As with all mastery of any trade, it’s a matter of familiarity with the tools, along with practiced skill, in which a craftsman can hone his or her proficiency. In development, it’s often a matter of knowing which tools are available, and how to use them, which may make the difference.
In this video, I showcase the tools I use, their most important features and how I personally use them. If becoming a more efficient and capable FileMaker developer is one of your goals then make sure to watch th
No Access? Watch the preview video here. DeveloperTipsTricks_Pre.mp4
By Matt Petrowsky
As with all mastery of any trade, it’s a matter of familiarity with the tools, along with practiced skill, in which a craftsman can hone his or her proficiency. In development, it’s often a matter of knowing which tools are available, and how to use them, which may make the difference.
In this video, I showcase the tools I use, their most important features and how I personally use them. If becomin
What would a database solution be without the ability to send email? Well, it would be a database solution without the ability to send email - but who wants that right?
Email is obviously an integral part of our modern day communication. And, despite what the Twitters, Facebooks and Instagrams of the world would have you believe, email is here to stay.
The easiest way to add email support to a FileMaker database is to simply use the Send Mail script step. But, that’s boring, and sometimes it d
No Access? Watch the preview video here. SendingEmailMerging_Pre.mp4
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By Matt Petrowsky
What would a database solution be without the ability to send email? Well, it would be a database solution without the ability to send email - but who wants that right?
Email is obviously an integral part of our modern day communication. And, despite what the Twitters, Facebooks and Instagrams of the world would have you believe, email
As we’ve all likely heard before, a movie isn’t just great because of the cinematography, it’s the sound that counts just as much. What you hear, not just see, is what makes the difference between good and great.
So, if sound is so critical to a movie, then the analogy to a FileMaker layout is color. Sure, anyone can move and arrange fields and objects into some semblance of order. And, using FileMaker’s layout objects to furnish your layout for the best possible user experience does take a bit
By Matt Petrowsky
As we’ve all likely heard before, a movie isn’t just great because of the cinematography, it’s the sound that counts just as much. What you hear, not just see, is what makes the difference between good and great.
So, if sound is so critical to a movie, then the analogy to a FileMaker layout is color. Sure, anyone can move and arrange fields and objects into some semblance of order. And, using FileMaker’s layout objects to furnish your layout for the best possible user
When developing in FileMaker, the feature set it offers accounts for a good number of common tasks and provides easy solutions for most of these problems. There are a few issues, however, which FileMaker either hasn’t addressed or wants to leave up to the developer.
One of these is saving the current window state. This applies to tab panels, sliders and moving from layout to layout or when closing the file. The desired result, for the end user, is to simply return to where they left off when re
No Access? Watch the preview video here. SavingWindowState_Pre.mp4
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By Matt Petrowsky
When developing in FileMaker, the feature set it offers accounts for a good number of common tasks and provides easy solutions for most of these problems. There are a few issues, however, which FileMaker either hasn’t addressed or wants to leave up to the developer.
One of these is saving the current window state. This applies to tab panels, sl
Most of FileMaker’s layout objects allow you to easily specify settings directly on those objects. For example, using Button Bars for the purpose of navigation means you can specify which of the multiple segments should be presented as active. Of course, your can also easily target which layout a button click should take the user to without creating a dedicated script.
The problem, however, is that FileMaker systems end up growing ever larger and the evolution process means you’re constantly ma
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ButtonBarsforNavigation.zip
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By Matt Petrowsky
Most of FileMaker’s layout objects allow you to easily specify settings directly on those objects. For example, using Button Bars for the purpose of navigation means you can specify which of the multiple segments should be presented as active. Of course, your can also easily target which layout a button click should take the user to with
The security of your FileMaker data should always be a top priority. If you don’t know how to implement FileMaker’s Privilege Sets, then you need to learn as quickly as possible.
While the dialogs for security can seem a bit obscure and difficult, it only takes a few trips in and out to get a feel for how you can lock things down.
In this video, I showcase a simple system I created which covers topics such as Granting full access to scripts and why, locking off security related fields, using G
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By Matt Petrowsky
The security of your FileMaker data should always be a top priority. If you don’t know how to implement FileMaker’s Privilege Sets, then you need to learn as quickly as possible.
While the dialogs for security can seem a bit obscure and difficult, it only takes a few trips in and out to get a feel for how you can lock things down.
In this video,
More and more these days, we find ourselves jumping back and forth between desktop computers and using our increasingly convenient mobile devices. At least, that’s how it’s been with many of my personal FileMaker projects./Users/matt/Desktop/filemaker-desktop-mobile-design.png
While designing for each target device, in an ideal world, is a luxury we’d like to afford, there just isn’t an unlimited supply of time and money.
The solution is to create a hybrid design which will work as well on mob
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By Matt Petrowsky
More and more these days, we find ourselves jumping back and forth between desktop computers and using our increasingly convenient mobile devices. At least, that’s how it’s been with many of my personal FileMaker projects./Users/matt/Desktop/filemaker-desktop-mobile-design.png
While designing for each target device, in an ideal world,
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Creating a user interface, which looks good at any resolution, was never a concern before there were smartphones. It was when they started packing more and more pixels within the same area that graphics started having issues. With the popular formats of PNG and JPEG, you’re limited in terms of displaying them. The limit is the maximum size/resolution at which the file is exported at. From there, you can only go down, scaling up will cause the obvious pixelation we’re familiar wit
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SVGIconManipulation.zip
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By Matt Petrowsky
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Creating a user interface, which looks good at any resolution, was never a concern before there were smartphones. It was when they started packing more and more pixels within the same area that graphics started having issues. With the popular formats of PNG and JPEG, you’re limited in terms of displaying them. The limit is the maximum size/resolution at which the file is exported at. From there, yo
When you attempt to translate human interaction from the real world into a database, that translation isn’t always the most ideal.
Within a database, you’re storing data within rows and columns and the real world isn’t always laid out so neatly. This is where using an image or graphic fills the gap and shortens that bridge of understanding for the user.
A good example would be a dental office and scheduling appointments within 2 hour blocks of time throughout the day. The office has a physical
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DynamicSVGInteraction.zip
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By Matt Petrowsky
When you attempt to translate human interaction from the real world into a database, that translation isn’t always the most ideal.
Within a database, you’re storing data within rows and columns and the real world isn’t always laid out so neatly. This is where using an image or graphic fills the gap and shortens that bridge of understand
The great thing about FileMaker Pro is it has it’s companion app FileMaker Go. Without FileMaker Go having arrived when the mobile revolution started taking off, FileMaker might have had a hard time staying viable.
Because of FileMaker Go, we can build solutions for armies of mobile users heading out in the field. Even better, we can make easy little applications for ourselves which do cool things.
While the limitations within FileMaker are actually quite small, there will always be some burni
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By Matt Petrowsky
The great thing about FileMaker Pro is it has it’s companion app FileMaker Go. Without FileMaker Go having arrived when the mobile revolution started taking off, FileMaker might have had a hard time staying viable.
Because of FileMaker Go, we can build solutions for armies of mobile users heading out in the field. Even better, we can make e
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Users make mistakes. There’s no doubt about that. When given the opportunity, they’ll enter characters and text strings you never expected.
The easy solution to this problem is to simply control the result of what they’ve input. When capturing the input, there may be a variety of rules regarding how you want the data stored.
Do you want to store “4 pm” or 16:00:00? Is the user entering suffixes such as Jr. or Sr. into the last name field or the first name field? Should the inpu
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CleaningInputData.zip
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By Matt Petrowsky
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Users make mistakes. There’s no doubt about that. When given the opportunity, they’ll enter characters and text strings you never expected.
The easy solution to this problem is to simply control the result of what they’ve input. When capturing the input, there may be a variety of rules regarding how you want the data stored.
Do you want to store “4 pm” or 16:00:00? Is the user entering suffixes suc
Exchanging data between systems has always been a matter of format. The output systems needs to output in the expected input format for the inbound system - and it works the same way when going in reverse.
When it comes to data interchange formats, some of the most prevalent are arguably CSV (comma separated value) and Tab delimited.
The problem with these formats however, is that one person’s CSV is not necessarily another’s. The CSV “standard” actually has no standard. There is an RFC (Reque
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ManipulatingCSVExports.zip
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By Matt Petrowsky
Exchanging data between systems has always been a matter of format. The output systems needs to output in the expected input format for the inbound system - and it works the same way when going in reverse.
When it comes to data interchange formats, some of the most prevalent are arguably CSV (comma separated value) and Tab delimited.
When it comes to accomplishing things within FileMaker Pro, some of the most sublime techniques are also the most empowering.
This particular technique, while focused on exporting calendar events, showcases some of my most favorite power-user methods for manipulating data. In my personal scenario, I was provided with a standard spreadsheet formatted to show a calendar of events broken down month-by-month.
The spreadsheet was formatted to be easily used and viewed by humans. It was not, however