ISO FileMaker Magazine

Interested in how you might use the Get ( Device ) environment function? This video will both introduce and show you how to take advantage of the function.

For all my time with FileMaker, there's this peculiar aspect of one's learning journey where small bits and pieces of information come to you in odd ways. You either happen to stumble upon them, or you're told about them through the grapevine. Not from the company itself.

While most large companies are often busy with the business of improving their software, their outbound communications about certain things aren't always prompt or highly detailed. Personally, I love what Claris has been doing with FileMaker communication in the last few years. It's a night and day situation compared to just 5 years ago. There are, however, situations where you have to hear about a particular feature from a close parter like Soliant. Even Claris themselves didn't publicize the fact that FileMaker Server 19.5 supported Perform Script on Server - running on Server - via a flag named SupportNestedPSOS. Go ahead, search for it in Google. You won't find it anywhere on any of the Claris sites (at least as of the posting this article).

Which brings me to technical issues and possible bugs. Unless you frequent the Claris Community forums, it's unlikely you've heard about the 9 year issue of FileMaker being a total hog when it comes to memory allocation for certain functions. All credit goes to Alex Zueiv for this long running discovery. At this stage, it may be known and intentional by Claris, but it certainly is an eye opener. So much so that I decided to make this video to increase awareness. Like you, I like my software to run as efficiently as possible and workarounds, hacks, what have you, I'm going to take advantage of the findings because with software, that's just what you do. You optimized until it's as good as it can be!

Finding things within any database system requires the understanding of how to make a proper query of what you're searching for. In FileMaker, this comes in the form of FileMaker's Query By Form method of searching. To fully understand all of its power, you need to explore the concept of multiple requests, omit requests, using search operators and more.

However, before you even start to get into Query By Form, you need to know what's going on with FileMaker's Quick Find feature. It's a very powerful method of searching which will satisfy most users' needs.

In this video you'll find a step-by-step approach to using the two primary forms of searching FileMaker data. First, we start with maximizing Quick Find and then move on to using FileMaker's Query By Form method of searching for data.

Portals can be used for essentially two different functions. Either data presentation or interaction. Of course, as you already know, you can also use a portal for both aspects of presentation and interaction as the same time.

In this video, we continue the growth of our Home Project database where we take a look at the core differences between a Master/Detail portal (Current found set) and one which uses a Self Relationship.

If you've not come across the differences between portal types, and simply selected one over the other, then hopefully, this information will help out. Using the information from this video you'll be able to make an informed decision about which version of a portal will fit any certain set of circumstances.

Any FileMaker solution is a growing collection of stuff to be maintained. By the nature of development, some things will be replaced leaving some aspects to be abandoned and others to be lifted up by revitalizing them. Regardless of what goes and what stays, it's best to have a plan for how things will be added and how easy it will be for your future self, or anyone else, to be able to identify those things.

In this video, I walk through the Home Project database I'm working on and I talk about adding styles to it and how it will impact my use of the theme down the road. This video provides great insight into how themes work underneath the surface and showcase a variety of good habits to have when adding styles to your FileMaker theme.

Designing within FileMaker can either be pretty easy or somewhat hard. There's no exact way to design the look and feel of your solution, but the process of implementing the design can be easier when using FileMaker's grid.

In this video, I talk about the process I use to first determine the size of a layout and then go on to refining its size so it fits within the golden ratio.

Finally, I talk about implementing my use of the grid to make the styling of objects easier and give myself some guidelines which makes the layout process much smoother as the solution grows.

Being in need of a new database system myself, I decided to simply document the process of adding new features to a FileMaker system as it evolves. This is a great way to learn about the ins-n-outs of what goes on when developing a new system. There's a number of things which may or may not make sense when you take a look into how someone else created something. So, why not make videos as the solution progresses.

In this first video, I showcase how I originally started the file and where I should start to plan for a larger solution. There's a bit more needed than simply just throwing some fields into a table. There are also a number of settings and defaults which are created by FileMaker.

This video talks about those default elements, how to deal with them and how to start planning for an easy-to-maintain database solution.

Sometimes, it's just good to reflect on how you use certain FileMaker features. You know, the simple ones. Like Show Custom Dialog and Get ( LastMessageChoice ). If you use FileMaker for mobile a lot, then Show Custom Dialog is a great way to go. With Desktop, you might have less than optimal results because users can reposition and resize the dialog.

Aside from those few issues, however, it's probably one of those script steps you find yourself sprinkling all around your FileMaker solution. Then, that one day comes, it dawns on you that you'd like to take advantage of that newer FileMaker Card Window option. You'd like to customize your dialogs even further or optionally use a card window for some, and FileMaker's default Show Custom Dialog for others. Then, you find that potentially using a plugin might be a good way to go in some situations as well.

Well, we can plan for all those situations with a little bit of dialog abstraction! This video is for all levels of developers, it's starts out with the basics, but moves on to cover the essentials of dialog abstractions which uses JSON based parameters. I hope this helps address any of your dialoging needs.

Personally, I've always been dismayed by how portals are positioned within the world of FileMaker instruction. When I see other developers teach about portals, they start with the primary use of portals and then stop. They talk about how portals are there to show related data and that's about it. No way! That's certainly not the end of things. Portals are one of the primary ways to present data however you wish.

If portals were limited to simply showing related data based on a normalized schema structure, then we'd never have the flexibility we have within FileMaker. If you approach portals from the mindset of using them as a display tool, then you come up with all kinds of things you can do. There are three primary uses for portals - at least, this is how I personally think about them.

In this video, I show you what those three key uses are and how to actually implement them. If you're a beginner, then understanding the native portal is certainly the starting point. From there, you progress to the power-developer who uses the Multi-Key global and VirtualList approaches to using portals. This video covers all the core uses and gives you the foundation you need for using portals within FileMaker.