Estimated Time To Read This: 4 – 6 minutes       My relationship with checkboxes has been one of those love/hate ones.  They’re amazing because they allow for text to be entered exactly how I want it to be, but they’re a pain because of the fact that checkboxes with large value lists take up so much screen real-estate.  Well, I’ve started taking a new approach to handling them, and I think it’s a relatively elegant one, so wanted to share it with you.  This technique will let you ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 2 – 3 minutes       I’ve just installed the WordPress app (v 1.5.1) on my mobile phone (Android), and am quite impressed with it. It took no longer than a few minutes to have fully set up.  Initially it didn’t work for me, but that was because of a simple setting that was not yet set in my WordPress installation.  You’ll need to be an administrator in order to change that setting, and if you are, then you can simply put a checkmark in the box beside “XML ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 9 – 15 minutes       Over the years, there have been a number of different file formats that the various versions of FileMaker Pro have used.  Currently, we at CoreSolutions Software Inc. are only supporting the .fp7 file format which pertains to FileMaker Pro versions 7 through 11.  If you’re using one of the earlier file formats in your database system, I would highly encourage you to upgrade.  There are of course many reasons to upgrade, and these reasons range from ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 2 – 4 minutes       The "Publish" Metabox Most of what you see in the back-end of WordPress will be contained in what are known as Metaboxes.  Metaboxes in WordPress: Provide functionality to each screen in the backend Organize information and functionality into logical groupings Ensure that back end content maintains a consistent look and feel Allow for customization of the back end layout Provide functionality to each screen in the backend We’ve already ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 2 – 3 minutes       I’ve run into the problem a number of times (while developing in FileMaker Pro) that I make a change to some data on one of my layouts, and the related data that I was expecting to see does not instantaneously get updated.  My simple old approach was to use the “Refresh Window” script step that takes advantage of the “Flush cached join results” option.  I’ve recently learned that this can be a very bad practice.  Especially ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 3 – 5 minutes       Our reader base is quite the diverse crowd, and so, I want to dedicate a series of articles to those who might be unfamiliar with the basics of WordPress.  Each one of these articles is going to be pretty basic in its depth, but will hopefully help you get more out of your usage of WordPress. To start with, the first thing you’re going to need to know (once you’ve logged-in to your wordpress site) is how to navigate around the back end.  The main ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 3 – 5 minutes       Have you ever wanted to get data from your FileMaker database directly into an MS Word document?  Doing so isn’t all that difficult (though it will involve a bit of programming).  If you follow this example, you won’t need any third party plugins, you’ll get to build your template file within MS Word, and you don’t even have to go through any confusing merge fields wizards in MS Word either.  The Write To Word – Example Files that ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 2 minutes       WordPress 3.2 is scheduled for release by the end of June.  That is of course, assuming that we get a lot of people testing and fixing any problems that arise within the newly released beta version.  I do not recommend that you use the beta version in one of your production sites, but if you’re a plugin or theme developer, or just anxious to see some of the new features, then feel free to try it out in a sandbox environment. It’s always a good idea to make ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 3 – 5 minutes       Plugins make for a very easy way to add new functionality to your website.  At the time of writing this, there are more than 14,000 plugins freely available for you to download through WordPress.org.  The type of functionality that they can add to your site can vary dramatically from plugin to plugin.  I tend to break down plugins into 3 main categories though, and I find that once you understand the three types of plugins, you’ll find it remarkably easy ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 2 minutes       Photo by kkirugi - http://www.flickr.com/photos/kkirugi/ As Carl had mentioned in an earlier post, we FileMaker developers try to convene on a regular basis for what we call “FileMaker Day”.  We do a number of things on these days such as improving our standards/best practices, share tips/tricks, even watching webinars to learn something new.  This most recent day was a busy one indeed, so much so that we ended up running out of time.  One of the things that ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 2 – 4 minutes       There have been a couple of posts in this blog series already that have made mention of WordPress themes and custom theme development, so I want to spend some time covering a hot topic today — Child Themes.  Child themes are in short, WordPress’ way of allowing the site’s developer to be able to modify a theme without directly touching any of theme’s core files.  This functionality is important for a couple of reasons: Since WordPress ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 2 – 4 minutes       I mentioned in an earlier article, how each page you can visit on a website will not necessarily have its own file on the web server.  In the case of a CMS, often times the same file will get reused for multiple web-pages.  Understanding that is going to be very important if you decide to create your own theme for WordPress.  What if you’re new to WordPress though, and just want to understand the very basics? If that’s the case for you, then ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 2 – 4 minutes       It’s a common trick in FileMaker Pro to use a value list comprised of both one visible, and one hidden field in order to achieve ease-of-use for the end-user, and still be able to maintain good relational integrity.  Value lists like this make perfect sense when the value you’re picking from will be used to form a relationship. Any of you who use FileMaker might have seen this in action when picking an item from a drop-down.  Usually, the items ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 3 – 4 minutes       As Mark had mentioned in the first post of this series, we’re now using WordPress to power our website. For those of you who are unfamiliar with WordPress though, this might not mean all that much to you.  If you fit into that category, then this post is for you. WordPress is an example of a “Content Management System” (CMS).  So, what exactly is a CMS?  A content management system, is essentially a system that allows one to have multiple ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: < 1 minute       It makes perfect sense to use “Auto-resize Layout Objects” in order to show more content from within the fields already showing on your layouts.  Another example of how you can use this feature would be to show more fields on the layout when the screen size is large enough to allow for it.  In this quick (18 seconds) video, I demonstrate how you can combine anchoring with the z-order of your layout objects in order to conceal the least important fields ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 4 – 6 minutes       There are a few ways to create new related records within FileMaker Pro. Each of them has its own pros and cons.  The technique that I’m discussing today is an undocumented one (its main con).  I’ve been using it for a few versions of FileMaker Pro now, it’s extremely fast, and has never before let me down.  Discussing techniques that don’t have a name can prove difficult though, so I’ve been using the goofy name of ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 2 – 4 minutes       We all know that some things can get lost in translation from one language to another. Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/72213316@N00/3405698843 Something similar can happen when you try to translate an idea from your native tongue into a computer language.  Unfortunately, when this happens to me, it’s usually my fault (computers are extremely good listeners — if something goes wrong, it’s usually a matter of us not speaking the language ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 2 – 3 minutes       Recently, Alan discussed how flexible FileMaker can be, by letting you select a different custom menu for each layout.  While that kind of flexibility is invaluable, managing a large number of custom menus can be quite tedious.  I think it’s also rather noteworthy that FileMaker Pro’s custom menus can be set up in such a way that you won’t need multiple custom menus in order to accurately represent each layout.  Since the dialog box for ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 4 – 6 minutes       In today’s webinar, I discussed some of the advantages of bringing data from Google Analytics into FileMaker Pro. I also illustrated how simple it can be to accomplish. In order to make this task even easier for you, I want to provide you with some helpful links, and even some sample files to get you started. Helpful Links: Getting Started –> This explains the basics like what you need in order to begin using the Google Analytics Data Export ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 2 – 3 minutes       For quite some time now, it’s been commonplace within the FileMaker development community to lock-down FileMaker’s interface in an effort to take control over various native behaviours that FileMaker Pro exhibits.  With the dawn of newer releases of FileMaker Pro, and their new feature sets, I’m seeing less and less of a reason to do this anymore. Doing this interface lock-down involved hiding the status area (and locking it), which contained a ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 2 – 3 minutes       FileMaker, Inc. launched a new thin client called “FileMaker Go” for the iPhone and iPad on Tuesday, July 20th. This is exciting news because it means that FileMaker databases can now be easily accessed while on the go. This client application will be able to open .fp7 files which are the same files that can be opened with all versions of FileMaker Pro since version 7. FileMaker Go was completely re-written from the ground up, so that it will fully ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 4 – 6 minutes       It’s common among systems that are used by many people of varying security levels, to have buttons on your layouts that some users can execute and others can’t. If you’re designing for such a system, then you’ll probably want to provide the end-users of your system with some kind of visual feedback that will let them know whether or not they can perform those actions. There are various ways of tackling this task, but all of them revolve around defining a ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 2 – 4 minutes       Having worked on mission-critical databases on a regular basis, I can never stress enough just how important having a clone really is. While in some cases, it’d be nice to have a copy of myself running around and helping me out, that’s not quite the type of clone I’m talking about… so, if you manage a FileMaker database,and that’s the only type of clone you know about then you owe it to yourself to continue reading. FileMaker provides a very nice ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: < 1 minute       Sometimes, a FileMaker Pro feature can be used in order to solve a design challenge it wasn’t originally meant to address. Here, we use the Auto-Resize feature to make a “window-centered interface”. By removing all anchors on an invisible, single-tab layout tab panel, the actual user interface (sitting on top of this free-floating tab object) sticks to the center of the window, regardless of its size.” Kieran ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 5 – 8 minutes       It seems only logical that new functions are necessary for new functionality, so knowing what new functions you have at your disposal (and how to use them) is key to mastering the new functionality that becomes available with the dawn of any new release of FileMaker Pro. In this article, I’ll be discussing the various new functions that you’ll have in your arsenal with this newest release of FileMaker Pro 10. One of the new enhancements to FileMaker 10 that ... Read More