ISO FileMaker Magazine: FileMaker Video Tutorials, Templates, Help & More

Our meeting this month is shaping up to be an event you won’t want to miss. Our speakers have been doing some traveling lately and are back amongst us with their insights.

To lead off, Brian Ginn, fresh from his recent travels in China, will regale you with–not his photographs and videos of the Chinese countryside and New Year’s celebrations, unfortunately–but with the culmination of our series on script triggers. For those of you that have ever set up a nice little tab set in FileMaker, only to have it forget where it last was when you switch to a different layout and back again, Brian has a cool way to make sure that your tab selections stay right where you last left them. His demo will also demonstrate his passion for all things with the words “social” and “media” in their names by showing you how to integrate Google Docs, straight from the cloud and right into your own programs.

Also returning from a foreign country (one called California), KFUG member Teresa Wilkins will share her experiences at last month’s FileMaker Bootcamp. This long-running, intensive immersion experience is held in Southern California and boasts several famous FileMaker luminaries on its faculty. Teresa says, “Bootcamp! It’s not for everyone, but if it’s right for you then you’re gonna love it. I’ll give a broad-strokes overview of what the experience was like and who might benefit most from it. I’ll share some tasty knowledge morsels that I picked up - quick bites and food for thought! Then I’ll end by sharing some great resources for users at every level, with an emphasis on custom menus and the brilliantly accessible wisdom of Jerry Robbins.”

Fresh off an encore engagement in Fort Wayne, Indiana (not quite as exotic as the aforementioned locales, but the natives are friendly), Jonathan Fletcher will have a handout and short presentation on FileMaker-related resources available around the ‘net. From helpful blogs to downloadable software, the internet houses a wealth of useful information for the aspiring (and experienced) FileMaker user/developer. Want to know how to get your questions answered? There’s a site for that.

And for the hot news of the week: FileMaker 11 is out! That means that FileMaker Pro, FileMaker Pro Advanced, FileMaker Server and FileMaker Server Advanced all have new versions with a metric boatload of new features and stuff to talk about. Jonathan will end his presentation with a short overview of some of the higher profile new features to be found in the latest versions of our favorite toys.

That said, stay tuned for an official announcement about the return of the Bill and Bill show. Bill Kaiser, FileMaker Inc.’s Midwest Business Account Manager and Bill Heizer, FileMaker Inc.’s Senior Consulting Engineer spoke to our group in November and wowed us with their presentation on FileMaker 10. Well, they’re going to do it again with FileMaker 11. Invites will be going out to the wider community of registered users in Kentucky and Southern Indiana, so we expect another SRO turnout. While tentatively scheduled for the May 20th meeting at this point, we’re not inking it into our Day-Timer just yet. We’ll let you know the minute we get firm confirmation.

Don’t forget you can get more info about our next meeting and also RSVP at: http://fmpug.com/scheduleMeetings.php

Thanks again and see you on the 18th!

–
Alan Bird
Jonathan Fletcher
Brian Ginn
Bill Holt
Byron Songer

Recommended Resources on the Web:

Mighty Data is doing 11 Filemaker 11 video tutorials in 11 days. The first one is on charting and is a little over 7 minutes long. The second one is on the Inspector. Highly recommended.

Matt Petrowsky has a 10 minute video on FileMaker 11 New Features for the FileMaker Developer.

Secret Weapons Lab has a 2-part in depth review of FileMaker 11 from a developer's perspective.

BillonFileMaker by Bill Doerrfeld has more good FM11 commentary from a developer perspective.

More of My Tips and Comments on FileMaker 11:

As I begin using and testing FileMaker Pro 11, I'm finding little tidbits worth sharing. Here are some of the highlights:

Quick Find is a big win. You don't have to use the Find command so much anymore. Users will quickly learn to try Quick Find before bothering with the Find command. It works in Browse mode which is the normal operating mode in FileMaker. It is really fast unless searching on unindexed fields or related fields where it might slow down a bit or a lot depending on the circumstances (how many records etc.).

Tip: Enable Quick Find Selectively in any existing database. When opened in FileMaker 11, every layout is enabled for Quick Find. So..., if there are places Quick Find makes no sense, you should turn it off in Layout Setup. Also, all fields, merge fields included on your layouts start their lives as enabled for Quick Find. In Layout Mode, you'll see yellow magnifying glasses. Those are the unindexed and related fields like those in portals that may slow down your Quick Finds. I would turn all those off unless you can think of a reason not to. Then, as time goes along, you can always turn one or two back on if and when the need becomes apparent.

Charting is Awesome. Charts have a way of getting our attention that numbers don't. It is as easy to do charting in FileMaker as it is in Excel so this doesn't require rocket science or expensive rocket scientists (like yours truly) to start using. I've learned how to use Charting so far from FileMaker 11's online help examples - 4 of them to show different ways to use it. Then, I learned more by watching MightyData's free 7 minute Charting tutorial. Get the tutorial and free demo file here. There are twenty gorgeous color schemes to choose from with the option to specify your own colors if you like. Don't forget that you can hover over a bar or pie slice to see the exact numbers involved.

Portal Filtering. The Portal Set-up dialog box has a new checkbox called Filter Portal Records. Let's say you have a portal in your clients entry screen that shows invoices for that client, but you would also like to see just the unpaid invoices and just use the full history of all invoices for reference as needed. What I would do is make my portal just a bit smaller and then create a tab control with 2 tabs. The first tab would be Unpaid Invoices and the second would be entitled Invoice History. I would cut the current portal and portal fields and paste them onto each of the 2 tabs. Then in my first Unpaid Invoices tab, I would double-click the portal to bring up portal setup and check the new Filter Portal checkbox. There I would enter Unpaid Balance > 0. And click OK to save it. That's it. A 5 minute project.

Limitations of the New Portal Filtering Checkbox. Apparently, the Go To Related Records command ignores the filter. So that means, to use my same example above, when you click the button to the left of an Unpaid Invoice, you'll go to that Invoice but the found set will most likely be all the invoices for this client, not the nicer subset of unpaid invoices. Up till now we've had to get into the relationships graph and create new calculated fields or use custom functions to get a portal to filter. Now we don't have to work so hard to get portal filtering. In my product, I'll probably do it the old-fashioned way so my found set behavior is consistent. But sometimes this limitation won't be a problem and the quick and dirty way will serve just fine. It is always helpful to have a quick way to try out a new feature. If it is a as valuable as you think it is going to be, you can implement it the more robust way on the relationships graph when time permits.

Layout Object Badges. Now that layout objects can do all sorts of back flips, it is helpful to see which ones have special features. There are really nice new colored badge icons to show: Conditional Formatting, Quick Find, Script Triggers and Tooltips. As mentioned above, the Quick Find magnifying glass icons come in green or yellow depending on whether the find is going to be fast or slow.

More on Manage Layouts. I mentioned in Tuesday's post that you can create layout groups with the new much improved Manage Layouts window. Besides that, you can leave it open and return to browse mode. Just one more case where more than one thing can be kept available. You can switch to different screens and use the layouts groups after you've checked out a few of those layouts with funny names.

You Don't need to use the little up-down widget to move items in Manage Scripts and Manage Layouts. Now you can drag anywhere on a script name or layout name and move it easily with excellent visual feedback as you do so.

The Text Engine has Changed (Again). In my Studio Manager product, a lot of the buttons are underlined text. All of these links looked cramped when opened in FileMaker 11. With a little experimentation, I found that if I increased the vertical height of those link-styled buttons by 1 pixel, the underscores would move down a bit and look better.

Layout Inspectors. Floating palettes are all rage on the Mac these days and FileMaker Layouts are now the beneficiaries of this trend. In FileMaker 11, you can open 1 Inspector. It has 3 tabs that cover just about any possible layout characteristic. And, you can apply those characteristics to multiple objects at once. Very handy. Even handier you can close the triangles on characteristic groups you don't use often to shorten the palette. Handier yet, you can open multiple Inspectors and show 1 tab on each if you like. This is a killer feature for FIleMaker 11 for the developer who spends more time than he or she might like on layout details and polishing.

Editing Scripts from the Button Setup Screen. This is definitely a developer feature. It is ideal for debugging and for fixing. Here's the deal. Before you would double-click a button that wasn't working right. Then you would click to see what the name of the script was that it was running and you would scroll up and down there to see where in the scripts list that particular script was. Then you would open Manage Scripts and find the script, open it up and check it out and fix it if necessary. Now, once you see the script that the button uses, you can edit the script directly from there.

I'll be posting again soon the next batch of things I've found in the new FIleMaker 11.

On March 16, 2010, our guests will be Alexei Folger (Senior Systems Engineer), and Glen Suarez (Business Account Manager) from FileMaker, Inc.

Please register using the link provided as space is limited. Your registration will be especially appreciated and will help us in planning for food and refreshments! Register Now!

In this meeting, we’ll get an update on the FileMaker 11 Product Line, discuss some of our current issues, and have some of our most pressing FileMaker questions answered.

Whether you are new to FileMaker or an experienced developer, you will find this meeting useful and informative. You’ll discover all the exciting features that make FileMaker Pro 11 such a valuable tool–such as FileMaker Charts, scripting, calculations, the enhanced Layout/Report Assistant, Quick Find, Inspector, Portal Filtering, Snapshot Link and more! You’ll also learn about resources that are available to help keep you up-to-date.

Don’t miss this special opportunity to talk with Miss Alexei and Mr. Glen face-to-face and meet other like-minded FileMaker users and developers.

Please note, we’ll be meeting in a new location this month:

City of Scottsdale’s Paiute Neighborhood Center
Building 9 Lecture Hall
6535 East Osborn Road
Scottsdale, Arizona 85251

The Lecture Hall is large and features tiered, stadium-style seating with hook-ups for laptops, so feel free to bring yours!

We are excited about the release of FileMaker Pro 11. There are a handful of feature and usability advancements that make it a very compelling upgrade and keep us excited about the evolution of the platform. We are looking forward to taking full advantage in our future solutions. We also understand that it will be some time before many organizations will be ready to make the move to a new version of FileMaker across all of their users.

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I've got Filemaker Pro 11 Advanced running on my Macbook Air right now. It came out this morning and ever since I've been working to understand its new features and begin to write about them. I saw a preview at the FileMaker Developer's Conference last summer, but there's nothing like the real thing, released and usable now!

Before you get too excited, you need Leopard 10.5.7 or higher to run FileMaker 11. And Snow Leopard is recommended.

Linear Chat and CNET says FileMaker 11 is Cocoa-based on Mac. I'm still researching this, but apparently the reason FileMaker 11 looks so good on my Snow Leopard Mac today is that is Cocoa-based.

Yay! FileMaker 11 has end-user charting and, of course, developer charting as well so canned charts that show important information can be set to pop-up with a click. The charts look really good and have a lot of functionality and tweakability without scripting or head-scratching.

Layout Groups will be appreciated by just about any firm using FileMaker to cleanup the layouts menu. Now you can put all those junky layouts that may never be used again in a Folder or two and get them out of the way. For my Studio Manager product with 250+ layouts, it sure will be a faster scroll once layouts are organized into folders. There's also layout search built-in, just start typing.

Learn More. FileMaker.com's FileMaker Pro 11 New Features page is a good place to start to see the new features and watch little videos to learn more. You might also find FileMaker's Features page helpful as a list of key things in each release of filemaker starting with what's new in FM11.

Keep an eye on FileMaker Fever for more details in this post and others to follow.

I've got a brief post on FileMaker 11 on my Studio Manager Story blog for Studio Manager customers. Don't miss it, if you are a customer.