ISO FileMaker Magazine

Every software user loves convenience. Heck, every human being loves convenience. So, why not provide it within every aspect of your user interface?

The problem, however, which you may run across is figuring certain features out. FileMaker can be a very simple program or something quite complex if you're trying to do something custom like providing users with the ability to custom order their related records.

The most basic sequential ordering of data comes in the form of simply providing a number field called something like "order", "sequence" or the more mathematically inclined "delta". Once you have the field, you can allow the user to manually change the values. But, that becomes a real pain when you try to add a record between the numbers 1 and 2. You now have a user entering 1.5 or 1.3 and 1.7 in order to get values to sort properly. Then, having to manually reserialize all the original values is just an unnecessary pain.

Well, the best solution to this problem is to simply use the automation provided by FileMaker's powerful scripting engine. With a few scripts, a value list, and a bit of FileMaker know-how, we can provide a very quick-and-easy method of allowing users to custom order portal rows.

There are all kinds of methods in which you can provide visual feedback to users. You can use FileMaker's containers fields, calculation fields, and even normal text fields.

There is, however, a great way to provide the visual feedback you desire by using FileMaker's Button Bar object. You gain a lot of flexibility with this method because it's so easy to copy and paste once you've put it into your solution. By using multiple segments in the button bar, and some creative use of hiding and conditional formatting, you can achieve all kinds of cool visual indications of whatever you might want to showcase.

In this video, I walk through the process of adding some up/down arrows and show you how to take advantage of FileMaker's unique tool set in order to accomplish this useful technique.

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.

When a programming environment doesn’t offer you every widget you might expect to have, then some enterprising individual will typically create the solution you seek - somewhere.

If that person shares the solution with everyone else, and you can find it, then it obviously makes your life easier. You just have to find the technique and take the time to implement and understand it. Anyone can simply copy and paste the pieces to a puzzle, but understanding how it works it what makes it possible to adapt, modify and abstract from what you learn about the solution.

In this video, I showcase a technique file from a fellow FileMaker developer named Charles Delfs. He implemented a number of creative twists on a popular technique of being able to offer users with the ability to sort portal rows by simply dragging them in between each other.

If offering this feature to your users creates any degree of value, then make sure and let Charles know about your overwhelming joy at him having taken the time to refine and update this popular technique.

More and more these days, we find ourselves jumping back and forth between desktop computers and using our increasingly convenient mobile devices. At least, that’s how it’s been with many of my personal FileMaker projects./Users/matt/Desktop/filemaker-desktop-mobile-design.png

While designing for each target device, in an ideal world, is a luxury we’d like to afford, there just isn’t an unlimited supply of time and money.

The solution is to create a hybrid design which will work as well on mobile as it does on desktop. In order to accomplish this, you have to leave some of your “desktop ways” behind and adopt some of the minimalism you find within mobile design.

While FileMaker is adding more and more for the mobile platform, we still have a somewhat limited set of field widgets for interacting with data. At least as it relates to portals and related data. On mobile, a portal typically needs to be scrollable via a finger or thumb flick, yet on desktop we tend to want to enter/edit data quickly because of the tab key and physical keyboard access.

Striking a balance is the goal, and it can certainly be accomplished with the tools we have today. This video is about a common pattern for input of data. It covers a number of tips and tricks about keeping data presentation minimal yet exposing the necessary functionality.

So you've integrated support for managing notes, and you'd really like your users to be able to view the full length of each note. The problem is FileMaker's portal object.

With portals, you get a fixed field width and height and it's the same for all related records shown within the portal. Sometimes it will chop the text off and other times it will show a lot of extra white space. Never fear, it's the wonderful web viewer to the rescue.

The trusty web viewer not only provides the dynamic resizing of objects based on how it renders content, but comes included with the powerful support of Javascript.

"But I don't want to learn Javascript." you say. Never fear, it's just one function and the rest is up to how you integrate within FileMaker.

This video will provide you with the technique file and content necessary to manage notes in a very effective manner. Learn the concepts used, and you'll expand your knowledge of FileMaker to a level where you can leverage that knowledge across many other aspects of your development!

The new world of FileMaker development has been opened up due to the ExecuteSQL function. The days of many different extra table occurences should be behind us.

Yes, there will still be the occasional user interface related table occurrence which is still necessary. However, your advantages with using ExecuteSQL should dictate that it be leveraged to its full extent when possible - especially in an increasingly mobile computing world.

The real trick for some developers is advancing what they know and letting go of older knowledge. As an example, I'm periodically faced with FileMaker developers who remember their development days when working with FileMaker versions 3 through 6. I've seen FileMaker 10/11/12 solutions, new solutions in fact, which were developed with many more files than is necessary.

This same thing applies to ExecuteSQL. In order to take advantage of the newer technology (which, in this case, is quite old, but still valid, technology) you have to learn new things.

Hopefully, that's exactly what this video will do for you. If you've not yet taken the step to learning how SQL within FileMaker can benefit your own solution, then absorb as much as you can from this video!

I've also included some links on the article page to various SQL resources.

The wonderful thing about FileMaker is this. If you don't know of a native way to make it happen, you just force the native tools to bend to your wishes to accomplish your goals.

Such is the case with using portals. While using a portal for something related to the UI, navigation for example, is nothing new, the notion of storing that navigation in something other than a table may be a bit foreign to some.

The crux of this technique is to use global variables in such a creative way as to avoid some of the short comings with using a dedicated table for facilitating solution wide navigation. If you've not used the Virtual list technique to render the contents of a global variable within a portal, then this technique provides the perfect excuse to learn. Pretty much every FileMaker solution needs to facilitate navigation.

Need icons in your sidebar? No problem.
Need toggle arrows? No problem.
Need integrated search features? Totally possible.

Watch this video for a good understanding of how to bend FileMaker portals to your every wish.