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FileMaker Hacks

A blog by Kevin Frank in Affiliate Blogs

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Entries in this blog

January 2024 FM-DiSC Presentation

Here are resources mentioned during my January 12th FM-DiSC presentation. Layout Calculations Demo file: [coming soon] FileMaker Hacks: Layout Calculations in FileMaker 20.2 FileMaker Hacks: Layout Calculations in FileMaker 20.3 Beezwax: Dynamic FileMaker UI Using Layout Calculations Generating Spreadsheets with LibXL FileMaker Hacks: Generating Spreadsheets with LibXL Goya FMXL: https://goya.com.au/excel-plugin-for-filemaker Monkeybread XL: https://www.mbsplugins.eu/component_XL.shtml LibXL doc

Layout Calculations in FileMaker 20.3

This is a follow up to last month’s article, Layout Calculations in FileMaker 20.2, and will assume the reader is familiar with that material. Today we will be taking a look at some changes to Layout Calculation behavior in the newly-released FileMaker 20.3. #1. Calculation Result Type Can Now Be Specified We can now specify… Continue reading Layout Calculations in FileMaker 20.3View the full article

Layout Calculations in FileMaker 20.2

The recent release of FileMaker 20.2 introduces a feature that developers have long been asking for: the ability to define calculations at the layout level without resorting to workarounds (such as those we saw in Button Bar Segment Fun, part 1 and part 2.) You can read the official word(s) from Claris here… Inserting layout… Continue reading Layout Calculations in FileMaker 20.2View the full article

JSON Currency Exchange Rates, v3

Demo file: json-currencyapi.com.fmp12.zip This is a quick follow up to a pair of articles I published earlier this year, and will assume the reader is familiar with that material. JSON Currency Exchange Rates revisited JSON – Force Standard Notation Having first blogged about this back in 2020, I had hoped to be finished with this… Continue reading JSON Currency Exchange Rates, v3View the full article

Generating Spreadsheets with LibXL

Introduction From time to time FileMaker developers are tasked with generating Excel spreadsheet output. There are a variety of ways to accomplish this, in some cases via native FileMaker commands (Export, Save/Send Records), and in other cases using various workaround methods — some of which have appeared on this site in years past. Today we’re… Continue reading Generating Spreadsheets with LibXLView the full article

JSON Custom Functions for FM, part 3

This article is part of a series. See also… •  JSON Custom Functions for FM 19.5, part 1 •  JSON Custom Functions for FM 19.5, part 2 Demo file: json-custom-functions-part-3.zip Note: some of these CFs make use of JSONGetElementType so require FM 19.5 or later. Disclaimer: use at your own risk, these CFs may contain bugs,… Continue reading JSON Custom Functions for FM, part 3View the full article

A Fresh Approach to Deduplication

Editor’s Note: Today I’m pleased to present a guest article by Jon Rosen featuring a creative and performant approach to removing duplicate records. Recently, I had a situation where I had a found set of more than 500,000 records, but over ⅔ of them were duplicates. To remove the dupes, I initially went with the… Continue reading A Fresh Approach to DeduplicationView the full article

JSON – Force Standard Notation

Introduction This is a quick follow up to an issue I mentioned last month where FileMaker’s JSON functions can transform a number into scientific notation when you might prefer to have that number displayed as standard notation. Demo file: json-force-standard-notation.zip Note: demo file uses JSONGetElementType so requires FM 19.5 or later. The overall workings of… Continue reading JSON – Force Standard NotationView the full article

JSON Currency Exchange Rates revisited

Demo file: json-rates-via-api-exchangerate-host.zip Today we’re going to take a fresh look at pulling currency exchange rates into FileMaker, and this article is directly based on its predecessor. Why the re-visitation? Two reasons actually: The “free” endpoints I relied on back in 2020 (and in 2021 when I revised the original demo) have been monetized, and… Continue reading JSON Currency Exchange Rates revisitedView the full article

Claris Studio (part 4): Forms the easy way!

This article covers more Views, a little errata from past articles (Parts 1, 2, & 3), and where we go from here. This is the final article of the planned four. But if something really inspiring materializes, there may be followup article(s). Some famous “trilogies” (films and books, especially) have gotten additional content, so why… Continue reading Claris Studio (part 4): Forms the easy way!View the full article

A Summary Field Bug and Workaround

Introduction Recently a client asked me to implement a virtual list reporting framework similar to the one I wrote about a few years ago in Virtual List Simplified. I added the framework to the client’s hosted file, and things went smoothly until I ran a report similar to the one shown below… and observed that… Continue reading A Summary Field Bug and WorkaroundView the full article

Claris Studio (part 3) – Spreadsheet: Details, please!

About the author: Beverly Voth has been in the Claris FileMaker community many years. In addition to FileMaker Pro and its integrated products, she is a Full Stack Web developer & SQL database administrator. The only recipient of the FileMaker Excellence Award for Outstanding Contribution to the FileMaker Web Publishing Community (DevCon 2003), she’s been… Continue reading Claris Studio (part 3) – Spreadsheet: Details, please!View the full article

Claris Studio (part 2) – Integration with Claris Pro

About the author: Beverly Voth has been in the Claris FileMaker community many years. In addition to FileMaker Pro & its integrated products, she is a Full Stack Web developer & SQL database administrator. The only recipient of the FileMaker Excellence Award for Outstanding Contribution to the FileMaker Web Publishing Community (DevCon 2003), she’s been… Continue reading Claris Studio (part 2) – Integration with Claris ProView the full article

Claris Studio, Tell Me More!

About the author: Beverly Voth has been in the Claris FileMaker community many years. In addition to FileMaker Pro & its integrated products, she is a Full Stack Web developer & SQL database administrator. The only recipient of the FileMaker Excellence Award for Outstanding Contribution to the FileMaker Web Publishing Community (DevCon 2003), she’s been… Continue reading Claris Studio, Tell Me More!View the full article

JSON Custom Functions for FM 19.5, part 2

Demo Files JSON Custom Functions for FM 19.5, part 2 JSON Insert and Update for FM 19.5 Note: some of the CFs have been revised and/or renamed since part 1, so if you plan to use these CFs, make sure to download today’s “part 2” file. Introduction Welcome back to JSON Custom Functions for FM… Continue reading JSON Custom Functions for FM 19.5, part 2View the full article

JSON Custom Functions for FM 19.5, part 1

Demo File JSON Custom Functions for FM 19.5 Introduction Today we have some custom functions (CFs) that can help you accomplish various JSON-related tasks in FileMaker. Back in 2018 I had this to say about JSON custom functions… My inclination is to really understand something before I use a custom function to simplify things, but… Continue reading JSON Custom Functions for FM 19.5, part 1View the full article

Sometimes Less Is More Reliable

Recently I noticed some code that had worked flawlessly for years was suddenly returning “?” instead of valid values. What it came down to was that I had renamed my file from “JSON Custom Functions” to “JSON Custom Functions for FM 19.5” Well you know those functions like ValueListItems… ValueListItems ( fileName ; valueListName )… Continue reading Sometimes Less Is More ReliableView the full article

Thinking About JSON, part 4

This article is part of a series. See also… • Thinking About JSON, part 1    • Thinking About JSON, part 3 • Thinking About JSON, part 2 Demo Files Make sure to download the correct version for your locale: json.getvaluetype – decimal dot, v1 (decimal separator is a dot; thousands separator is a comma)… Continue reading Thinking About JSON, part 4View the full article

Button Bar Segment Fun, part 2

This is a quick follow up to Tuesday’s article, and to avoid unnecessary repetition I will assume the user is familiar with that material. button bar segment fun, v3  (from part 1) button bar segment fun, v4  (WeTransfer link) There were some things in v3 I wasn’t completely happy about, and I realized this morning… Continue reading Button Bar Segment Fun, part 2View the full article

Button Bar Segment Fun

Demo Files button bar segment fun, v1 button bar segment fun, v2 button bar segment fun, v3 Today we’re going to look at some ways single-segment button bars (SSBBs) can help produce dynamic column headings for list views and/or reports, with a goal of concentrating logic into the segment calculation and reducing schema dependencies elsewhere. This… Continue reading Button Bar Segment FunView the full article

Exploring Wordlespace with SQL and While

Recently we’ve discussed optimizing SQL queries in FileMaker, and had some fun with various SQL experiments. Today we’re going to explore some ways FileMaker can use ExecuteSQL and the While function to perform letter frequency and text pattern analysis on candidate words for the popular Wordle game. The list of words comes from https://github.com/tabatkins/wordle-list and… Continue reading Exploring Wordlespace with SQL and WhileView the full article

SQL Multi-Table & Miscellaneous Experimentation

INTRO Today we’re going to pick up where we left off last month, and today’s article will assume the reader is familiar with the material we covered last time (in SQL Multi-Table Query Optimization). This time we’re going to dig a little deeper into multi-table SQL queries, conduct some SQL experiments, and look at a… Continue reading SQL Multi-Table & Miscellaneous ExperimentationView the full article

SQL Multi-Table Query Optimization

Demo file:  sql-multi-table-query-optimization.zip Recently a colleague requested help w/ a SQL query that was performing slowly. I wrote back: Make sure there are no records open locally, i.e., on your machine, in the tables you are querying (for more information see this article by Wim Decorte: ExecuteSQL – The Good, The Bad & The Ugly)… Continue reading SQL Multi-Table Query OptimizationView the full article

JSONQuery at FM-DiSC

JSONQuery @ FM-DiSC On Friday, January 14, Steve Senft-Herrera and I will be discussing and demoing JSONQuery at FM-DiSC (FileMaker Developers in Southern California). Useful Links Current version of JSONQuery:  CF_JSONQuery_20211130_0120_PUBLIC.fmp12.zip Our recent two part in-depth interview series JSONQuery, part 1 JSONQuery, part 2 Coming soon: Steve Senft-Herrera’s demo file from the presentation Coming soon:… Continue reading JSONQuery at FM-DiSCView the full article

Connecting Portals to JSON Arrays

Have you ever wished you could connect a portal to a JSON array? Portals and JSON arrays seem like they should be a natural fit, but FileMaker doesn’t offer us an obvious way to connect one to the other. (An example of where this might come in handy would be selection criteria for a report,… Continue reading Connecting Portals to JSON ArraysView the full article

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