This is a follow up to last week’s part 6, with three refinements. Demo 1 (Excel Exports, v7a) – fixes a numeric formatting bug Demo 2 (Excel Exports, v7b) – offers a more flexible Excel export “save” dialog Demo 3 (Excel Exports, v7c) – uses ExecuteSQL to reduce the # of TOs on the RG […]
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Recently I was asked to implement user-friendly Excel exports on a WAN-based solution, utilizing some of the techniques explored earlier in this series (part 1, part 1.1, part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5 — all from five years ago). There was just one problem: while performance was great locally, and okay on a LAN, it was […]
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Author’s note: I’d like to offer a big thank you to Christian Schmitz of Monkeybread Software, not only for creating and continually improving a fantastic plug-in, but also for promptly and patiently answering my many questions. A few weeks ago we looked at creating a table of contents for a PDF containing nine individual reports. […]
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A few years back I did an article on producing a PDF catalog + table of contents, with the TOC based on a vendor table and the catalog entries based on a products table. Today we’re going to use a different approach to generate a table of contents, and it builds on techniques explored in […]
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Editor’s note: Today I’m pleased to present a guest article and accompanying demo file written by Joel Englander on using ExecuteSQL + a global multi-line key as an alternative to FileMaker’s built-in portal filtering mechanism, with dynamic portal sorting included as an added bonus. Demo file: fm-sqlportal-filter-and-dynsort.zip (75 Mb compressed, 230 Mb uncompressed) Portal Filtering […]
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Given its primary role as a database product, it’s easy sometimes to forget what a great teaching tool FileMaker Pro can be. One of my favorite educational uses for it is building models to explore problem spaces, for example… viewing all possible outcomes for a problem with boundary conditions conducting trials to confirm the likelihood […]
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Today we’re going to explore a couple ideas that were glossed over in last month’s article on the CustomList custom function… implementing a “modal” popover using a “magic” value list to display a properly sorted list of dates …and you can download a copy of today’s demo file, Date Filtration, if you are so inclined. […]
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Earlier this year, in Virtual List Reporting, I used a custom function written by Agnes Barouh called CustomList to generate a couple basic lists, and then remarked… Well today I’m going to attempt to make good on that assertion. In case you aren’t already familiar with CustomList, it allows you to iteratively generate and/or parse […]
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Introduction If you work with the separation model, or any other multi-file configuration where a layout in file A is based on a table in file B, you may have encountered the following situation: while FileMaker is perfectly happy to allow you to transfer a found set from file A to file B… …there is […]
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INTRODUCTION Earlier this month I was contacted by a DevCon presenter asking permission to include some slides from my eleven-year old anchor/buoy materials as part of his presentation. I said I’d be honored, but then added, “You might mention that I haven’t used A/B on a new project in about eight years.” He asked what […]
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Welcome back for the second and concluding installment in our exploration of Virtual List Reporting (a.k.a. VLR). Demo file: VLR-part-2.zip This approach to reporting can be ideal in situations where the “shape” of your data is known in advance. I don’t mean to imply that VLR cannot be used with more open-ended reporting challenges, but the sales data we […]
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Today’s release of FileMaker Pro 15 brings a welcome performance boost in the form of in-line portal progress indicators, a.k.a threaded portals. Ian Jempson (@ianjempson) was kind enough to provide me with a test file that he built, and today’s demo file is based on Ian’s work, and shared with his permission. The purpose of […]
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Self-plagiarism alert: to avoid repeatedly referring the reader back to earlier virtual list articles, portions of text from those earlier articles are incorporated here. Welcome to the first installment of a two-part series on producing reports using the virtual list technique, or more properly, collection of techniques. Demo file: VLR-part-1.zip Invented and popularized by Bruce Robertson, virtual lists are […]
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Recently, in the midst of various reporting and charting projects, I’ve found myself wishing for an easy way to “dynamically instantiate” one or more variables… in other words, set them by name, with the name determined programmatically, as opposed to being hard coded. This issue has come up from time to time on this blog […]
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If you do complex data analysis, then from time to time you probably need to group, summarize, and parse data into variables and/or fields. There are various ways to accomplish this, including the Fast Summary technique, which regular readers of this blog may be familiar with, as it has made a number of appearances here […]
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If you produce reports or other FileMaker output in PDF format, here’s a little trick that can be a real time saver in terms of development. Imagine this: a client receives a nightly report via email in PDF format, and asked you to make sure the report would fit on a single page in landscape […]
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Note: Thank you to Colleen Hammersley for bringing this issue to my attention, and thank you also to Howard Schlossberg for proposing a clever and elegant work around that addresses the issue on the Windows platform. (We’ll also look at another fix that works cross-platform.) Today we’re going to explore a windowing behavior change that […]
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Welcome back for a second dip into the developer bag of tips and tricks. A few of today’s entries assume familiarity with part 1, so if you haven’t already checked it out, I invite you to do so before proceeding. We begin today with a couple ExecuteSQL tips. Tip #1: Get to know COALESCE The […]
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Over the last few years I’ve been collecting miscellaneous tips and tricks with the thought of eventually aggregating them into a blog posting, and it appears that day has finally come. Ideally there will be something new and useful here for developers of all levels, from the neophyte to the most grizzled of FileMaker veterans. […]
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I had a client request recently to toggle an image button to a second image on mouse over. Under normal circumstances, this would not be difficult to accomplish since you can assign one image to the Normal state, and a different image to the Hover state, like so. However, if you go this route, you can’t […]
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Recently a colleague contacted me with some questions about making ExecuteSQL found-set aware, and I realized that while I had addressed aspects of the problem in various blog postings over a multiyear period (for example, here and here), I had not assembled my thoughts into one cohesive, up-to-date article. Well, that shortcoming has now been […]
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Editor’s note: Today it’s my honor and privilege to present an article by guest author Beverly Voth, whose contributions to the FileMaker community are numerous and much appreciated. It’s great to have her back here on FileMaker Hacks. FileMaker 13 & 14 have some features that can be leveraged to allow one layout to toggle between […]
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Note: Interface file #1 requires FM 14 or later; interface file #2 works with FM 12 or later. What do you get when you combine the Separation Model + FM 14 placeholder text + ExecuteSQL + a million-record table + a variable array + Get(CalculationRepetitionNumber) + the Mod and Ceiling functions + a couple custom functions, with blazingly fast (local, LAN and WAN) performance thrown […]
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Four years ago I posted the original version of this article, exploring a technique that worked fine in FM 11, but that broke and required extensive work arounds in FM 12 and 13. What you’re about to read is a revision of the original article, showcasing a FM 14 method made possible by a new […]
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“It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma but perhaps there is a key. The key is how you get the PDF into the container field, and which platform and FM version you use to accomplish this.” Winston Churchill, BBC radio address, 1939 (Just kidding about the second sentence.) If you work with […]
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