ISO FileMaker Magazine

One of the most satisfying things about being a solution developer is the opportunity to create the user interface. You get to create, and modify, how users interact with your software creation. It's like shopping for just the right outfit for that perfect occasion. The one which will present your software in just the right light and with the right amount of pizazz.

Of course, you have to be willing to update and change your style over time. Nothing stays popular forever - right? So, you constantly need to be learning about ways you can make things look and feel differently within your software.

In this video, I showcase a number of tips and tricks related to making your user interface just a little bit prettier. It's not a word you'll use that often, but, by taking the time to prettify your solution, you'll find it's a rewarding task. Learn from this video and the provided example file and make sure your solution's UI is as pretty as it can be. Prettify it!

Anyone can just throw everything they need within a portal. Adding a new field? Just throw it in the portal. But WAIT! The question is "Should you?". The fine art of determining what should end up in your portal is based on how the data and/or actions are being referenced/used.

Is the frequency for editing the data high or low? If it's low, then maybe the user doesn't need field access. What is the frequency of record deletion? Low? Then, do you really need that obvious red trash can icon on every row? How about supporting common keyboard navigation such as using up and down arrows?

These are the types of things you'll find addressed within this video. A lot of really nice tidbits of inside information with regards to working with portals.

FileMaker themes are simply a collection of the popular CSS standards plus a few extra attributes which are FileMaker specific. Each element on your FileMaker layouts is defined by these CSS settings. They can be seen when extracting them from the clipboard, and if you know the right location to retrieve and store them, can be defined by any enthusiastic developer.

When FileMaker, now Claris, first introduced themes they likely had the intention of allowing users and/or third parties to create their own. In the time since that initial release it may not be as commonly known, but the location still exists and you can certainly create (or modify) your own theme.

The trick is knowing what's required, what can and can't be done and how the CSS translates to the FileMaker UI widgets. Even still, if you can't take the time to learn every single detail, you can still work with a theme which currently exists and simply tweak that theme to fit your specific needs.

In this video I walk through all the specifics related to customizing one of the existing themes. As long and you get the files into the right location with the right values, then you can modify any theme to your heart's content.

Locations to find existing theme files are here.

Macintosh: [MY_DRIVE_NAME]/Applications/FileMaker Pro.app/Contents/Resources/Themes
Windows: C:\Program Files\FileMaker\FileMaker Pro 19\Themes

Locations to store theme files are here.

Macintosh: [MY_DRIVE_NAME]/Users/[USERNAME]/Library/Application Support/FileMaker/Extensions/Themes
Windows: C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\FileMaker\Extensions\Themes

How easy is it for you to design the user interface of your FileMaker database? Are there any tips you have which makes the process easier? If so, then I would love to hear them!

In this video, I'm providing you with the best information I have about a successful UI design process. It's the opening video to a deep dive about how themes actually work within FileMaker. I start with a blank layout and go over the major areas of what I consider when starting the design of a new database or a re-skin on an existing one.

I cover aspects of layout choice, theme selection and primary navigation. These are three of the biggest decisions you make in the UI process. The rest of the design comes down to the details of the type of solution you are developing.

Sit back and relax and see if there are some valuable insights you can pick up from part 1 of this two part series about UI design within FileMaker.

Who doesn't want to know how long something takes? It's not like we, as the busy bees we are, have all the time in the world - right? Well, how about some convenient progress information.

One of the most common procedures within all of computing is to cycle or iterate over a set of something. In FileMaker, this comes in the form of records. A record loop is one of the most common things you'll ever do within FileMaker.

Setting a field value to something else across a range of records? You'll likely use a record loop. So, what's the easiest way show the progress of that record loop? It's currently a Card Window. In fact, when Card Windows first came out this was one of the first solutions I offered for said feature back in 2017. It's been a number of years since then and now we have better methods for handling multiple parameters.

So what better to do than give you a progress update about an update to the Card Window Progress Bars. How's that for progress? That's exactly what this week's video article is all about. How to implement a modern day progress bar for your standard FileMaker record loop.

FileMaker natively provides us with some really nice tools for user feedback. We can use the Show Custom Dialog or even create a dedicated dialog using a Card Window and Layout.

There are, however, times when you need something a little more subtle. Just a simple message on screen will often suffice. The next question is whether you need the user to interact with that message or not. The solution is simply to provide both options of course.

In this video and technique file, we explore a super simple method for providing user feedback via a simple message which is shown using a dedicated Button Bar. Scripting the message happens within two lines of code and doesn't have to add a whole lot of scripts to your solution. It's quick, easy and a great way to provide user feedback.

There's this special feeling you get when developing software where you feel like you've created something magical. Sometimes, it doesn't even matter if you've done the same type of thing before. It just feels like you're the master of the universe and you've created something super useful.

This may even be the case when you're simply creating a virtual trash can and providing users with the ability to reverse course on that accidental record deletion.

In this video, we're taking a look at a super simple trash can metaphor. It's easy-to-implement and allows users to bring records back from the dead.

While there are multiple ways to handle record deletions, many of which are discussed in this video, the whole concept of being able to dig in the trash and take something out is familiar territory for many computer users. We're just going to emulate it within our FileMaker systems.

Causing a user to make an explicit choice within your software really only happens from some sort of "locked-in" process. This process most typically happens within the form of a dialog box. It's the one roadblock you can stick in front of a user and expect input. Your software then uses that input to determine the output or direction.

While FileMaker Pro does have its own native dialog box, there are some limitations to the native Show Custom Dialog script step. The number one limitation is the lack of control with regards to size and positioning. Aside from that, the dialog box is pretty fixed in terms of how it looks and what it does.

Actually, the limitations on a dialog box are a good thing. It creates a sense of consistency across the whole notion of software itself. Users have seen dialog boxes and interacted with them. They know what they do and how to react to them. So, in order to gain a bit more control and flexibility, we use our own layouts to provide our own variation of a dialog box.

By using a FileMaker layout, we get to control how it looks and reacts to certain situations. This video and technique file revisits an early version which was released when Card Windows had just come out. If you enjoy using powerful and efficient methods of enforcing that "locked-in" process, then make sure to check this one out!

One of the great things about FileMaker Pro is it starts you off with a completely blank slate. One of the bad things about FileMaker Pro is it starts you off with a completely blank slate.

Yep, that's right, there are things in FileMaker's UI which non-intentionally urge you to do things which may not be as helpful in the future. Of course, some of this comes down to learning as much as you can about how things work. Which, is likely why you'll be watching this video.

In this episode, we take a look at FileMaker's themes and styles and how they relate to the Default styles which all layout objects start from. FileMaker defaults to the Default styles and that may not be the best way to start a new layout design. In this video, I answer the question about using the Defaults for your actual design and what you may be missing if you choose to use the Default style within your layouts. Want the most leverage possible? Well, you may need to stop using the Default styles - sort of.

What do the following have in common? Products with component parts, generations of people, complex study topics with prerequisites and a chain of historically related events. Yep, you guessed it, it's a hierarchy of things. Something which comes before another thing and are somehow tied together.

Within any database system, this is easily accomplished with two simple fields. Yet, facilitating the navigation of the content can be accomplished in a number of ways. One of the more common methods for moving up or down any hierarchy is to use what are known in the UI world as breadcrumbs.

When your number of levels is beyond two, you can implement breadcrumbs into your user interface and provide a lot of UI coherence. In this video, we walk through the data structure as well as what's required to use FileMaker's tab panels in order to accomplish this task in the most efficient manner. If you're taking users down (and up) any hierarchy, then you need to know how to use this technique! This video and the technique file will provide you with all the know-how and code to get it done.