With the arrival of the FileMaker Data API, developers faced a new challenge: how to easily and efficiently connect websites or applications written in PHP to FileMaker databases. For those unfamiliar with FileMaker, the API was too specific and required knowledge of FileMaker concepts such as layouts, more complex authentication, and token handling. This complexity made integration difficult, especially for external developers without deeper knowledge of FileMaker.
To simplify this process, we created our own open-source PHP framework called fmRESTor. Its goal is to make life easier for developers who know PHP (and later JavaScript). Thanks to fmRESTor, they can easily use a FileMaker database as a data source or destination within their applications.
The framework fully handles authentication, either via session cookies or by storing credentials in a file, eliminating the need for complex request setup and dealing with expired tokens. The framework also includes ready-made code samples for common API operations such as reading, writing, editing data, or implementing webhook functionality. This allows developers to simply copy an example, adjust it to match their own database, and start working immediately.
