Estimated Time To Read This: 2 minutes       Many years ago I developed a floating palette that would appear when you previewed a report to be printed. This was back in the days of FileMaker 4 or 5 when the alternative was to show the Status Area down the left side of the window. Back in those days the Status Area, when you were in Preview mode, only allowed you to control the zoom, which page you were looking at and a built-in Continue and Cancel button. I developed the floating palette so there was a user-friendly ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 4 – 6 minutes       Back in the “day”, portals used to have one fill colour. Since FileMaker Pro 6 we’ve been able to alternate the colour of the portal rows making them easier to read. On a recent project I utilized the alternating colours of a portal with conditional formatting of a text field to produce buttons that set a field with the appropriate values. This combined a radio button’s exclusivity with a checkbox’s ability to easily clear a value. ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 2 minutes       By now you’ve likely heard that Apple released a new operating system in July called OSX Lion. It’s a new approach to operating systems that borrows a lot of what Apple learned in developing the iOS for portable devices. A new operating system has an effect on the FileMaker ecosystem for a couple of reasons: If you have to purchase a new Macintosh, it’s going to have Lion already loaded. The current version of FileMaker is not necessarily compatible with ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 3 – 5 minutes       FileMaker Server is a great product: it offers the best performance for hosting FileMaker files, can host files for multiple platforms,  can access multiple external sources and has built-in backup capability and scheduled script execution. However, like most other software, it can sometimes be unstable or crash or just not work right. It’s about that time our clients call us to figure out the problem. There are basic things to check and there are some ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 2 – 4 minutes       Have you ever clicked in a field in your database, were interrupted by a phone call and returned to your database and forgot where you were or what you were doing? Wouldn’t it be cool if FileMaker could highlight the field you’re in so you can see what you were changing? If this problem sounds familiar here’s a cool trick for you and it’s super easy. Conditional formatting in FileMaker Pro has been with us since version 9 and it allows you to change ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 2 – 3 minutes       From the title you might assume I was going to dispense some “winterly” advice like “clear snow from around your vents on your house” or “keep snow cleared from around ground-level windows (so when it melts, water doesn’t seep in).” No, these just happen to be FileMaker tips and it’s January; hence, January Tips. Tip 1: If you administer FileMaker Server, you know you’ve had to set up an account and password that allows ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 2 – 3 minutes       FileMaker Inc. doesn’t make a very big deal about it, but for years FileMaker Server has played nice in Virtual Environments. A Virtual Environment uses physical hardware and software to allow multiple instances of virtual machines to run concurrently. Each virtual machine has its own operating system and the host software provides resources like disk, memory and peripherals. A typical server might only be using a small percentage of its memory, disk or CPU. By ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 2 minutes       Since 1999 CoreSolutions has published FileMaker Naming Standards. These standards are developed in an effort to share the efficiencies we’ve realized over the years by using a cohesive set of naming rules that make our systems recognizable by any of our developers, even in systems a decade old. When FileMaker Inc. published their FileMaker Development Conventions white paper in 2005, CoreSolutions was part of the team of independent developers that made that happen. It ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 3 – 5 minutes       When FileMaker Inc. released FileMaker Go for iOS 4 devices in July, it changed things for developers. All of a sudden we had a new platform for which to develop, and one that has unique opportunities and capabilities. It also left many of us scratching our collective heads after we played with it for a while and realized that using the same layouts designed for the desktop version of FileMaker Pro wouldn’t always be practical. I say scratching our heads ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 3 – 4 minutes       Have you ever created a FileMaker calculation that was a little complicated but it made sense at the time? And a few months later you look at that calculation again and you can’t figure it out? I have to admit, my memory is pathetic. If I don’t write stuff down or put it in an email, it’s gone by the next day. Same with constructing calculations: if I don’t document them or format them in such a way to make them easier to read, I often can’t understand ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 2 – 3 minutes       For the last week or so I’ve had the opportunity to do some development with FileMaker Go for the iPhone. As a new product, FileMaker Go shows lots of promise and room for growth. There are lots of really cool features, not the least of which is simply being able to take your data with you or access it on a server from outside the home or office. (Update: there has already been a new release of updates for FileMaker Go — check them out here) One awesome ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 2 minutes       Excitement that built in anticipation of FileMaker Inc.’s Developer Conference, taking place August 15 to 18 in San Diego, California, has finally broken! I have the privilege of attending this year’s DevCon, alongside another CoreSolutions developer (Matt Leering – check out his FileMaker blogs for handy tips) and we’ve looked forward to learning what other developers are doing with the products, and all the latest news from FileMaker and its community ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 1 – 2 minutes       In FileMaker Pro 9 one of the major changes was a non-modal dialog for scripts and script editing. Along with that was the ability to put scripts in folders. Now in FileMaker Pro 11, that ability has been extended to layouts. An improved Manage Layouts dialog allows the developer to create folders of layouts as well as separators (appear as lines separating layout names). It also allows the developer to edit the layout options, show/hide in layout menus, re-order ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 1 – 2 minutes       It’s no DevCon but it is a gathering of FileMaker folk who love to share and discuss pertinent topics about FileMaker Pro. POE had its initial meet-up in New York in July 2009. That was followed up by a gathering in Portland this past January. Plans are being considered for the next one but in the meantime, you can view videos of some “gatherings” from the web site at www.pauseonerror.com. You can also subscribe to a video podcast on iTunes. If you’re on ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: < 1 minute       Make sure you have good backups using the built-in backup schedules in FileMaker Server. Take a copy and save them as clones with no data, especially after you’ve made changes to layouts, scripts or relationships. Clones will be essential if you develop any kind of corruption in your files. Periodically save your files as a compressed copy. This keeps the data but has routines that clean up the structure of the file. It’s the kind of practice that takes about ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 4 – 6 minutes       Almost exactly 18 months since the release of FileMaker 9, FileMaker Inc. released version 10 on January 5, 2009. Sporting a new interface on the main screen, gone is the old status area, replaced with a new customizable Status toolbar across the top of the screen. According to FMI, the toolbar has been redesigned to allow the user to perform common tasks with the fewest mouse clicks. Browse Mode Layout Mode Another new feature that changes the look of FileMaker ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 4 – 6 minutes       On July 10, 2007, FileMaker Inc. released the FileMaker Pro 9.0 family of products. The latest version uses the same file format as FileMaker Pro 7 through 8.5, so no conversion is necessary. This is a stunning new release with many great improvements and new features. Here are just a few of them. We’ll be writing about these, and others, in future articles. New Quick Start Screen – FileMaker Pro now has a new screen that appears when you start the ... Read More