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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 application. It allows you to open an existing file either locally or hosted, start a new file based on templates, or open the learning centre to learn more about FileMaker Pro.
External SQL (ODBC) Data Sources with Supplemental Fields – this allows an external SQL source (from major DBMS vendors such as Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, and MySQL) to appear on the FileMaker relationship graph as another table. In addition, calculation and summary fields can be defined for the external table without affecting the SQL source table. While FMI carefully points out this is not meant to become a front end to your SQL data, it does allow seamless integration into the rest of your solution for reading and updating SQL data.
Conditional Formatting – in the weeks since FileMaker Pro 9 came out, I have found this feature to be a major time saver. Gone are the little calculation fields one had to make to do things like highlight a portal row when the user clicks on it, or to change the colour of text when certain conditions apply. Any formatting can be applied to a text element using either pre-defined conditions, or any calculation you define using a standard calculation dialog.
Append to PDF Script Step – FMI has improved the code used to save PDF files, and has added the ability, through a script step, to append a PDF output to an existing PDF file.
Auto Re-size Layout Objects – now you can design your layouts so that when the user makes the window larger, the layout objects expand with the window. This is very handy for users with large monitors.
New Tab Control Options – it used to be that the tab control panel that was last viewed in layout mode was displayed by default when in browse mode. This was often a pain for developers. Now the default panel can be defined in the Options dialog. The default width of the tabs can also be set.
Enhanced Web Viewer – added to the web viewer options is the ability to display a progress bar, a padlock icon indicating a secure site, and a status message displaying the URL being accessed.
Script Maker Makeover – FileMaker Pro’s script editor is able to group scripts into folders, as well as filter its list using a little search field.
Multiple Script Editing Windows – when editing a script, the windows are no longer modal. This means you can leave the script window open, and make changes to your layout at the same time. Have a few steps in another script you need to refer to? Open that script too.
Multiple Undo / Redo – FileMaker Pro now supports multiple levels of undo and redo from the Edit menu.
Field-Level Visual Spell Checking – the little red underline showing a misspelling is a great feature, but somewhat distracting on fields that contain a product code for instance. Now you can disable visual spell checking on a field-by-field basis.
Update Notification – if a new update is available for FileMaker Pro you can be notified automatically, and click a button to download the update.
Activation – all retail copies of FileMaker Pro have a new activation feature that sends the unique ID of your machine, along with the install code of your copy of the application, to FMI’s servers. To use the same install code on another machine, you’ll need to transfer the activation from the original machine, and re-activate on the new one. Activation is not applied on volume licenses, site licenses, or on copies of FileMaker Pro sold as part of a solution bundle from a developer.
And those are just the highlights! There are many more features and lots more details to how they work and why they should be used. There are also many new features of FileMaker Server 9 not mentioned here. To find out more, visit FileMaker’s web site at http://www.filemaker.com/
