ISO FileMaker Magazine

Ok, I'll admit it. Unless you know you need localization for your FileMaker solution, this isn't a sexy topic. But WAIT! There's MORE...

This topic isn't just about localization. This topic could also be considered "User Interface Strings" or "Optimized Layout Display". Essentially, the big deal about the content presented in this video, is the fact that the concept shown can be leveraged in a variety of ways.

Watch this video if you're interested in knowing one of the many ways you can optimize your visual design process and gain some extra benefits in terms of managing the visual development and growth of your solution. With good naming conventions, the flexibility presented offers a number of benefits over adding static text to your layouts.

Adding the extra bit of class and appeal to your database can be accomplished quite easily. In most cases, you're using some neutral color as a base for your layouts because it's the easiest to view for extended periods of time. While simply selecting the layout part and choosing a light gray may be easy, there's certainly more you can do.

In this video, I go through some of the foundations for enhancing your layouts to make more effective use of gray. While the color doesn't specifically have to be gray per se, the trick here is to make layouts look like any other attractive software design. Presented are some of the tips to make your solution look that much better no matter what color you are using - gray just happens to be one of the most popular.

Adding the finer details to the look and feel of your interface should certainly be a serious consideration. If you want your FileMaker solution to look just as good as the rest of the software your users are using, then add the things they've already come to expect.

On both operating systems, gradients are taken for granted. In this video, I showcase how I added a gradient-based portal row highlight. This is an easy thing to accomplish and only requires a few considerations before making the addition.

Using a bit of creativity, you can have as many different colors of gradient rows in the whole of your solution, and handle it efficiently. If you're seeking that extra bit of appeal in your solution, then watch this video for the information you need!

FileMaker's error handling (or better known as exception handling) isn't as sexy as creating a really killer user interface. It's not as fun either. It's something you don't really realize you need, until you REALLY start managing an ever growing collection of scripts - many of which might break if an error happens.

This is when you think to yourself, "Shouldn't I just put in some error handling from the start?". Well, yes you should.

That's exactly what this video is all about. Implementing a good error trapping system which provides the flexibility you'll need down the road. Sure, you can add in a "If ( Get ( LastError ) = this or Get ( LastError ) = that )", and do it for a few hundred scripts, but it's much easier to handle errors if you have a solid approach at the start.

If you've got your own error handling advice then please leave a comment on this article.

Coding the guts of any FileMaker solution is the "easy" part. With immediate functionality so easily achieved, you can start using the solution right away - and enhance while in use. It's a FileMaker perk. However, it's the details and refinements which set your solution apart. The stuff that gives it that "comfortable" feel - which encourages its use.

This is the goal you should strive for.

When considering the time and effort it takes to add in even a little bit of keyboard functionality, this sometimes enters the picture as an after thought.

In this video, I provide a suite of custom functions and relevant suggestions to both quickly and easily implement some keyboard functionality into your solution. Whether wanting to use keys beyond what Custom Menus will accommodate, or creating a fully keyboard driven navigation system, this video will definitely get you started!

How often do you really take advantage of Custom Menus? Personally, having worked with FileMaker for quite a while, I tend to ignore them and figure I'll just "teach the user FileMaker". When it comes to my interface, I'll just cram a ton of buttons on the layout and forget the menu. Wow, that's not a good idea! Why not just use Custom Menus?

The biggest hurdle I've encountered with using them is their approachability. The editor is poorly implemented, non visual and modal. This means you have to jump in and out of the Manage Custom Menus dialog and create a script to toggle between menu sets just so you can test your own menus. Testing is the biggest pain. So let's make that eaiser.

The solution is to create an easy system for creating and managing your own Custom Menus. This video will showcase a very simple, yet powerful, approach to using Custom Menus in FileMaker Pro. If you have any other suggestions then please leave a comment on this article.

It happened just a few months ago. It's one of those things you wish you'd done a while ago. It saves so much time, and makes things much easier. What was it?

I broke some bad habits when working within ScriptMaker (oops, it's not called that anymore - but it's such a good name). I started using Copy/Paste for script editing instead of using the Duplicate button. Yeah, maybe this should have been a no brainer, but there are other tips that come along with using the useful copy/paste. Doing a lot of editing, of your scripts, using the keyboard can be a big time-saver. The trick is to force yourself to do it that way. Don't click the 'New' or 'Duplicate' buttons within ScriptMaker. If you start to - then stop!

I also started using more and more visual clues about how my graph relates to the user interface and data structure. Granted, these are things FileMaker, Inc. should integrate into the graph (I personally suggested them to the FileMaker UI team back when the Graph first showed up), but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do in order to make sense of your own organizational mess.

Hopefully, this video with provide some time-saving tips about working in FileMaker Pro and help you develop your solutions that much faster.

Ah, calculating price breaks. "If only they knew how easy it really is!", is what I find myself saying - not because it's a super complex setup, and I'm some cool FileMaker developer who looks down on those who don't know. Rather, because it really is quite easy, and I'd like you to know all the inside secrets.

In this video, I walk through everything you need to know to take advantage of managing multiple price breaks. This is typically based on volume, but doesn't stop there. If you want to offer time-based price breaks, you could do this too!

The information in this video will send you well on your way to solving this complex problem in the easiest fashion possible!

Go To Layout [Invoices], New Record/Request, Go To Layout [original]

True, those are the minimum steps necessary to script the creation of related records - for the situations when a script is used for creation, instead of relying on the user creating the record.

However, the ultimate goal, of any software-based environment, is to code something once, and have it work for multiple situations. This is what this video is all about. It's about the process of scripting the creation of new records - and doing it efficiently.

It showcases this by starting with the very basic methods, then moves on to the most powerful and flexible methods. If you thought you knew everything there is to creating records, then you may want to watch this one. There's likely some tips in this video which you may have missed!

Aside from the word "tagging" taking on new meaning in this Web 2.0 world, the method of simply marking a record for later retrieval is what this video is all about.

The simplest method of marking a record, starts with a simple FileMaker check box. This method, however, becomes quite unusable when you throw more users into the mix. Each user of the database will inevitably want to flag a different set of records - and beyond that, save multiple groups of flagged records.

The solution to this is easily handled with a relationship from an unstored calculated field, using Get (AccountName), to the user's dedicated record within a Users table. The method of storing a set of records as flagged, is then just a matter of a return delimited list of keys within a text field.

Using some creative interface metaphors, you can quickly add a very useful feature to any FileMaker database!