FileMaker 9′s New Quick Start Screen

Estimated Time To Read This: 4 – 6 minutes

The new FileMaker Pro 9 Quick Start screen provides a central place for you to:

Create an empty database of your own design or use a Starter Solution provided by FileMaker Inc.
Open an existing file, either locally or hosted.
View the electronic documentation to learn more about FileMaker Pro.

The Quick Start screen automatically appears when you start FileMaker Pro, or you can select File menu > New Database. You can choose “Do not show Quick Start again”, to disable the screen. If it is disabled, the Open File dialog will be displayed when FileMaker Pro is launched.

If the Quick Start screen has been disabled, and you want it to display, you can enable it in the Application Preferences (choose Preferences from the Edit menu in Windows, or from the FileMaker Pro menu in Mac OSX).

Figure 1. Application Preferences

1. Create Database

Compared to the opening screen in FileMaker 8.5, the new Quick Start screen (see Figure 2) is much more user-friendly. All the Starter Solutions are available here, and a filter is provided to narrow the list of solutions. To read the details about the different solutions available, you can click the “Solution Info” button.

Figure 2. Quick Start – Create Database in FileMaker 9

By simply selecting the solution in the list on the right and clicking OK, you can create a basic but fully functioning database by yourself (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. Create a Database Using a Starter Solution

Note: To create a database using a Starter Solution, you must use the FileMaker Quick Start Screen.

2. Open Database

The new Open Database screen allows you to open an existing file, either locally or remotely, or open a recently opened file (see Figure 4). Clicking the Browse Files button will display a standard Open dialog, where you can browse your hard drive’s contents to find the file you’re looking for. A list of favourite hosts appears in the lower part of the left side list. Favourite hosts are defined in the File > Open Remote… dialog, as they have for many versions. As with standard dialogs, holding down the Shift key on Windows or the Option key in OSX after selecting a file and while clicking the Open button, will force FileMaker to disregard any account and password that may be entered for you and display a dialog to enter an account and password manually.

You can mark a recent file as a favourite by selecting the file in the list on the right, and clicking “Add to Favourites” button at the bottom. If you select Favourite Files (local or remote) on the left, selecting your favourite file on he right changes the button below the list to “Remove” and will remove that file from the list of favourites.

Figure 4. Quick Start – Open Database

3. Learning Centre

To learn more about FileMaker Pro, select a title from the list of available documentation (see Figure 5). These links will either open pages from FileMaker Inc.’s web site or open PDF files from your hard drive. The Learning Centre web site has many valuable video tutorials, explaining everything from basic concepts of databases, to setting up and using external SQL data sources. Other resources like webinars and sample files are also available.