Ultimate Card Window Control

FileMaker 16 changed the entire landscape of how many things are accomplished within FileMaker. Because of the ability to show a completely different context as a new Card Window, you can now do all kinds of wonderful things.

Need an interactive sidebar? Use a Card Window. Need greater degree of control over your custom dialog boxes? Use Card Windows. Need to present a pick list, a palette or pretty much any information you could ever want to display in a dedicated child window? Used Card Windows!

Awesome, so we now have Card Windows. But, the immediate utility may not seem as powerful as it could be when the Card Window defaults to the same size as the layout upon which it's based. Plus, if you want to position the window relative to its parent you need to be ready to do a bit of simple math. So, why do the simple math when you can make it even more simple? That's what this video is all about - Ultimate Card Window Control!

AttachmentSize
UltimateCardWindowControl.zip1.59 MB

Comments

Matt, there's an issue I still haven't been able to resolve with iOS and window placement in the research for this years DevCon.

If you open this on Go then to 'top' calc is -64 out but what FileMaker reports changes depending on rotation...

As far as I can recall from the few times I've worked with it on Go, the Status area size might be changing. However, this should be able to be determined with some simple subtraction with the Get ( Window*) functions.

Last time I worked with Go I had put the environment variables on screen and rotated to look at the changes. They certainly do things differently on mobile than on the desktop. I remember being totally confused at one point and a lot of it was guess work.

I wish I had something more concrete to offer but I don't know if/where any of my findings might be at this moment. :(

Nice job Matt.

Wow, I like the way you took the New Window "options" to a new level with your Custom Function. I feel I will be using the New Window more often now.

Lee

Great video. Learned a few things such as how to implement debug functions in CF. Awesome. Thanks.

Perhaps some material on Card Windows on iOS is interested by the audience.

CardWindow on iOS has a maximum window size restriction and it is never the full size of the screen. It is almost the full size of the full screen and draws a margin of grey area (so user could tap to close the CW) around it. That maximum cw windows size could get in the way and overwrites whatever the developer wishes to achieve. An annoying side effect is that it makes the body part of the layout *floating around* on some screen size hence degrades the user experience. This is particularly needed to be dealt with on small iPhone screen. Of course, developer could write more codes to resolve it.

P.s: I haven't played with trying to open a CW outside of the parent window on iOS. Unsure if it is even allowed.

Cheers.

FileMaker Dreamer & Designer