ISO FileMaker Magazine

Developing software in FileMaker can be such a joy when you're able to solve so many problems so quickly. There is, however, a point where you start to solve so many problems that your solution starts to slow down and you find yourself wondering why.

Most commonly, it's the result of cumulative features compounding to make your solution slower and slower. Without careful consideration of the user interface, and how features are presented, it's easy to create a solution which starts to lag over time.

In this video, I show how portal filters really work and how to address the issue of a portal used for a very simple selection process. In most cases, your portal is only going to show a fraction of the number of fields found in its table. To this end, you must learn how to replicate the native portal filtering feature. Filtering with JavaScript/JSON is one of the most powerful ways to present data in both an efficient and faster way.

Finding your FileMaker solution is feeling slower as time goes by? You need the content covered in this video!

In FileMaker, once you've filtered a portal, which displays a subset of related data, there may be situations where you need to get that data out. A prime example is needing to further manipulate the data within a spreadsheet.

A recent solution I was developing had this exact need. I needed to filter some financial data based on a wide date range. Yet, I still needed smaller subsets, think categories, of financial data and wanted to pull that data into a spreadsheet for a separate purpose.

In order to make this even possible, we need to know the exact records being shown within the portal. There's a bit of a trick in order to make this happen such that you can get the data onto the clipboard. The great thing about FileMaker is if you can find the menu option, then you know it's a script step. Holding down a modifier key while looking at the edit menu, reveals that Copy becomes Copy All Records.

The method of loading the records to be copied, is actually quite useful in a wide variety of situations within FileMaker. If your solution ever has the need to directly copy data being viewed from a portal, then you'll find all the pieces to the puzzle in this video and technique file.

Portals are wonderful tools for showing related data relevant to what your solution is solving. Sometimes, however, there's a trick to getting them to show exactly what you want. The combination of functions required may not always be obvious and it can be hard to achieve the desired result.

Essentially, you have to know how to extract the specific key values which allow you to filter only the desired rows. In this video, I walk through all the specifics of creating a custom function which allows you to filter unique keys such that only the desired records will be shown.

If you've ever had the need to filter your portals in a highly specific way, then this video and the associated technique file will likely provide you with some great insight. In a short amount of time, you'll get those portal filters to work exactly as you need!

It’s so easy with FileMaker, to simply add, add and add some more - especially to the Relationship Graph. You get the request to see a different set of data, and you hop right to it by adding a new relationship and table occurrence.

Wait a second! Each time you add something new to your FileMaker solution you’re making an agreement with yourself that you’re willing to maintain an ever growing garden of technological spaghetti. With a bit of planning and know-how, you can easily satisfy a growing number of data requests by making your portals able to filter out whatever you desire to show.

In this video, I walk through the use of a dynamic portal by way of filtering data using the Custom List function. It’s the ideal solution to being able to see whatever data you want to see from a relationship where the data is already being loaded from FileMaker Server. If you’re interested in a FileMaker solution which both performs well and also offers user flexibility, then you’ll find some answers within this video.