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FileMaker Magazine

A blog by FileMaker Magazine in Affiliate Blogs

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Entries in this blog

Agentic Local Models

A lot of developers are talking about running AI privately on their own machine, but what does that actually look like when the work you care about lives inside FileMaker? If you handle sensitive client data, or you would simply rather your solution's structure never leave your disk, the promise of a local model is hard to ignore. The question is whether the hardware sitting in front of you can really deliver, and whether the results hold up once you move past the hype and start doing real devel

Agentic Coding - Part 3

Your agent can see your data, adjust your table structure, and run your scripts, but the one thing FileMaker developers most want to hand over, writing and improving the script logic itself, is still locked away. The steps you spend hours composing live in a space no external model can simply open, and until you understand how that code leaves FileMaker and returns, every attempt to automate your scripting work runs into the same wall. This video walks every path that script logic currently has

Agentic Coding - Part 2

You have your agent set up, connected to your solution, and ready to work. Yet the seemingly minor choice of which model and effort level to run quietly decides whether agentic coding saves you money or drains it. The names providers use are designed to push you toward the most expensive option, and the more powerful a setting sounds, the more you pay for it. But most FileMaker work, from everyday scripts to schema changes to small enhancements, does not demand the deepest thinking model in exis

Agentic Coding - Part 1

Agentic coding has arrived, and there is no version of the future where it stays outside your FileMaker workflow, yet for most FileMaker developers it currently looks like a wall. Most every LLM ("agent") you can point at a project today works within a mental model of folders, plain text files, and version control, while everything you've built in FileMaker, your scripts, layouts, fields, and data, sits sealed inside a file that no model can simply open and inspect. This first video in the serie

FileMaker 26 Field Annotations

In the video for this article I take a deep dive into FileMaker 26's new field and table metadata features, and the big picture is: Claris is prepping your databases for AI agents. I show how you can pack your field comments with structured JSON—things like enumerations ("colors must be one of: blue, orange, red")—and pull that out via the Get Table DDL function so AI tools have enough schema context to generate scripts or build equivalent tables in other databases. It builds on functionality th

Configure Persistent Data

If you have ever tried to bundle a hefty JavaScript library into a FileMaker solution, you already know the quiet frustration of it. You tuck the code into an insert text step or a custom function, you bump into arbitrary character limits, and you end up with the same content duplicated in places that were never really meant to hold it. The result works, but it always feels like a workaround rather than a home. FileMaker 26 finally addresses this head on, and it changes how you think about the a

Understanding Agentic Coding

If you still open the Script Workspace, click New Script, and wire your solutions together by hand, you are about to feel left behind. This tutorial confronts the uncomfortable reality that traditional FileMaker development has become slower and more tedious than the alternative, and explains why so many developers have already stopped working that way entirely. The conversation around AI and agentic tooling has moved past hype into daily practice, and FileMaker professionals who skip the fundam

MBS cURL Async - Stop Waiting

If you've ever clicked a button in FileMaker that calls a web service and then watched the entire interface freeze while you wait, you already know the cost of synchronous communication. A two second delay is annoying, a thirty second delay is unacceptable, and a minute long response from a busy API can derail an entire workflow. This tutorial tackles the fundamental blocking problem head on and shows how to keep your users productive while requests run quietly in the background. Watch the cont

Bulk Icon Swapping

Getting fresh icons into a FileMaker solution has always meant friction: hunt down the right SVG on an external site, sort out whether it will actually work given FileMaker's dated SVG support, convert or rework it as needed, then manually import it one at a time. If your button bars look tired and swapping their icons feels like it costs more effort than it's worth, this video shows exactly why that process no longer holds. Watch as a single plain-language prompt sets off an entire icon replac

Updating Schema using AI

Struggling to make sense of a FileMaker database you inherited, or not sure how to structure a new one from scratch? Maybe, you're even trying to understand your very own file's schema. In this tutorial, we cut through the complexity by putting AI to work as your personal database architect. You'll learn how to think about your data the way the rest of the world does, understanding core concepts like entity relationships, normalization, and why FileMaker's unique "all or nothing" data model make

Modifying Web Pages

There’s no question at this point that AI is going to have a massive impact on how development moves forward at every level. The speed increase is simply amazing. Especially, if you’ve spent years banging out code by hand. In this video, I showcase how I created an IIFE (Immediately Invoked Function Expression), well AI did, that injects links into a web page, allowing direct interaction with FileMaker data. This approach to working with your FileMaker solution is incredibly powerful. If you c

Playing with Odata

The implementation of OData at the core of how FileMaker Server returns and updates data is critical to understand in today’s interconnected world. Knowing not only that OData exists and is available, but also how it works, gives you another practical tool when interacting with your FileMaker solutions. Because OData supports all CRUD operations and does so without the same requirements as the Data API, such as requiring a layout, it becomes essential knowledge whether you are using a server, w

Modern Related Record Duplication

For many years, duplicating a record in FileMaker has been straightforward. You simply choose Duplicate Record from the Records menu and you’re done. Things get more complicated when you also need to duplicate the associated related records. At that point, you typically have to “load” the related records, either with a Find or Go to Related Records script step, duplicate each one individually, and ensure the new primary key value is written into the foreign key field of every related record. O

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

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