Is Filemaker a web platform?

Question

From what I understand Filemaker is a database. A friend of mine is able to make forms out of filemaker. Is it possible to publish those forms as a website? Basically is it possible to use filemaker as a web platform? Can I make websites out of filemaker pro's form generation facility. If the answer is yes, is it the ideal tool for website programming?

Thanks.

Answer 1

In response to Your main answer "Is Filemaker a web platform?" i would says no.

Filemaker it's a database engine with gui facilities, so You can build things fast, it's an ideal tool for making projects (more or less specific) inside an corp or organization or to prototype/develop an application.

Filemaker has btw at least to modes/tools to share data and gui functions out of the box (http://www.filemaker.com/products/filemaker-pro/web-publishing.html):

Instant web publishing avaiable in the Filemaker Pro (limited users and functionality) and Filemaker Server that enable You and Your group to share with minimum effort data and gui (forms)

Custom Web Publishing only with Filemaker servershare data trough PHP code, with some tools to auto-generate PHP code.

So Filemaker i would says can share you data and forms build inside Your database over the web and can integrate with the Server version with PHP.

Good question btw! Rob

Answer 2

Technically FileMaker server has a fairly good Web API that accepts GET and POST requests and returns data in XML. There's also an official PHP wrapper around it and a few unofficial wrappers, e.g. in Python. It's pretty much possible to use it as a database backend with Web projects.