VISUAL QUICKPRO GUIDE FileMaker Pro 7 Advanced FOR WINDOWS AND MACINTOSH [Electronic resources]

Importing into FileMaker with XML

Importing with XML works very much the same as exporting. You specify the file to import, choose the XSLT to do the transformation, and bring the data into the existing database. If you don't already have a database set up, an XML import into FileMaker will create one for you on the flyreason enough to use XML as your preferred import method when possible.

For this example we'll use another XSLT available from [ www.filemaker.com/technologies/xslt_librar225 ]. This one, iTunes to FMP (import_itunes.xslt.xsl), imports to FileMaker song lists that have been exported as XML from the iTunes program.

To import with XML

1 .

Export a playlist or library from iTunes in XML format. Make sure that the file name ends with ".xml" (Figure 12.63).

2 .

In FileMaker, choose File > Open (Control+O/Command+O).

3 .When the Open File dialog box appears, choose XML Data Source from the Show drop-down menu (Figure 12.64).

4 .The Specify XML and XSL Options dialog box appears. In the Specify XML Data Source section, click the File radio button. Navigate to the file you exported from iTunes and double-click to select it.

5 .

Click the "Use XSL style sheet" check box. Click the File radio button below it.

6 .

When the Open dialog box appears, navigate to the import_itunes.xslt.xsl XSLT file that you downloaded from the FileMaker site. Double-click to select it and click OK (Figure 12.65).

7 .Back in the Specify XML and XSL Options dialog box, click Continue. When the "Create a new file named" dialog box appears, type a name for the new database and click Save (Figure 12.66).

The new database will contain all of the information that iTunes stored about each song in the exported song list (Figure 12.67).