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  • Josh Ormond

    A Conversation About '2 Factor Authentication'

    By Josh Ormond

    [ Edit: 3/16/2016 - With the help of some other people, we have been able to recover, or recreate some of the original images from original thread. ] Security is always a big topic when it involves data, or people, or possessions. Recently, over on the FileMaker Community, there was a very beneficial discussion regarding security. Unfortunately, that discussion was the victim of a necessary action...and was deleted. It was deleted, because the discussion was tied to a video that, as was det
    • 1 comment
    • 6,173 views
  • Steven H. Blackwell

    Hacking Your Own FileMaker Platform Solutions

    By Steven H. Blackwell

    Hacking Your Own FileMaker Platform Solutions Should FileMaker Platform developers mount hacking attacks on their own solutions? At first glance, this may seem an odd question. But I believe that the answer is “Yes, we should.” Consider this. As developers we see our solutions from a totally different perspective than Threat Agents see them. Without practicing our own hacking skills, we can become blind to the vulnerabilities a Threat Agent can exploit to compromise the Confidentiality
    • 1 comment
    • 6,117 views

A Lightweight Cross-Tabular Data Entry Method

One of the shortcomings of FileMaker is its inability achieve easy cross-tabular reports and data entry in a normalized structure. There are various techniques to replicate cross-tabular interfaces, but they often involve many relationships for either the columns/rows, or are for display only. The goal of this article is to present a lightweight method for cross-tabular data entry using as few relationships & fields as possible. Read the Full Article Here…

Daniel Wood

Daniel Wood

Quick Tips: Commenting your Value Lists

Pretty much everything in FileMaker comes with some form of comment box to let you add more information - such as fields, menus, custom functions, calculations, scripts, and the graph. However the one area lacking in a comment box is value lists, unless that is, you think a little outside of the box… Read the Full Article Here…

Daniel Wood

Daniel Wood

Ditch those Flush Caches, Use Cartesian Join Instead!

All too often, the Refresh Window script step is used with the 'Flush Cached Join Results' option checked. Sometimes this is through lack of understanding, but other times it is required to refresh those pesky relationships which have trouble re-evaluating. This article explains why Flush Cache can be detrimental on performance, and offers an alternative and more efficient method for refreshing relationships… Read the Full Article Here…

Daniel Wood

Daniel Wood

Quick Checkbox Selection of Portal Records for Users

There are many ways in which users can select records, so that each user can keep their own unique selection. This particular method uses a portal showing related records as a selection tool. The main technique involves using a value list & checkbox to easily achieve selection with no scripting required… Read the Full Article Here…

Daniel Wood

Daniel Wood

The Case of the Disappearing Sub-Summary

Recently I was working on building a large layout which is used for both printing and data-entry. One of the requirements was I needed to show a lot of "private" information that the data-entry person needed to see, but was not to be printed. The issue was solved using a very cool property of sub-summary parts… Read the Full Article Here…

Daniel Wood

Daniel Wood

Make a new plan, Stan.

or even use an old one… just HAVE a plan, and STICK to it. A few thoughts for the next time we make a brand new database: We should set some strict naming and formatting conventions so that all the names used for tables, field, layouts and scripts use the same rules, allowing us to construct references based on variables and knowledge of our naming conventions. I suppose there still remains the problem of what happens if we change some names… but maybe we could use one login to set up names of s

David Jondreau

David Jondreau

Make a new plan, Stan.

or even use an old one… just HAVE a plan, and STICK to it. A few thoughts for the next time we make a brand new database: We should set some strict naming and formatting conventions so that all the names used for tables, field, layouts and scripts use the same rules, allowing us to construct references based on variables and knowledge of our naming conventions. I suppose there still remains the problem of what happens if we change some names… but maybe we could use one login to set up names of

David Jondreau

David Jondreau

Creating Tidy Popup Windows

Using Popup windows is common FileMaker technique for showing more information, managing dialogs, and running wizards to name a few. However, all to often little care is given to the aesthetics of creating and positioning a popup, leading to an unpolished and half-finished feel. This article gives some pointers on how you can create popups that are clean, efficient, and correctly positioned… Read the Full Article Here…

Daniel Wood

Daniel Wood

Complex Filtering Using Related Record Information

This article demonstrates how you can filter a relationship to one table, by using information located in a related table. The example I will be using is filtering a relationship to a Customer table, but by searching on a customers related Contacts, which are in an entirely different table… Read the Full Article Here…

Daniel Wood

Daniel Wood

Sorting Records Using Your Own Custom Ordering

You may be familiar with the Sort Records dialog in FileMaker which allows you to display records sorted by one or more fields. What you may be less familiar with is the ability to more explicitly define a sort order with the assistance of a value list. This article gives an introduction to this often overlooked feature, and provides a few examples along the way… Read the Full Article Here…

Daniel Wood

Daniel Wood

Safe Scripting: Check Before You Do Anything!

When writing a script to carry out a particular task, ask yourself what conditions need to be true for this script to run properly. Sometimes, a script will do something which can potentially fail, and cause a cascade effect or errors, IF the initial conditions were incorrect. It is always a good idea to check for suitable conditions before doing anything in the script… Read the Full Article Here…

Daniel Wood

Daniel Wood

Join My Table Pt 3 - Putting on the Finishing Touches & Extra Features

In part two, I demonstrated how to implement the basics of the join table solution in FileMaker. While the solution works fine as an illustration for join tables, it lacked many of the basic interface features that would make it a usable solution. In part three, I will show how to implement some of these features, namely the following: Better selection of a Student for an Enrollment, Deletion of Enrollments & Prevention of “over-enrolling” a course… Read the Full Article Here…

Daniel Wood

Daniel Wood

Making Creation of Records in a Portal More User Friendly

FileMaker provides us with the ability to create related records directly from a portal. This is a great and easy way to generate records without the need to script the process, and for that reason it is a popular technique among both new users and Developers alike. This article extends this concept further and suggests various user interface improvements for making data entry in this method more user friendly… Read the Full Article Here…

Daniel Wood

Daniel Wood

Join My Table Pt 1 - Intro

Perhaps one of the most asked questions that I see asked on FileMaker Forums is in regards to join tables. While some users have an understanding of what they are, they may lack the FileMaker skills to implement them. Others are unfamiliar with the concept altogether, but will explain their real word example. Usually it is a prime candidate for a join table. This article provides a real world example that will give you an understanding of why join tables are important, and in what circumstances

Daniel Wood

Daniel Wood

Conditional Value Lists Pt 3 - Assisting with the Selection Process

In part one, we built a couple of basic conditional value lists to select sport names & equipment items. Part two demonstrated how the conditional value lists could be tweaked for use within a portal. The last part in the series gives some basic techniques to help the selection process from your drop-downs, and ensure that the chosen values remain consistent and correct… Read the Full Article Here…

Daniel Wood

Daniel Wood

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