Estimated Time To Read This: 2 – 3 minutes       I’ve spent the last several years working on solutions using a variety of databases – primarily FileMaker, but I’ve also used MySql, SQL Server and even Oracle a time or two. One of the things I like about using SQL databases is that you can join tables together pretty much on the fly. In FileMaker, if I have a calculation that requires a relationship that I haven’t defined, it means that I need to go to the relationship graph, create a ... Read More

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 – 4 minutes       I’ve done a couple of posts now on viewing FileMaker databases over the web via different methods – Instant Web publishing, using Site Assistant to build a PHP based site; using custom web publishing and FileMaker’s API to build a PHP based website from scratch. Each technology has their has their Pros and Cons, but which one is the best one to use? There’s no cut and dried answer to that question; it really depends on a number of things. ... 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: 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 – 3 minutes       Yesterday Steve Jobs passed away and left a void in this world. He was a true visionary who had an uncanny ability to see into the future and create products that everyone else copied. In his address to Stanford University in 2005 Steve Jobs talked about his love of calligraphy and typography. He found it fascinating but at the time he did not know of any practical application for what he learned however when he was designing the Macintosh computer 10 years later ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 3 – 4 minutes       FileMaker Go is proving to be a great little app that is expanding the office even further than it already has been with smartphones.  Now I can access our company/client data regardless of my physical location and can even add notes and new records.  The possibilities are endless for potential use for nearly every organization out there.  From checking inventory in a warehouse to adding sales notes while at a client’s location and everything in ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 2 minutes       One of my favorite new features introduced back in FileMaker 8 was the inclusion of local and global variables. It cut down on the need to define extra fields for temporarily storing data in scripts (for example, storing the value of a primary key when creating a related record, keeping track of certain values when looping through records, etc). One of the things that I wished you could do, though, was display the contents of these fields on a layout; you still needed to ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 2 – 3 minutes       Yesterday in Toronto CoreSolutions co-hosted a FileMaker Go briefing with FileMaker, Inc. I would like to say thank you to Keith Robinson, Mia Roop, and in particular Matt O’Dell who had a splendid presentation and gave us a thorough demonstration of many of the features of FileMaker Go. Thank you also to our own Steve Hearn, who developed a FileMaker Go ‘Sales Module’ that we demonstrated at the event. During the session attendees saw how other ... 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: 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: 2 minutes       A few months back, I wrote a post about FileMaker’s built in PHP Site Assistant. It’s a handy tool for creating simple sites, but I find it a bit limiting when it comes to creating more complex sites; so I usually tend to write websites in PHP from scratch. It’s actually been possible to do this for a while: around the time FileMaker Pro 5.5 was released, Chris Hansen wrote the first version of FX.php, which was the first solution I found that allowed you ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 2 – 3 minutes       CoreSolutions is pleased to offer our own in-house developed FileMaker Training Courses as well as the FileMaker Training Series (FTS)modules developed by FileMaker Inc. The courses we offer range from the absolute novice with FileMaker such as how to use the basic features of a FileMaker database to building eye catching charts and reports. The FTS modules are designed to cover all aspects and best practices when developing in FileMaker Pro and are highly ... 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       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 minutes       “Let us strive to improve ourselves, for we cannot remain stationary; one either progresses or retrogrades.” Mme. Du Deffand Wise words indeed from a lady who died over 230 years ago.  Some things never change. To get better or even to stay the best means continually improving oneself.  This is the same in life as it is in work. Speaking of work… We have a team of FileMaker developers – all ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 2 minutes       Recently, I was working on a solution where some users only had View access to specific records in one of the tables. I set up a privilege set to do what I wanted, and – once I had worked the kinks out – things were working pretty smoothly; the test account I created could only see data in the records they were supposed to. The only hiccup was that the rest of the records showed up with “<no access>” in the fields – which is kind of ugly, and not ... 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 – 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: 2 – 3 minutes       In my previous posts I have often indicated the resources that are available to you when it comes to FileMaker.  They are all great resources – in many cases of little or no cost to you and for the most part are available 24/7.  However – even with all the great resources available you can’t beat live one-on-one with a real person who knows what they’re talking about. Enter CoreSolutions Support Blocks… A support block is an ideal ... Read More

Estimated Time To Read This: 2 – 4 minutes       I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few years building websites in PHP using FileMaker as a back end (starting with Chris Hansen’s FX.PHP, then switching over to FileMaker’s own PHP API) but I’d never really used FileMaker’s built-in PHP Site Assistant. Since I am used to coding everything myself  I never really saw the need for it, but I decided to try it out recently just as a test to see how it works. The Site Assistant can be ... 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: < 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: 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: 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