Every now and then people on this list ask if it's possible to preserve text styles (bold, underline, font etc) from FileMaker fields when displaying them through Lasso. The standard answer is "impossible". 

But wait, this long standing feature request can in fact be solved already today!

CDML in FMP 5.0 has a new 'format' parameter for the [fmp-field] tag. This new parameter exists only for this purpose, to preserve the text formatting of the field. But how does that relate to Lasso? Well, using include_url it's rather easy to get styled text also in Lasso, although not so very elegant. 

Here's how:
1. First of all, this only work with FM Remote and FMP 5. Due to limitations of include_url (you can use the default port 80) it also only works when FMP is set to port 80, in other words you have to have FMP on a separate machine from the web server to avoid a port conflict (also due to MRJ issues on MacOS). Further, it gets tricky if your database is password protected for web companion access. 

2. Now, create a CDML format file that only contains this text:
	[fmp-field: myfieldname, format]
Unfortunately, you have to create one format file like this for each styled field you want to be able to use in Lasso. 
Put this file (lets call it formatted.cdml) in the web folder inside the FMP folder. 

3. Use this code to display your formatted field on a Lasso page:
[include_url: (String_Concatenate: EncodeNone, 
	'http://fmpro.host.name/fmpro?-format=formatted.cdml&-db=',
	(Database_Name), 
	'&-lay=',
	(Layout_Name),
	'&-recid=',
	(RecordID_Value),
	'&-find')]

Well, that's it! Now create a macro out of this...


If you want to have more flexibility you can pass the wanted field name as a token to FMPro, and in the formatted.cdml file you can have a conditional statement that picks the right field depending on the value of the token. 
(I tried to use the token value as field name to provide ultimate flexibility, but that doesn't seem to work with CDML). 

The logical conclusion of this not so elegant tip is that Lasso badly needs a new version of FM Remote that takes advantage of new features and possibilities with Web Companion 5. 
