With Custom Web Publishing (CWP) FileMaker allows to build web applications using PHP as Front-End and FileMaker as Back-End. This is achieved using FMPHP API provided by FileMaker.

Almost every web application consists of forms that have a dropdown list/ selection list. For example:

In the case of Dynamic dropdown lists, data has to be fetched from backend FileMaker database every time the user accesses. If there are large number of records, then fetching them from the database and displaying on Web Page takes time to load and results in the slowness of the web page.

In order to avoid this and make the experience friendlier & faster for the user, following technique explains how it can be achieved in a simple way,

• Create a text file with all the required data separated by entering key in it.
  ex.
  Value1
  Value2
  Value3..

• This data will be the initial data containing in the FileMaker field on which you would like to base dropdown list.
• Place this file in the same location as your web page containing the dropdown list.
• Then in the PHP web page, using file read operations and while loop, fetch the data and display in the dropdown list.
• Create one more PHP web page, which will fire a query on FileMaker table/field to get dynamic data for the dropdown list and write to the text file described above.
• Admin person can call this web page via a web browser or web viewer of FileMaker whenever there is an update to the field data.
• This technique is more effective when the data in the required field is modified less frequently.