FileMaker Advisor Archive

FileMaker Pro is a big product, and its easy to get caught up in all the new features, power techniques, and advanced scripting mojo. But new users shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that FileMaker is designed to be as easy as it is powerful. Like anything new, there’s a learning curve, but an untrained user can be more productive more quickly in FileMaker than in any other database program around. Read more…

FileMaker Pro 10 introduced an assortment of exciting new features but the king of the hill, so to speak, is Script Triggers. You could argue that this is the biggest new feature to hit FileMaker since version 7 back in the late Cretaceous period. Alas, it is also one of the most complex features you’ll encounter as a budding FileMaker developer. But that doesn’t mean less advanced developers should ignore these triggers all together. Read more…

Most FileMaker Pro developers know the real power of FileMaker can be found in the Manage Scripts window. In all but the simplest cases, a database without scripts is like a four year old’s take on the Mona Lisa: “What does it do, daddy?” If you want your database to actually do something, FileMaker’s scripting tools are your best friends. Of course if you’re reading this, chances are good you already know that. Read more…

FileMaker is a powerful database: You can build full-featured business applications with relative ease, share them with hundreds of users, and pack gigabytes of data away for easy access. Despite all its strengths, though, not everyone uses FileMaker for every database need. The truth is there are lots of situations that call for something a little more massive, either to handle a higher transactional volume, or a large number of users. Read more…

These days, most FileMaker Pro databases are just one file. When you open this file, you see one window on your screen, full of all the data and interface you (or your colleagues) put there. And often, this one window is enough. After all, you can freely switch layouts, perform finds, and (with FileMaker 9 or later) resize the window to get a bigger view. But the truth is, FileMaker can do a whole lot more. Read more…

FileMaker has some pretty powerful reporting tools. You can decorate your layouts any way you see fit, control which record show, in what order, and with any particular fields arranged to your liking. You can even summarize your data in numerous ways to produce totals, subtotals, and other aggregate analysis. But until FileMaker 9, there has been one glaring restriction: A report can only show records from one table. If you want to show new products on one page, and new customers on the next, you’re out of luck. Read more…

FileMaker Pro 9.0 made its debut a few short weeks ago, and it seems like its ability to connect directly to corporate databases is all anyone wants to talk about. ESS is great and all, but you may be wondering how 9 helps regular FileMaker folk like us. In point of fact, 9 is chock full of fantastic new features that even the most humble database can benefit from right away. Read more…

If you’ve used a computer sometime in the last five years, chances are you’ve seen tooltips. These informational little boxes pop up to help you out when you point at just about anything on the computer screen, from a toolbar icon to a truncated file name (Figure 1). Tooltips are so common, in fact, that many users know to look for them whenever they’re not sure what a particular button, icon, slider, or knob will do. Read more…

It seems like Microsoft Excel is installed on just about every PC in the world. As such, a lot of new FileMaker developers are already Excel wizards. In fact, many new FileMaker projects begin life as a replacement for an Excel spreadsheet that has outgrown itself. If you are an Excel star trying to wind your way through the FileMaker universe, you may be stymied at first by all the things you thought you knew that just don’t seem to apply anymore. Read more…

Relationships hold a special place in the world of a database designer: They’re simultaneously your most powerful tool and the most difficult to figure out. If your first trip to FileMaker’s Relationships tab left you scratching your head, you’re not alone. FileMaker goes a long way towards making relationships easy to set up, manage, and use. But the real trick is understanding the concepts behind relationship building. In this article, you’ll learn how to add a sprinkling of relational capability to your own FileMaker database. Read more…