Solution Usage Tracking with Google Analytics

Submitted by Editor on Wed, 03/20/2013 - 7:12pm

One of the nicest feelings in the world is getting something for free. Especially when it really helps you out and it's valuable.

At the small cost of giving up a little bit of data, to one of the world's biggest data collectors, you can see how users use your FileMaker solution and what they do.

In fact, what you collect, and how, is totally up to you. You can control pretty much anything in terms of what you transfer to Google Analytics.

Many developers who have implemented Google's Analytics only go a short distance to what they could potentially collect. They often point to some remote site with embedded analytics code provided as the default by Google.

However, the usage of the default code is SO LIMITING. You can get as creative as you want when pushing data to Google Analytics. The big trick is to know what can be sent, how it's sent and what to do when Google has the data.

The reporting aspect, on Google's side, is where most of the power lies. What you need to do is determine what you want to push and when. Fortunately, this video has all the nitty gritty details for making things super easy for you!

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GoogleAnalyticsUserTracking.zip58.25 KB

Designing for FileMaker Go

Submitted by Editor on Thu, 02/28/2013 - 6:08pm

When you start your first FileMaker Go solution, for the iPad or iPhone, you may, at first, find that it's great that you can just add your FileMaker database to the device.

That unique ability, however, should be avoided at all costs - in my not so humble opinion. The way you interact with a tablet or touch device is so different than how you interact with a keyboard and mouse.

In this video, I talk about some of my learning experiences as I've worked on a number of mobile solutions. I cover some tips I've learned about designing and scripting for a FileMaker Go solution.

As mobile becomes more and more of an enterprise tool, knowing how to optimize your FileMaker Go solutions becomes more and more important!

Tags:
FileMaker Go
Layout Design

Portal Paging with Resizable Portals

Submitted by Editor on Tue, 06/12/2012 - 4:56pm

Within FileMaker, the methods for presenting related information extend to calculated fields, web viewers and portals. The most obvious of these is portals.

Portals allow you integrate icons, graphics, buttons, fields (of course) and work in all kinds of user interface tricks. One of those tricks, from earlier versions, was creating a fixed sized portal and then paging through related data a group at a time.

Show ten rows and you can page through easily because you know how many rows there are. What happens, however, when you have a variable number of rows? You need another mechanism in order to determine the row count and be able to page through the data.

So what if we add the fact that FileMaker 12 actually allows you to turn off the scrollbars on a still scrollable portal? Wouldn't that be cool?

Well, give this video a view and you'll quickly find out you can do more than a few cool tricks with this new knowledge!

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PagingPortalsScrollbarless.zip46.75 KB

FileMaker Fundamentals: The Let Function

Submitted by Editor on Wed, 04/25/2012 - 9:30pm

For some developers, the Let function can be a confusing tool. However, without it, FileMaker calculations would be the eternal mess they used to once be.

The Let function is pretty much a critical tool (in my opinion) that all FileMaker developers should know and use. If only for the reason that it provides the ability to self-document code by using human readable variables.

This video provides a great walk through of how to get started with the Let function and more importantly, explains why you should be using it if you're not!

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LearningLetFunction.zip10.72 KB

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