199 I use Claude Cowork because then Claude Cowork, you can point it at a local. 00:07:59.519 --> 00:08:00.399 You used to use cloud cowork. 00:08:00.560 --> 00:08:02.480 Now you use cloud code because cowork's gone, right? 00:08:02.720 --> 00:08:03.040 No. 00:08:03.439 --> 00:08:03.920 Different thing. 00:08:04.079 --> 00:08:04.720 Anyway, I continue. 00:08:04.959 --> 00:08:08.319 Uh when you create a new Claude chat, it'll it has a little tab that says cowork. 00:08:08.560 --> 00:08:09.279 Cowork, okay, yeah, yeah. 00:08:09.439 --> 00:08:10.079 Which is the computer one? 00:08:10.160 --> 00:08:10.560 I don't know. 00:08:10.639 --> 00:08:11.439 I just use cloud code lately. 00:08:11.680 --> 00:08:13.439 Anyway, continue, I stopped interrupting. 00:08:13.759 --> 00:08:17.759 So so co-work will allow you to point at a particular folder on your on your computer. 00:08:17.839 --> 00:08:18.720 So you can point to that. 00:08:18.959 --> 00:08:25.040 And then you can just and and critically, I intentionally avoided trying to write a skill for this. 00:08:25.199 --> 00:08:30.639 Um, because I wanted it to be, I I wanted to ensure that it was very portable across whatever AI system you're using. 00:08:30.800 --> 00:08:40.639 Um and it's really fascinating how well Claude is able to, just from the basically the names of the JSON attributes, figure out everything about who's doing what. 00:08:40.799 --> 00:08:44.240 And then you can start asking questions like who modifies my database the most? 00:08:44.399 --> 00:08:46.480 Um, what countries are people accessing from? 00:08:46.559 --> 00:08:49.840 Because we stored the external IP address that people are using to access the server. 00:08:50.240 --> 00:08:52.480 Um you can ask things like what is the ping time? 00:08:52.559 --> 00:08:55.200 You know, how how fast is people's latencies to the server. 00:08:55.360 --> 00:09:01.279 You can identify if people are sharing passwords, for instance, because the you'll see the same account name with multiple different persistent. 00:09:01.840 --> 00:09:02.480 Oh, yeah, that's right. 00:09:02.559 --> 00:09:04.159 And different source IP addresses, yeah. 00:09:04.480 --> 00:09:06.960 Um there's all sorts of security stuff that you can do with this. 00:09:07.039 --> 00:09:12.639 Uh you can see, you know, if you set up custom menus, you can tell whether users are using the custom menus you intended them to use or not. 00:09:12.960 --> 00:09:14.799 Yeah, so there's a lot of data coming with every call. 00:09:14.879 --> 00:09:17.679 What can you also manually call it from a script or something? 00:09:18.080 --> 00:09:21.440 Um manually call the the data collection part. 00:09:21.519 --> 00:09:22.799 Like the use case there. 00:09:22.879 --> 00:09:23.200 I'm not sure. 00:09:23.360 --> 00:09:37.679 Well, so for example, right now you're you're going to uh uh capturing a layout, but if you have um if you want to specifically make uh a log record in your log when a user clicks on a certain action, which may not change the layout or do anything else. 00:09:38.159 --> 00:09:39.279 No, but I like that idea. 00:09:39.440 --> 00:09:44.799 The idea of basically kind of arbitrarily stacking whatever data you want into some server-side log. 00:09:45.120 --> 00:09:45.200 Right. 00:09:45.440 --> 00:09:57.200 Well, for example, like for example, you could do that to solve the problem with FileMaker Go um uh or WebDirect, you can say, you know, put a uh when the user comes to the layout, you can have it on layout enter. 00:09:57.360 --> 00:09:57.519 Yes. 00:09:57.679 --> 00:10:05.600 And that could call, and it can then the script could say, oh, you're running on WebDirect, you're running on Go, call the log entry and then here send all the information for the yeah. 00:10:05.679 --> 00:10:06.480 Yeah, I like that idea. 00:10:06.639 --> 00:10:07.600 It doesn't do that right now. 00:10:07.840 --> 00:10:12.159 You know, I mean we've got a fixed number of attributes that we capture, and we capture them always during an idle handler. 00:10:12.559 --> 00:10:17.360 Um but I I love the idea of making it so that the developer themselves, because there's really not much for the developer to do. 00:10:17.679 --> 00:10:18.720 Yeah, it sounds like you just drop it in. 00:10:19.200 --> 00:10:21.919 You just drop it in, you you add a line to your startup script. 00:10:22.080 --> 00:10:36.240 But I do love the idea of having some developer uh accessible way to say, take this arbitrary stack of information that I want to capture at this moment and

append it to the other log files that I can all be accumulated on the server and then analyzed by an AI tool. 00:10:36.480 --> 00:10:37.360 I think that's a great idea. 00:10:37.440 --> 00:10:37.919 I'll write that down. 00:10:38.240 --> 00:10:38.799 I'm glad you like it. 00:10:38.879 --> 00:10:40.879 Yeah, kind of ties into something I do. 00:10:40.960 --> 00:10:41.440 So what I love. 00:10:41.759 --> 00:10:42.559 Just tell me what you're doing. 00:10:42.879 --> 00:10:45.919 So many years ago, I wrote this thing called FM log. 00:10:46.159 --> 00:10:46.639 Uh yes. 00:10:46.799 --> 00:10:50.240 And it was it was entirely a data tracking log, an audit log. 00:10:50.480 --> 00:10:50.639 Okay. 00:10:50.799 --> 00:10:53.519 Um not like a full audit trail undo kind of a thing. 00:10:53.759 --> 00:10:59.919 Um in other words, you couldn't like uh there's been some plugins that have a complete uh undo, redo, whatever they call that. 00:11:00.159 --> 00:11:02.320 I I remember because I presented FM Data Guard when you're at data. 00:11:02.559 --> 00:11:03.279 Data Guard, that's the one. 00:11:03.440 --> 00:11:03.600 Yes. 00:11:03.679 --> 00:11:03.759 Yeah. 00:11:03.840 --> 00:11:05.600 So it's a long time ago that I presented it. 00:11:05.759 --> 00:11:06.399 It was a long time ago. 00:11:06.480 --> 00:11:07.120 So this wasn't that. 00:11:07.200 --> 00:11:11.200 This was basically like a uh you'd be able to put logs in plain English. 00:11:11.440 --> 00:11:17.759 So what it what it was was a uh table that you could either have in your main file or its own separate data file. 00:11:18.159 --> 00:11:27.120 And then it run typically uh you would call it on um on object save, so which is my favorite of the triggers from a field. 00:11:27.360 --> 00:11:48.879 Um and so when a user saves a record or saves a you know, either um uh a field by clicking out of it, so field by field edit, it would call script server side and send JSON to it with the ID, the primary key, the name of the table, um, and the whatever else you want to log about that particular event. 00:11:49.279 --> 00:11:53.759 So you'd so you would put in um you know kind of an English description. 00:11:53.840 --> 00:12:00.960 And on a layout, if you wanted to add it to the whole layout, you um would make and it could also track a lot of other get stuff too. 00:12:01.120 --> 00:12:01.279 Right. 00:12:01.440 --> 00:12:05.120 Um that you want to like and also it also grab the before value and the after value. 00:12:05.279 --> 00:12:05.519 Okay. 00:12:05.679 --> 00:12:07.919 Um because you could have a trick uh trigger running out enter. 00:12:09.120 --> 00:12:09.360 Yeah. 00:12:09.519 --> 00:12:14.240 A script with one line of code that basically sets a variable to what the value is when you click into it. 00:12:14.720 --> 00:12:20.960 And then when you click out to save, then it says, oh, okay, well, it was there a previous value, go grab those and make one record for it. 00:12:21.200 --> 00:12:22.399 Okay, and then it would do the diff and the game. 00:12:22.639 --> 00:12:23.759 Yeah, so this is what that used to do. 00:12:24.159 --> 00:12:24.799 Oh, okay, okay. 00:12:24.960 --> 00:12:30.480 Um and that was used by many uh over the years, tons of people downloaded it and used it. 00:12:30.720 --> 00:12:33.279 So uh along comes AI. 00:12:33.600 --> 00:12:42.559 And what I've been doing, all of this work I've been doing like crazy, is been is building this thing that maybe you could call a sidecar or function as a service or something like that. 00:12:42.639 --> 00:12:50.399 So I'm in love with this uh website called Fly.io, which is runs a Linux, a dedicated little Linux instance that runs Docker, essentially. 00:12:50.879 --> 00:12:55.840 And it's uh can wake up in under a second, or it can be always on. 00:12:56.080 --> 00:12:56.320 Okay. 00:12:56.559 --> 00:13:01.120 It's crazy inexpensive to run, like a dollar a month, even for something. 00:13:01.279 --> 00:13:04.960 Uh and it has its, you can you can customize and run whatever stuff you want on it. 00:13:05.039 --> 00:13:08.320 So what I've done for this one, my product's called Clio, Clio log. 00:13:08.639 --> 00:13:10.399 All my things are Greek names. 00:13:10.639 --> 00:13:34.080 Um it um on a trigger in FileMaker, for example, on ObjectSave, um, it runs a script in FileMaker like the other one, but then what it does is an insert from URL, it does uh an API call that calls out to this dedicated little server and it sends JSON to it, and that logs it in a uh to a SQL database. 00:13:34.399 --> 00:13:34.720 Okay. 00:13:35.200 --> 00:13:43.919 Um and though there's a whole WebViewer application that's part of it that gives you all of the AI features to analyze the log. 00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:45.679 It gives you a regular old log view. 00:13:45.919 --> 00:13:46.240 Right. 00:13:46.480 --> 00:13:50.960 And it also gives you um an automated understanding of the log. 00:13:51.200 --> 00:13:53.440 Like it just kind of figures out what's going on from a day. 00:13:53.679 --> 00:13:54.000 Cool. 00:13:54.320 --> 00:13:57.600 Um and it has uh rules you can set up. 00:13:57.840 --> 00:14:01.039 And the rules can look for things that happen or things that don't happen. 00:14:01.360 --> 00:14:05.360 So like if a if a user doesn't log in for two days, you can get an alert. 00:14:05.440 --> 00:14:07.360 So you can set up a Slack alert or something like that. 00:14:07.679 --> 00:14:09.360 What would trigger that two-day alert? 00:14:09.679 --> 00:14:10.879 Well, basically you'd have a rule. 00:14:10.960 --> 00:14:15.519 So it's kind of looking for things, and all the rules are written and they run in Python or something like that, right? 00:14:15.840 --> 00:14:18.879 But I mean, like what there's got to be something that is executing that rule. 00:14:18.960 --> 00:14:20.799 What executes in the absence of an event? 00:14:21.120 --> 00:14:27.840 So when whenever a log uh record gets made,

um when it calls, it kind of cues it up in case there's a ton of them hitting it once. 00:14:28.559 --> 00:14:35.679 Um and this is all this was all like generated with a huge amount of AI code, and I did a lot of testing on it. 00:14:35.759 --> 00:14:39.440 So I don't actually modify and read the the code underneath it. 00:14:39.600 --> 00:14:39.679 Okay. 00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:40.799 Full disclosure. 00:14:41.200 --> 00:14:42.720 Um I just test what it does. 00:14:42.879 --> 00:14:43.039 Right. 00:14:43.200 --> 00:14:45.840 I trust the input and output from huge amounts of testing on it. 00:14:46.080 --> 00:14:46.399 Okay. 00:14:46.559 --> 00:14:48.960 Um it's a free tool, by the way, no guarantee. 00:14:49.120 --> 00:14:54.080 So um uh let's see, to continue on that. 00:14:54.559 --> 00:14:58.320 My question was like, how do you take some action in the absence of an event? 00:14:58.639 --> 00:15:03.360 So since this thing is always on, you can say it was a Docker thing that wakes up at the end of the day. 00:15:03.519 --> 00:15:14.960 Yeah, so but but it's on like when you're interacting with it, when you go into the web viewer that runs the that's the Clio interface, which you can put in a web viewer on your application, or you can just run it entirely out of FileMaker on a web viewer. 00:15:15.120 --> 00:15:20.080 So someone, you know, a database director or whatever outside of who doesn't have a file maker account can actually use this. 00:15:20.320 --> 00:15:20.639 Okay. 00:15:20.799 --> 00:15:23.919 Um it just has a secure URL and uh like a login. 00:15:24.639 --> 00:15:32.000 Um uh so there's one URL for that, and there's another URL that gets called every time a log record gets made. 00:15:32.240 --> 00:15:32.559 Okay. 00:15:32.799 --> 00:15:44.080 Um and so I talked about on object save, but the way that it kind of comes by default is it does use on um I already forgot the name of the trigger that runs basically on window transaction. 00:15:44.240 --> 00:15:44.879 On window transaction. 00:15:44.960 --> 00:15:45.120 Thank you. 00:15:45.279 --> 00:15:45.919 I already forget it. 00:15:46.080 --> 00:15:46.240 Yeah. 00:15:46.399 --> 00:15:51.039 Um so that one's great because it captures everything from every way you can do it. 00:15:51.200 --> 00:15:57.679 Create a record, delete a record, delete a whole bunch of records, import a bunch of records, anything, everything from GoPro and WebDirect. 00:15:57.919 --> 00:15:58.399 Yes. 00:15:58.639 --> 00:16:00.960 But not API calls. 00:16:01.919 --> 00:16:04.240 Not API calls unless they call a script. 00:16:04.480 --> 00:16:07.919 Unscripted API calls uh are not are excluded from the approach. 00:16:08.080 --> 00:16:08.480 Oh, that's right. 00:16:08.559 --> 00:16:09.039 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:16:09.279 --> 00:16:11.679 And I think if it's server script, I don't know if it does that. 00:16:12.080 --> 00:16:19.840 Many, many tools out there, uh, you know, when they're like many web applications that are front ends to FileMaker often work by just calling scripts in FileMaker. 00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:22.960 If you're calling scripts in FileMaker, the on-window transaction will fire. 00:16:23.200 --> 00:16:28.960 But if the web application is just making direct OData or data API calls, actually I don't know about data API. 00:16:29.279 --> 00:16:29.840 Yeah, I'm not sure. 00:16:30.080 --> 00:16:33.919 I know I know for sure that currently I filed that as a bug with FileMaker. 00:16:34.080 --> 00:16:39.519 Uh if you make uh a direct OData modification call, it won't fire an on-window transaction. 00:16:39.759 --> 00:16:46.080 So there are some sideways around it, but yeah, I think that FileMaker has decided to do that for performance reasons. 00:16:46.720 --> 00:16:47.600 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:16:47.840 --> 00:16:57.519 Um so but it actually one of the other things that FMlog did was it also was supposed to run on login and logout, so it tracked duration of a session. 00:16:57.679 --> 00:17:03.840 It would track if the session failed, like if a user had to force quit FileMaker or something like that by not having a logout. 00:17:04.319 --> 00:17:08.160 Um and then I also put it in really heavily for any kind of scripting. 00:17:08.319 --> 00:17:24.720 So when I like if you're trying to debug a script that runs server-side at many different places in it, you can just put, you can copy and paste the script that calls the log and say, I'm starting, I'm about to start the loop, I finished the loop, here was the output of what the loop was, here how many records it was, here's the next layout, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. 00:17:24.880 --> 00:17:25.039 Right. 00:17:25.200 --> 00:17:28.079 Um, because none of those things would otherwise be tracked. 00:17:28.799 --> 00:17:40.799 Um, if you use that along with window transaction, you have a huge loop, then you have a problem because you're actually calling a script every single time you go, uh, and then you have this huge stack of scripts running. 00:17:40.960 --> 00:17:41.119 Right. 00:17:41.279 --> 00:17:42.799 So that would be kind of an issue there. 00:17:42.960 --> 00:17:43.119 Right. 00:17:43.279 --> 00:17:46.000 Because on window transaction cannot be turned off. 00:17:46.240 --> 00:17:46.480 Right. 00:17:46.720 --> 00:17:47.759 There's not a there's not a switch. 00:17:48.079 --> 00:17:52.240 You just have to stick logic at the at the big top of your script that knows when to short circuit itself. 00:17:52.720 --> 00:17:53.759 But it can't. 00:17:54.000 --> 00:17:57.599 You can't, there's not a switch for it on script level or any other level. 00:17:57.839 --> 00:18:01.200 I'm saying if you have a loop or something like that, it just Okay. 00:18:01.440 --> 00:18:01.839 Yeah. 00:18:02.319 --> 00:18:09.440 But I'm just saying like your script would need an if condition at the top that says if like it's this table or this file or whatever like that, then take no action. 00:18:10.000 -->

00:18:15.440 Well, but if it's in a file, then every single layout in that file would fire, period. 00:18:15.680 --> 00:18:15.839 Right. 00:18:16.000 --> 00:18:22.799 And so if you wanted to do a loop that did a bunch of editing, you'd have to use some other write mechanism or have it call to another file that had it. 00:18:22.880 --> 00:18:26.079 So that's the problem with unwindow transactions is certain kind of automation scripts. 00:18:26.480 --> 00:18:33.440 One workaround for that, which does require development changes, is using the uh begin and uh close transactions. 00:18:33.759 --> 00:18:36.960 Because on window transaction is not necessarily per record, it's perfect. 00:18:37.119 --> 00:18:37.599 That's true. 00:18:37.759 --> 00:18:40.160 Oh, and that's one of the other features of Clio, right? 00:18:40.240 --> 00:18:47.839 So one of the things that it does is if you do something like an import or an export or something that stacks up a bunch of things all at once, um, it can send them in batches. 00:18:47.920 --> 00:18:50.400 So it'll send one, like if you do an import records. 00:18:50.640 --> 00:18:52.079 I believe it's every 500 records. 00:18:52.319 --> 00:18:58.079 Yeah, after it imports, it will send one look uh entry, one API call for every 500 or whatever. 00:18:58.319 --> 00:18:58.559 Right. 00:18:58.720 --> 00:19:02.240 Uh and then when they show up in Clio, it actually shows up for individual records. 00:19:02.319 --> 00:19:05.279 So it actually smartly breaks it out so you can see the history. 00:19:05.519 --> 00:19:05.839 Yeah. 00:19:06.160 --> 00:19:20.480 And then when the log record gets made, an event fires, basically there's some logic that happens inside Cleo that compares that particular record's history to any other record edit that's been made for that record for any other field. 00:19:20.559 --> 00:19:24.000 So you can click on any log entry and see the history of that record. 00:19:24.640 --> 00:19:30.319 Um and then regular old simple filtering, you can just go to a thing. 00:19:30.559 --> 00:19:30.720 Right. 00:19:31.039 --> 00:19:41.200 Another super cool feature is if you want to add it to another database, you copy and paste the one script that gets called, you paste it into the other database, and you turn on whatever method you want to log it, and poof. 00:19:41.279 --> 00:19:46.319 And in Clio, it actually just shows up as hey, you've got a log entry from some system that's not the same name. 00:19:46.640 --> 00:19:50.799 Is it part of the other system, like a multi-file database, or is it a whole different database? 00:19:50.960 --> 00:19:51.119 Right. 00:19:51.359 --> 00:19:56.079 And so one central thing can handle any number of file maker databases and tell them apart and name them and all that. 00:19:56.400 --> 00:19:56.960 Very nice. 00:19:57.279 --> 00:19:59.440 And then the the other really cool killer feature, right? 00:19:59.519 --> 00:20:04.240 The the uh rules and um and then just also ask your logs. 00:20:04.319 --> 00:20:10.480 Yeah so you can just go in there and say, you know, how many uh invoices have been edited in the last two weeks. 00:20:11.440 --> 00:20:27.759 That's one of the things that that really kind of like impressed me so much when I was asking Claude about you know the the layout logger tool is that I didn't tell Claude what FileMaker is, I didn't tell it what the get functions do, I didn't tell it any of those things, and I just asked it a question like who modifies records the most? 00:20:27.920 --> 00:20:32.160 And it looks at the record modification count and by it based on the name, it figures that that's what it means. 00:20:32.400 --> 00:20:34.640 And then it'll give me all this analytical information about it. 00:20:34.720 --> 00:20:36.960 It looks like this user modified the record a bunch of times. 00:20:37.119 --> 00:20:41.839 This user ran a loop that modified all the records and within the same like five milliseconds of each other. 00:20:42.000 --> 00:20:48.079 You know, and it's really it is quite striking how good it is at inferring the meaning of all these fields. 00:20:48.400 --> 00:20:50.160 It's almost like it's an inference engine. 00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:54.160 Uh okay, ready for something crazy? 00:20:54.559 --> 00:20:55.440 I'm ready. 00:20:55.759 --> 00:20:58.559 So FileMaker server has this crazy thing. 00:20:58.640 --> 00:21:00.480 It's the command line interface, right? 00:21:01.039 --> 00:21:03.279 So you can actually do things like that. 00:21:03.359 --> 00:21:04.319 Are you talking about FMS admin? 00:21:04.480 --> 00:21:05.440 Yeah, FMS admin, right? 00:21:05.519 --> 00:21:05.599 Okay. 00:21:05.759 --> 00:21:11.039 So you can actually say, uh, you know, run a terminal command that says, hey, show me data in that folder or whatever. 00:21:11.200 --> 00:21:12.319 You can get you can get information. 00:21:12.480 --> 00:21:15.519 Also, if it's running on a Linux box, you can just directly query the OS. 00:21:15.920 --> 00:21:20.160 Well, you can set up a path from the Clio instance wherever it runs. 00:21:20.240 --> 00:21:21.519 By the way, it doesn't have to run on fly. 00:21:21.680 --> 00:21:26.559 It could run on the FileMaker server itself in a Docker, it could run on anything, run on a local computer, it doesn't really matter. 00:21:26.640 --> 00:21:26.720 Okay. 00:21:26.880 --> 00:21:29.599 I I run it on Fly because it's convenient and cheap. 00:21:29.839 --> 00:21:30.160 Right. 00:21:30.799 --> 00:21:33.359 So let's marry up our two products. 00:21:33.519 --> 00:21:33.680 Right? 00:21:33.759 --> 00:21:43.839 If someone like really intents about it, then Clio can actually look for on a periodic basis anything that's happening in the log file that you write, which is JSON, because of course this is all JSON too. 00:21:44.079 --> 00:21:44.240 Right. 00:21:44.400 --> 00:21:46.240 And then marry it up with the actual event. 00:21:46.400 --> 00:21:47.680 So now you're getting both.

00:21:47.839 --> 00:21:48.000 Yeah. 00:21:48.240 --> 00:21:51.920 You're getting all the latent data changes, which I can capture, right? 00:21:52.079 --> 00:21:55.200 And all the entering layouts and user layout, which I can't. 00:21:55.519 --> 00:21:59.599 And so in one thing, you're getting this crazy amount of data in a in an in a 00:22:00.480 --> 00:22:09.920 Because when we call layout log or enable, which is the plugin function that kind of turns it on and starts a tracking, I've been kicking around the idea of making it an optional additional parameter of where to log it to. 00:22:10.160 --> 00:22:10.319 Yeah. 00:22:11.039 --> 00:22:11.920 So currently by the thing. 00:22:12.079 --> 00:22:13.039 You could also just do that, right? 00:22:13.119 --> 00:22:15.119 You could just call make a Clio log with an ALEAL. 00:22:15.279 --> 00:22:15.359 Yeah. 00:22:15.519 --> 00:22:15.680 Yeah. 00:22:15.759 --> 00:22:21.519 I could just basically make it so that when you call layout logger enable, you pass in an optional parameter that says log to Clio at this address. 00:22:21.680 --> 00:22:21.920 Yep. 00:22:22.079 --> 00:22:25.440 Or, you know, I've been thinking about it actually in terms of SQS with Amazon. 00:22:25.599 --> 00:22:28.799 You know, it's like record each event to an SQS record. 00:22:29.680 --> 00:22:30.880 But it would be really nice. 00:22:31.039 --> 00:22:32.960 I have had some people that too. 00:22:33.200 --> 00:22:37.680 I have had some people concerned about the idea of running a FileMaker server-side plugin. 00:22:38.400 --> 00:22:41.119 You know, some people just don't like server-side plugins. 00:22:41.359 --> 00:22:45.920 And I tell them, you know, Layout Logger is literally not doing anything at all with FileMaker server. 00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:48.960 It's literally just listening on an HTTP port and appending to a text file. 00:22:49.440 --> 00:22:55.599 But if there's any kind of a security breach that can be taken advantage of in the server, then that's that's kind of the attack surface, right? 00:22:56.000 --> 00:23:00.079 So I I still feel like the way Layout Logger works should be the default way. 00:23:00.240 --> 00:23:07.039 You know, there's a server-side plugin that gathers data and client-side plugin that gathers data and a server-side plugin that stores it. 00:23:07.119 --> 00:23:07.440 Yep. 00:23:07.599 --> 00:23:19.279 But it would be really nice for the people that would rather not run a FileMaker plugin on their server to have an option to say, okay, instead of reporting this to the FileMaker server plugin, report it to Clio or to SQS. 00:23:19.599 --> 00:23:21.200 Clio's completely open source. 00:23:21.359 --> 00:23:23.759 So you could actually just take it and do whatever you want. 00:23:24.079 --> 00:23:24.480 That's cool. 00:23:24.799 --> 00:23:24.960 Yeah. 00:23:25.039 --> 00:23:27.279 And then just take advantage of the hundreds of hours or whatever. 00:23:27.519 --> 00:23:39.519 That one I didn't have hundreds of hours of work in, like some of the other things I've been doing, but many, many hours of coding and testing and making the interface look good and setting up the you know all the features that make it convenient and use. 00:23:39.759 --> 00:23:43.039 Yeah, it's uh creating creating tools with AI. 00:23:43.359 --> 00:23:52.960 Uh you get the super big rush of feel what feels like after you do the first prompt and you put three prompts in and you get something that looks like it's 60 or 80% done. 00:23:53.119 --> 00:23:53.599 Yeah. 00:23:53.920 --> 00:23:55.279 It's 15% done. 00:23:55.519 --> 00:23:55.839 Yeah. 00:23:56.319 --> 00:23:56.559 Yes. 00:23:56.799 --> 00:23:58.319 You know, there's a huge amount of time. 00:23:58.400 --> 00:24:04.079 And then the last 5% is a lot of time with AI. 00:24:04.240 --> 00:24:06.240 Much more, I think, than if you just did it with FileMaker. 00:24:06.559 --> 00:24:12.400 Going off of the technical track, if I can detour for just a moment, I've recently discovered Midjourney. 00:24:12.559 --> 00:24:12.880 Yeah. 00:24:13.039 --> 00:24:15.759 And, you know, I am a big fantasy role-playing game fan. 00:24:15.839 --> 00:24:20.480 I've loved Dungeons and Dragons since I was a kid, and I still play with a lot of my friends since when I was a kid. 00:24:20.720 --> 00:24:24.559 And it's really, really fun for me to use Midjourney to put that stuff together. 00:24:24.720 --> 00:24:31.279 And it's amazing how much time it takes to kind of instruct the AI on exactly what you want and tweak it and tweak it and tweak it. 00:24:31.359 --> 00:24:31.440 Yeah. 00:24:33.599 --> 00:24:34.640 You can kind of endlessly do it. 00:24:34.720 --> 00:24:36.559 And just like art, you have to know when you're done. 00:24:36.799 --> 00:24:37.200 Yeah. 00:24:37.519 --> 00:24:39.519 Um Yeah. 00:24:39.599 --> 00:24:41.200 And then, you know, one thing leads to another. 00:24:41.279 --> 00:24:44.240 Like every time you have an idea of something, like you can do that. 00:24:44.319 --> 00:24:50.880 Like one of the other things I thought of was can was actually syncing this with the server logs, which also capture a lot of stuff. 00:24:51.119 --> 00:24:51.359 Right. 00:24:51.519 --> 00:24:54.640 Those capture logins and logouts and server backups and server events. 00:24:54.720 --> 00:24:57.440 And and you could marry all three of those things up. 00:24:57.599 --> 00:25:04.880 Pretty, pretty uh, I don't think I would want to append to the server logs, but I think it would be not append, but like or or mix in. 00:25:04.960 --> 00:25:05.119 Yeah. 00:25:05.279 --> 00:25:05.839 I don't think it would be. 00:25:06.079 --> 00:25:07.759 No, AI told me it didn't want to do that either. 00:25:08.000 --> 00:25:15.759 Yeah, I don't like the idea of one log file with all that stuff, but I do love the idea of giving like eight different log files to Claude and saying these all have timestamps in them. 00:25:16.319 --> 00:25:22.240 So match up

all the timestamps, and now you know what's happening from this angle, this angle, and this angle all at the same exact moment. 00:25:22.400 --> 00:25:24.240 Like for instance, another good one is top call stats. 00:25:24.400 --> 00:25:26.000 Yeah, and I was just gonna bring that up, right? 00:25:26.240 --> 00:25:29.039 Because if you turn that on, then you're getting a gigantic amount of data. 00:25:29.200 --> 00:25:29.359 Right. 00:25:29.519 --> 00:25:31.759 Like imagine if you're really trying to look for something. 00:25:31.839 --> 00:25:32.000 Right. 00:25:32.240 --> 00:25:35.599 You could turn on Cleo, uh, your logging tool. 00:25:35.759 --> 00:25:36.319 Layout logger, yeah. 00:25:36.480 --> 00:25:41.200 Yeah, layout logger, plus top call stats, and you get like you would have the world on the colour. 00:25:41.680 --> 00:25:47.200 And of course, AI would easily be able to the hard thing with top call stats is it doesn't give you like here's the username and here's the name of the layout. 00:25:47.359 --> 00:25:48.880 No, it's not user IDs. 00:25:49.200 --> 00:25:49.359 Yeah. 00:25:49.519 --> 00:25:52.400 But but yeah, but AI can just reference that. 00:25:52.640 --> 00:25:52.880 Yeah. 00:25:53.440 --> 00:25:53.680 Yeah. 00:25:53.920 --> 00:25:54.160 Yeah. 00:25:54.240 --> 00:25:55.359 And then use some tool. 00:25:55.440 --> 00:25:58.480 Well, Clio Clio would be very easily since it's open source. 00:25:58.559 --> 00:26:01.839 Um, anything you wanted to add to it, you would just basically go in and prompt it, right? 00:26:02.240 --> 00:26:07.359 It's built specifically to be uh to be extended in whatever way you want by prompts. 00:26:07.519 --> 00:26:13.519 I've cut like little stubs of all the different areas that I could think of that you might want to go so that they're you can just kind of plug into them. 00:26:13.759 --> 00:26:14.400 Of course, you know. 00:26:14.720 --> 00:26:15.920 And that's in Python? 00:26:16.240 --> 00:26:18.799 Uh no, it's mostly not. 00:26:19.119 --> 00:26:21.680 Um is it Node? 00:26:22.319 --> 00:26:27.680 Yeah, it's it's Node and JS, but but I don't I don't really look at the stack, so I kind of don't care. 00:26:27.759 --> 00:26:29.599 It's like a platform agnostic. 00:26:29.680 --> 00:26:36.319 Like, you know, I'm I'm sort of like in the in the seat of a customer that says, I want you to do a thing and it needs to solve this problem. 00:26:36.480 --> 00:26:38.319 And I don't care if you use FileMaker. 00:26:38.480 --> 00:26:38.720 Right. 00:26:38.880 --> 00:26:42.960 You know, from the customer's perspective, they just yeah, so I'm the customer in this case. 00:26:43.200 --> 00:26:44.640 I haven't gotten to that point with AI yet. 00:26:44.799 --> 00:26:45.680 Yeah, I'm definitely there. 00:26:45.839 --> 00:26:55.759 Starting November last year, uh-huh when uh I think it was Opus 4.8 came out, all of a sudden it it crossed a hill. 00:26:56.160 --> 00:26:58.880 It reached the top of a hill of trust. 00:26:59.200 --> 00:27:04.640 And since then we've been we've been starting to coast and pick up speed of the ability to completely trust. 00:27:04.880 --> 00:27:06.160 Trust but verify, right? 00:27:06.400 --> 00:27:07.039 Right. 00:27:07.519 --> 00:27:12.319 Um, I still care very much about the technology being used. 00:27:12.400 --> 00:27:19.680 And I I write most of the code myself, and then I get AI to like document it, test it, do some of the tedious parts. 00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:27.680 Sometimes what I'll do is I'll write a stub of a method, you know, I'll say, this takes these eight inputs, and here's the documented behavior, now fill in the implementation. 00:27:27.920 --> 00:27:28.160 Yeah. 00:27:28.319 --> 00:27:33.839 Um, which is nowhere near what you're doing with it, but I'm just not quite at that point yet where I'm like, I don't care what language is. 00:27:34.240 --> 00:27:36.160 Well, you're an expert Java developer. 00:27:36.480 --> 00:27:36.640 Yes. 00:27:36.960 --> 00:27:40.400 Yeah, so and I I don't know, I guess I should say I'm an expert file maker developer. 00:27:40.559 --> 00:27:43.920 I wouldn't yet trust file um to run to write all my file maker code. 00:27:44.000 --> 00:27:46.559 I can see it, I can understand that I I completely get it. 00:27:46.880 --> 00:27:47.359 Right. 00:27:47.599 --> 00:27:56.400 But for writing things that are out of FileMaker, API calls, I'll give you a specific things like that, I then I I I'm I'm okay with it as long as I can totally verify the input and output. 00:27:56.640 --> 00:28:17.519 I'll give you one specific example of where I uh were asking AI to do something that I didn't oversee closely enough really blew up on me, um, which is so Layout Logger, uh, and this gets a little bit into the technical weeds, but Layout Logger originally uh, so it gets called 20 times a second on every client. 00:28:17.680 --> 00:28:17.839 Yeah. 00:28:18.160 --> 00:28:20.079 And for the most part, that's no problem at all. 00:28:20.240 --> 00:28:24.799 But there was one thing I was doing really wrong, which was one of the get functions I was calling was get user count. 00:28:25.039 --> 00:28:29.359 And every time you call get user count, it makes a round trick to FileMaker server to get the user count. 00:28:29.519 --> 00:28:39.200 Yeah, so that meant that I each connected client was calling FileMaker server 20 times a second getting the user count, which you know was fine in my testing with my one laptop. 00:28:39.519 --> 00:28:41.680 I wouldn't even think yeah, on single user. 00:28:41.920 --> 00:28:42.319 Yeah, yeah. 00:28:42.559 --> 00:28:44.400 Yeah, where it isn't, it wasn't even a call. 00:28:44.640 --> 00:28:50.799 Yeah, no, I mean, I mean I was testing with a hosted file, and the load from one user was not enough for me to notice. 00:28:51.039 --> 00:28:55.759 But uh, but I showed it to Clay, and Clay pointed out that this you know is uh could be a real problem. 00:28:55.920 --> 00:28:56.079

Yeah. 00:28:56.240 --> 00:29:01.200 So then I went to uh to Claude and I said, okay, take out the calls to get user count. 00:29:01.359 --> 00:29:05.359 You know, let's just do those once when we connect in or maybe once a minute. 00:29:06.079 --> 00:29:18.160 And so um so what Claude did, uh and I don't remember which model I was using, maybe I wasn't using a smart enough model, um, but what Claude did is it simply stopped reporting the results of the get user count. 00:29:18.400 --> 00:29:18.799 Oh, yeah. 00:29:18.960 --> 00:29:22.880 Uh but it was still calling it 20 times a second, and I shipped a version of that. 00:29:23.039 --> 00:29:33.119 Yeah, and then I had to kind of quickly, once I found out while I was hand coding a different part, and I happened to look at the get functions we're calling, I'm like, why is get user count still in there? 00:29:33.279 --> 00:29:37.119 And then I realized that it was still calling it and just discarding it because it thought I just didn't care about it. 00:29:37.200 --> 00:29:37.599 Unless it's a lot of people. 00:29:37.759 --> 00:29:38.960 That's the kind of thing that can happen. 00:29:39.200 --> 00:29:46.319 Yeah, so I feel I still feel like it is really pretty important to know what it's doing. 00:29:46.720 --> 00:29:51.440 And I I can't I can't empirically measure the performance impact. 00:29:51.519 --> 00:29:53.920 So I can't tell that it's doing that. 00:29:54.000 --> 00:29:56.400 That's something that you have to I have to look at the code to know. 00:29:56.799 --> 00:30:01.039 But I mean you could actually have Claude write a program to empirically test it. 00:30:01.359 --> 00:30:07.279 Or even better, you know, have uh have you know uh some other model test it. 00:30:07.359 --> 00:30:11.039 So I I definitely have two completely different models look at all of my code. 00:30:11.200 --> 00:30:28.079 You know, I'll have, you know, I'll go into OpenAI's latest, greatest model and say, here's my here's my repo, find flaws with it and and report them back and assign a task to the cloud agent to fix it so the two of them have a conversation. 00:30:28.400 --> 00:30:33.359 But the only way this could be empirically found is if I had many file maker clients all running at the same time. 00:30:33.680 --> 00:30:33.839 Right. 00:30:33.920 --> 00:30:34.640 Yeah, yeah, that would be. 00:30:34.880 --> 00:30:36.559 And that would be possible to stage. 00:30:36.640 --> 00:30:40.079 We've done it before for mirror sync testing, but it was a it was a beast to set it up. 00:30:40.319 --> 00:30:41.359 Yeah, yeah, yeah, I would bet. 00:30:41.519 --> 00:30:41.680 Yeah. 00:30:41.920 --> 00:30:43.920 So you know, that level would be hard to do. 00:30:44.079 --> 00:30:56.079 Plus also, you know, you're when you're writing JavaScript stuff, Python stuff, there's millions or billions of hours of developer time that OpenI models can cross-reference. 00:30:56.240 --> 00:30:56.400 Right. 00:30:56.559 --> 00:31:03.119 When

you're when you're writing uh file maker plugin code, um, it's not that's that's true. 00:31:03.279 --> 00:31:03.839 That is definitely true. 00:31:03.920 --> 00:31:06.000 There's a small lesson. 00:31:06.400 --> 00:31:08.559 A lot fewer lines of code for it to plagiarize from. 00:31:08.880 --> 00:31:16.400 Yeah, I mean there's obviously jillions of lines of Java code, yeah, but it's not cross-referenced with the docs of what uh right. 00:31:16.559 --> 00:31:18.480 It doesn't know specifically the get user count. 00:31:19.279 --> 00:31:21.519 But you would have a code, you would probably have a channel. 00:31:21.680 --> 00:31:24.079 You know, you'd have a project inside Cloud Code. 00:31:24.240 --> 00:31:24.319 Right. 00:31:24.559 --> 00:31:26.319 By the way, Cloud Code does everything cowork does. 00:31:26.480 --> 00:31:27.440 It works on a folder. 00:31:27.599 --> 00:31:29.440 They've been editing, they've been adding the features. 00:31:29.599 --> 00:31:32.160 For a while, you could only do it in the command line version in terminal. 00:31:32.240 --> 00:31:32.640 Oh, okay. 00:31:32.880 --> 00:31:35.839 But now the the desktop app has all of it. 00:31:36.079 --> 00:31:36.400 Okay. 00:31:36.640 --> 00:31:42.880 So it'll run local folders, it'll run run the computer, it'll spin up and you know, control a browser or control other applications. 00:31:42.960 --> 00:31:43.680 You can watch it work. 00:31:43.839 --> 00:31:44.000 Okay. 00:31:44.160 --> 00:31:45.519 So it has computer control. 00:31:45.680 --> 00:31:49.200 Um, it'll directly deploy, so it can run terminal commands on anything. 00:31:49.359 --> 00:31:49.920 Right. 00:31:50.160 --> 00:31:55.759 Um so uh, you know, I use it to control my AWS server, uh, control my FileMaker server. 00:31:55.920 --> 00:31:56.319 Right. 00:31:56.480 --> 00:32:02.160 Uh uh use you know other other new things that are coming that we we've seen here at the conference, which are exciting as hell. 00:32:02.319 --> 00:32:11.839 Which by the way, I think the new things that are coming are gonna have a bigger impact on FileMaker developers' lives than anything since FileMaker 7, and I think including FileMaker 7. 00:32:12.079 --> 00:32:15.599 Oh, yeah, the stuff that they showed at the keynote today was definitely very exciting. 00:32:15.920 --> 00:32:16.400 The biggest. 00:32:16.480 --> 00:32:17.359 This is the biggest impact. 00:32:17.839 --> 00:32:18.240 Yeah, yeah. 00:32:18.480 --> 00:32:18.640 Yeah. 00:32:18.799 --> 00:32:20.240 We should have started with that, Jesse. 00:32:20.880 --> 00:32:21.920 We buried the lead. 00:32:22.160 --> 00:32:22.960 We wait till the end. 00:32:23.039 --> 00:32:27.519 Well, I'll have other well, I'm having other conver uh conversations like with other people here. 00:32:28.079 --> 00:32:31.359 Uh this would be so fun to do a little thing together. 00:32:31.440 --> 00:32:38.559 And I love that we've taken completely different approaches to solving very real but very different problems for microdevelopers. 00:32:40.319 --> 00:32:43.599 Yeah, it's um Yeah, I agree. 00:32:43.839 --> 00:32:44.400 Yeah, fun. 00:32:44.640 --> 00:32:45.519 Thanks for your time. 00:32:46.960 --> 00:32:47.920 Glad to be on the show.