It’s been a fun week experimenting with the ExecuteSQL function, and also seeing what others are doing with it. In some cases the experience has been eye opening, and I strongly recommend that anyone interested in ExecuteSQL grab the SQL Builder file from Eden Morris, available at http://fmforums.com/forum/files/file/25-sql-builder/ This attractive and powerful tool provides a [...]
Source
One of the fun things about a new FileMaker release is figuring out how new features work, including subtle behavioral nuances. Today’s demo file, FM12 ExecuteSQL Help Example from CW, is based on Corn Walker’s re-working of one of the demos from part 1, and helps demonstrate how ExecuteSQL fits in with the FileMaker security [...]
Source
FileMaker 12 offers many intriguing new features, including new windowing capabilities, significant charting and container field improvements, and a brand new design surface. But to my way of thinking, all of these pale in comparison to the exciting possibilities offered by the new ExecuteSQL function. What’s so great about ExecuteSQL? In a nutshell, it allows [...]
Source
Well, we’ve reached what may well be the final posting in this extended series of articles. We’ve covered a lot of ground, and this article assumes familiarity with what has come before (in parts 1, 1.1, 2, 3 and 4). Today we’re going to look at a couple “Virtual List” implementations of the User-Friendly Excel [...]
Source
Colleagues and family members are starting to express concern at my obsessive refusal to bring this series to a close. But we’re getting close. Really. In fact, today, we’re going to look at two cool tricks (and one work around) which are utilized in this article’s demo file, excel exports, part 4, but that could [...]
Source
So far in this series we’ve been looking at exporting data to Excel from a single table (Contacts). Today we’re going to extend the technique to encompass a second, related table, Donations, and without too much trouble we can leverage existing work from earlier entries in this series (part 1, part 1.1 and part 2). [...]
Source
[Note: To avoid a huge amount of redundant repetition, this article assumes that you are familiar with part 1 and part 1.1 in this series.] Today we’re going to take a look at streamlining the approach introduced in part 1 by reducing clutter on the Relationships Graph, going from this… …to this, with no loss [...]
Source
Bruce Robertson emailed me off list with an improved version of my demo from part 1, excel exports, part 1.1, which I am sharing with his permission. The improvements are… a) live preview fields showing the data to be exported. an “Eval Error Tester” script to make sure the output code in the alias [...]
Source
Many end users appreciate FileMaker’s ability to export a found set of records in Excel format — it’s fast, straight-forward and empowering. One request that I have received from clients multiple times over the years is: make the exported field names in the top row of the spreadsheet “human-friendly”… For example, instead of this: …perhaps they [...]
Source
Those of you who attended DevCon 2011 in San Diego may recall meeting Andries Heylen of BH&A, who cheerfully answered questions in the FileMaker Genius Bar. Well, from the sow’s ear demo I posted in part 1, Andries has woven a silk purse (google-route-mapping-part-2), which I am sharing with his permission, and which uses Google [...]
Source
The other day someone asked a question on the FMP Experts list about plotting a driving route in Google Maps using FileMaker data. Mark Rubinstein posted a simple solution, and my reactions were, in this order: “No way, it can’t possibly be this easy; better build a demo (google-route-mapping) to find out; wow, it really [...]
Source
Recently I was doing some FileMaker training with my older son; we were looking at the “DayOfWeek” function in the data viewer, and I showed him that… DayOfWeek ( Date ( 1 ; 22 ; 2012 ) ) …returns a 1, since this particular date falls on Sunday, and FileMaker considers Sunday to be the [...]
Source
Have you ever right-clicked into a field (or Ctrl-clicked if on a Mac) and chosen Find Matching Records? It works remarkably well, but oddly enough, there is no scripted equivalent for this command. Of course if we do a Find Matching Records and then invoke Modify Last Find… …we can see what FileMaker is doing [...]
Source
Sometimes a seemingly-simple FileMaker challenge turns out to be more nuanced and educational than first impressions might indicate. This happened recently when I was asked to help make a scripted search behave properly. Most of the time, the existing routine worked correctly, but on certain records it would fail. The challenge: Click a button to [...]
Source
There was a time, many years ago, when the maximum number of characters you could store in a FileMaker text field was 64,000. With the introduction of FileMaker 7 in 2004, that limit was expanded to approximately one billion characters (2 Gb of data divided by 2 bytes per Unicode character), i.e., more than you [...]
Source
Welcome back for a second action-packed episode, as we continue exploring changes to the FileMaker 11 internal SQL parser. We ended part 1 by looking at the INSERT/SELECT construction which, as you may recall, provides the SQL equivalent of a FileMaker “add new records” import from one table to another. Actually, when you use INSERT/SELECT, [...]
Source
March 9, 2010 is a date I recall quite clearly: not only was it the release date for FileMaker 11; it was also the day a bunch of my FileMaker SQL code broke, due to changes in the FM 11 internal SQL parser. If you’re new to this subject, or perhaps a bit rusty, I [...]
Source
Have you ever wished there were an easy way to summarize the contents of one portal in another portal? Perhaps something along the lines of the “Summary” portal below? I’ve touched on the possibility of using a portal to produce (or assist in the production of) an on-screen summary report a couple times in the [...]
Source
Broadly speaking, FileMaker developers fall into three categories: a) those who do all their development on local files; those who do all their development on hosted files; and c) those who sometimes develop locally, and sometimes in a hosted environment. I happen to fall into category “c”, and suspect that most of my colleagues [...]
Source
Ever since I posted part 2 of this series, I’ve been torn between, on the one hand, wanting to move on to other topics; and on the other, the realization that I wasn’t quite done with this one yet. So, here is what I expect will be my final posting, and final demo (dynamic list [...]
Source
Well, I thought I’d said everything I had to say on this subject, but yesterday afternoon I noticed a glaring omission in part 1′s demo — what happens if the user manually unsorts the found set? The sort indicator doesn’t disappear the way a good little sort indicator should. Fortunately this is easily remedied, thanks [...]
Source
Earlier this year, I posted a three-part series on Portal Sorting, and part 2 focused on dynamically sorting a portal when a column heading was clicked. Well, with just a few tweaks, this technique can be applied to dynamic sorting of found sets, and of course the most likely place to employ something like this [...]
Source
Dear FileMaker Hacks, In my personnel database, how can I find all birthdays in a given range, for example, between September 8 and November 15? — Perplexed in Peoria Dear Perplexed, You do come up with some interesting questions. As I recall from our previous correspondence, you are in the US, where dates are formatted [...]
Source
Dear FileMaker Hacks, My personnel database has a scripted routine that locates all employees with birthdays in the current month, like so: When I sent a copy of the database to our sister organization in Australia, the scripted routine did not function properly for them. Could it have something to do with their computer expecting [...]
Source
