ISO FileMaker Magazine

You'll never guess what you can do with a little creative thinking and the Custom Formatting option. Oh, wait, I just told you in the title of this article - Super Quick Data Entry.

One of my MOST favorite features of FileMaker is the fact that records are created by default when entering data into a related field and no valid relationship exists. This provides a number of opportunities to do cool things, such as entering data - provided it's not a lot of related data.

When you add script triggering to a field's custom formatting option, and you rely on what FileMaker tries to be smart about, you get a powerful method for entering data in a super quick way. The best part about this whole technique is that it becomes universal to your whole solution. You can use any related field with auto-creation of related records and your one single script can handle it all.

Watch this free video to see how easily it can be done!

There are many ways to solve most data problems. The biggest problem, however, is getting stuck within a certain mind set of any given approach. FileMaker provides a powerful tool to solve complex data problems. However, it may be limiting you. It does this by providing a default way of approaching the solution.

This approach can be summed up into two words "Form View". When most users and developers start creating a FileMaker solution the approach is to simply add fields to the table that is the most specific to what's in mind. If you're a teacher, you're dealing with students. If you're in business, you're dealing with customers. If you're a consultant you're dealing with clients. You simply add fields to your respective table, add them to its respective layout and away you go.

Guess what, students, customers and clients are all the same! This is what you need to realize when creating a flexible data structure. This video will highlight the direction for an optimized data structure that focuses on generalization and not the specifics you should be avoiding.

If things aren't clear enough to understand what you did five months ago, you can't expect anyone else to have a clear picture of what you've created, let alone yourself. Do yourself a favor. Document as much as you can, as clearly as you can, AS SOON AS YOU CAN.

In this video I talk about using the tools available in FileMaker to make your documentation and descriptions of code as clear as possible. The trick to making good documentation is to not "do it later". Make notes while you create the feature or functionality. Use the calculation commenting tools, graph notes and script comments to their full advantage.

Doing it now will pay dividends down the road! I promise.

Continuing with my Zero to Awesome series, in this video I provide you with some insight into a great way to track the changes of your ongoing development. There will be many times, while developing a solution, where questions arise about what you may have done in the past and why. Add to this, any questions that any other developer may have - eventually, you may move on from the project.

Having a quick, easy-to-follow method for tracking incremental changes is a great way to document what you've done as you develop a solution.

Knowing how to structure hierarchy, within data, should be one of your core pieces of know-how regarding data structure. Once you understand it, you can always leverage the knowledge for a variety of tasks. This structure applies to checking for sequential numerical entries (knowing when sequence is broken), generating a visual tree of levels and sub levels or storing a list of hierarchical value lists - most efficiently.

Building on a file presented in 2004, it goes to show that this basic structure for how data is stored does not change, nor is it likely to ever change. It's simply how you store data for hierarchy based information.

If, in your database, you need to present value list selections that hinge on each other then this is the video and technique file that you need!

Duplicate, duplicate, duplicate. Yes, it's true, we live in a world of copy and paste (darn those iPhone developers). When you don't need to type it a second time there's no reason to do so. Especially, when each time you type it again you increase the chances of error.

In this video, I walk through some of the templating steps you can take as part of your predevelopment stage. Even as an experienced developer, I often find myself creating a layout or table from raw FileMaker elements. When I find myself doing it, I make myself stop and create (or add to) a previous template and copy from it. It's truly the quickest way to your desired result.

Make your own suggestions about possible template fields, layouts, tables, elements in the comment area!

Using specific naming conventions is all about 'making sense'. Not only about what you're developing right now, but also what you're going to need to understand in the future - about your own solutions!

"Keeping things simple" has always been a popular phrase, however, when it comes to creating, and more importantly maintaining, a complex database system, you need to understand what you've done.

There are many cryptic ways to define and document your solution. In my opinion, and that of a few other well respected developers, the KISS model of naming and conventions used within a FileMaker solution go a long way towards making it easier to maintain and enhance.

This video contains the conventions I'll be using as I showcase my work on the My Invoicer solution.

Based on feedback and questions about using [what I'm calling] the Optimized Separation Model, where the Interface file is located on the client machine of a distributed solution, I've decided to provide an extended look at the implementation of the described system.

Using a method of stripped and default passwords, I explain how to deploy a local interface separation model of solution development. The advantages of this approach have been covered in a previous video, and I must admit that while using the solution over the WAN (wide area network), things have become much speedier for my own solution.

In the past, as I've pointed out, I was not fond of the separation model. While working on the specifics of this solution, I'm finding that the advantages seem to pile up. The few disadvantages of not being able to use a specific technique here and there are diminishing.

Enjoy the video!

When FileMaker 7 was released, there was a new thought in town. That thought was "Ahhh, great, now we can separate the interface from the data." While this angle of attack was perfectly doable, it wasn't as ideal as some first thought.

It wasn't until FileMaker 8 came out with its support of variables that a lot of the "cruft" in a FileMaker solution was starting to be cut out. For the adventurous few, who used the separation model, sometimes shortened to SM, the advantages of reduced corruption potential and much easier updates were a big boon to using this approach.

Even I, was hesitant to use this approach because I knew of many "techniques" which were accomplished within just a single file. There is a very "filemaker way" of doing things when you've done them that way in the past. Letting go of this mindset, is something that requires a leap of faith when you've not used a separation model before. That's where this video will help resolve (hopefully) a lot of your [fears||doubts||concerns||questions] (pick a word) about this approach. This video will provide you with information about how to make things work.

As always, feedback is welcomed!

In continuing with what should be a popular series, I talk about how I go about creating some of the graphics used in the FileMaker Invoicer template. Taking network transfer time into consideration and learning how to get the most optimized graphics is always a valuable skill.

Even if you're not a Photoshop pro, there are many applications which allow you to create flexible graphics for your FileMaker layouts.

If you're the type who's color challenged, then have no fear, there are both commercial and free tools that make this part of the process very easy. While I'll likely cover other aspects of graphics throughout the series, this is a great place to start if you've not worked with the graphics end of the process.