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FileMaker Magazine

A blog by FileMaker Magazine in Affiliate Blogs

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Entries in this blog

AI Coding in FileMaker

The question is no longer if AI assisted coding will impact your work in FileMaker. The question is when you begin using it and how it shows up in your development process. That adoption may come from Claris through native features, from third party tools, or even from solutions you build yourself by using AI as part of your workflow to generate FileMaker code. For those of us who have spent decades learning how to write code, this represents a significant shift. The value of manually composing

Ultimate FileMaker Course - 09 - Window Management

Maintaining a comprehensive set of custom functions for managing windows in FileMaker can be extremely valuable. Once you’ve established a consistent set of standards, window behavior becomes predictable, and you no longer need to worry about repeatedly solving the same layout and positioning problems. In this video, I showcase the collection of window-related custom functions I’ve developed and refined over the years. These functions are organized using the new custom function folders feature

Integrating AWS DynamoDB

For many businesses, FileMaker has long served as the primary hub for data. However, there are plenty of situations where FileMaker either can’t perform a specific task or simply isn’t fast enough for the workload. This is where external technologies shine. Python handles complex mathematical operations with exceptional speed. JavaScript can process large datasets far more efficiently than a FileMaker custom function. And your data doesn’t always need to live inside the same tool you use to man

Ultimate FileMaker Course - 08 - Date/Time/Timestamps

Whether you're new to developing in FileMaker or have been using it for a while, unless you’re already familiar with standard timestamp formats and have experience working with external systems, there are several important things to understand about using dates, times, and timestamps within FileMaker — especially when integrating with other systems and APIs. In this part of our series, we’ll explore a helpful suite of custom functions which serves as a solid foundation for nearly anything relat

Ultimate FileMaker Course - 07 - External Data Sources

In my opinion, before creating your first complex solution in FileMaker, it’s best to become familiar with the core features the environment provides. When considering how to structure your solutions — whether using a data separation model or a single file — it helps to understand how certain features can influence your decisions. In this video, I cover the External Data Sources feature. While this feature is primarily intended for connecting to external data sources, its utility goes beyond si

Ultimate FileMaker Course - 06 - Permissions First

As with all increasingly complex human creations, especially those that go beyond the simple steps of “1, 2, 3, and done”, it’s important to plan for a solid foundation. A well-thought-out foundation guides a project toward long-term success and easier maintenance once the initial effort has been invested. These early investments in your technical solution cover a variety of areas, one of the most important being permissions. Controlling what can be done, and by whom, not only protects against

Ultimate FileMaker Course - 05 - Users & Sessions

In any multi-user solution, one of the first things to focus on is managing its users. While it's always possible to create a FileMaker solution without a dedicated Users table, doing so prevents you from offering users a wide range of benefits, with user preferences being the first major advantage. While adding a Users table will allow you to manage those users and their preferences, you might as well also add a Sessions table to track whatever you wish about user activity while they're logged

Ultimate FileMaker Course - 04 - Developer Debug

Debugging your solution's features isn't simply about using the built-in debugger offered by FileMaker. Debugging also involves knowing enough about the environment to determine what could be causing a problem. It includes being able to investigate and troubleshoot a particular feature while testing. It's probably no surprise that using a dedicated developer-only option, such as a debug menu, is one of the best ways to approach the problem. In this video, we walk through the foundations of the

Ultimate FileMaker Course - 03 - Shortcut Keys

Being able to move within a development environment with ease and efficiency is one of the great joys of integrating features quickly into your solution. The quicker features go in, the better you feel about the progress. While setting up and taking the time to familiarize yourself with and use shortcut keys may feel like a bit of a hassle, it's well worth the investment for the time it saves. In this part of an ongoing series, we'll cover a highly effective method for managing your personal k

Ultimate FileMaker Course - 02 - Settings & Prefs

This video discusses the general FileMaker preference settings and file specific settings. ABOUT THE SERIES The Ultimate FileMaker Course is a walk-through of adding essential components found in pretty much any modern FileMaker solution. The course is based around building a useful tool for launching other FileMaker solutions. By creating a launcher file, which provides full control over launching your other FileMaker solutions, you'll be treated to a variety of lessons around the various as

Ultimate FileMaker Course - 01 - Environment

This first video discusses the general FileMaker environment and highlights various folders and files any FileMaker developer should be aware of. ABOUT THE SERIES The Ultimate FileMaker Course is a walk-through of adding essential components found in pretty much any modern FileMaker solution. The course is based around building a useful tool for launching other FileMaker solutions. By creating a launcher file, which provides full control over launching your other FileMaker solutions, you'll b

Critical Values Functions

Working with simple lists of values is one of the most fundamental aspects of building software. FileMaker, like any other development environment, often requires working with lists of values, whether it's a global field used as a relationship key or multiple selections made from a checkbox widget. In this video, I'll present a number of custom functions that provide common and practical operations for handling lists of values. These functions can be copied and pasted directly into your FileMak

Finding Scripting Errors

As any FileMaker solution grows, it's inevitable that errors will creep in as methods and scripts are updated with newer features. And with every new script you add, you're also introducing new opportunities for errors. For the longest time, we've relied on the Pause on Error checkbox to invoke the debugger when an error occurs. While useful, the constant pop-up of the debugger can quickly interrupt your development "flow" — and honestly, it gets a bit annoying. Starting with FileMaker 18, we

FileMaker 2025 (v22) - GetRecordIDsFromFoundSet()

One of the fundamental methods for loading a found set of records in FileMaker has traditionally been storing and using the key values of a selected set of records. With the powerful Go To Related Record script step, you can easily load any number of records. This can be achieved through either a global field relationship or a standard schema relationship. However, with the established method, if you want to store and reload a found set, you need a few additional elements: a Summary field (low

FileMaker 2025 (v22) - Grouping Enhancements

Aside from the welcome user interface refresh in FileMaker 2025, a valuable enhancement has been made to the existing grouping feature. This update encourages greater use of grouped layout objects and helps reduce the number of layout-based calculations, a point of frustration with the previous limitation. Prior to FileMaker 22, if you applied either a button action (now discouraged) or a hide calculation, you had to ungroup the object before adding anything new to the group. This often caused

Using GetLiveText()

Becoming familiar with all of FileMaker’s possible technology integrations can take many years. Often, the learning process happens as a side effect of solving a specific need. While you can use almost any other programming language alongside FileMaker, the built-in features can be a breath of fresh air, especially if you haven’t tried them before. In this video, I take a look at the GetLiveText feature, introduced in version 19.5, which is supported on both macOS and iOS. If you’re using FileM

Quick Native Charting

One of the greatest advantages of FileMaker's built-in charting tool is its immediate access to aggregated data. This is especially useful when you don't need highly customized charts. If you do require full visual control, using a Web Viewer with JavaScript typically offers much greater flexibility. The downside to that approach, however, is the development time required to extract the data from FileMaker and format it for use in JavaScript. Fortunately, with the help of AI, that process has be

Building Faster Solutions Using Open Quickly

One of the powerful new features in recent versions of FileMaker Pro is the Open Quickly feature. While it initially had issues with giving users too much access, those concerns have been resolved through updated privilege settings. In this short video, I focus on a few things you can do with the Open Quickly feature. From jumping to fields several tables away to managing multiple layouts while working on your design, adopting the Open Quickly feature can significantly speed up your development

Elegant Panel Wizard

Having a few pieces of code that can be easily replicated into any solution is one of the best ways to achieve efficiency in development. Yes, AI is revolutionizing how we build solutions, but it's still important to have a personal "treasure chest" of code you're familiar with and don’t need to re-learn. In this video and technique file, we take a look at just one of many ways to create a wizard-like, multi-step process. Using a slider is likely one of the simplest methods for collecting data

Better UI Settings

Longtime FileMaker developers have often used the database itself to store values for various user interface settings. This is valid, because, where else would you store them? A common approach is individual fields. However, there are a few problems with this. First, it adds "noise" to your data structure, making it harder to distinguish between actual data fields and those used for other purposes. For example, you might ask, "Is this an actual data field or is it used for something else?" Sec

FMIndent - FileMaker Code Formatting

FileMaker developers who use editors like VS Code, IntelliJ IDEA, BBEdit, or even VIM are very familiar with the modern conveniences expected from a code editor: linters, code completion, formatting, syntax highlighting, and more. In FileMaker, however, we've been stuck in the 90s for quite a while. One of my favorite tools is Typinator, which offers extensive text manipulation capabilities. Recently, a new tool for Mac developers was released that addresses the lack of a full-fledged editor. F

ForEach Function for Scripted Loops

When it comes to doing the same thing over and over again, you really can't beat a loop. It's the wet side of DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself), where the "Don't" turns into a very big "Please, yes, DO." The trick with loops, especially when you're processing a lot of data like JSON, is that you often have to manage multiple iterators, counts, and all the little bits and pieces needed for a successful outcome. One of the wonderful things about many other languages, like Python, PHP, JavaScript, and

Complex Conditional Formatting

Breaking down complex logic into manageable chunks of code is the smartest thing you can do when it comes to conditional formatting. Especially when it needs to account for an increasingly wider number of conditions. This week's video deals with what seems like a simple solution to solve, yet it comes with all kinds of complex little pieces to make the solution provide the end result desired. If you enjoy the type of video which is a bit of a solution walk-thru, where I discuss how things are

Effective Solution Settings

Every solution starts out like an infant. It knows very little and works hard to manage your solution's data as it becomes a productive citizen of your digital society. As it grows, your solution will need to offer a variety of options. User A prefers things one way, while User B another. Your job, as the developer, is to accommodate those whims and preferences, or settings as we’ll call them, in the most efficient way possible. As is somewhat typical, you may be halfway through development whe

Using Gateway Files

One of the greatest joys of working in technology is that you never really have to stop learning - although you certainly can. Everything also moves so fast that it often feels like you can’t keep up. The great thing about FileMaker is that you're not stuck in the '80s or '90s when the software first started - you get to explore as widely as you like. FileMaker can literally reach into almost all aspects of technology. You can learn about relational structure, SQL, REST, web APIs, and whatever

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