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Author’s note: Inevitable comparisons will be drawn between the new While function and the venerable CustomList custom function, which I wrote about at length several years ago. Preliminary testing indicates that CustomList is faster under certain circumstances and While is faster under others. In my opinion, both of them belong in your developer tool kit. […]
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Hierarchical JSON Viewer / Editor
By Andy Persons & Doug West
One of the standout new features of FileMaker Pro 16 is native support for the JSON data-interchange format. In addition to providing easy integration with a host of online services, it also provides developers with the tools to create robust hierarchical structures for use entirely within FileMaker. This hierarchical JSON viewer / editor file provides some tools for visualizing, manipulating, and leveraging JSON text.
Features
Michael Layne from Gearbox Solutions presents on FileMaker’s new JSON functions. He does a deep dive into FileMaker’s new JSON functions and demos several examples of how they are using JSON for passing parameters, populating form data, validation and rollback, managing session info such as value lists as global. Michael also demos REST client and REST server with new data API.
The post FileMaker JSON, REST, and the Data API appeared first on Blue Feather - FileMaker Developer, Android, We
WidgetStudio makes it easy to use, design and share powerful interface widgets, like calendars, gauges, charts, and timers. Pick from the constantly growing set of included widgets or build your own. Freely share them with your customers or friends.
The post Announcing WidgetStudio – FileMaker WebViewer Widgets appeared first on Geist Interactive.
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GoDraw3 is a FileMaker drawing tool for users. For FileMaker developers, however, it is full of customization. A developer can do with it what she wants.
The post GoDraw3: Hack the Heck Out of It appeared first on Geist Interactive.
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I've always wondered how many FileMaker dialogs you can have open at once, or more specifically, how many can you "string" together before hitting the limit, if there is one. So, though a little trial and error, I set out about trying to find the path to the most dialogs, and here is what I came up with…
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In this article I will demonstrate a very nice way to format a portal using conditional formatting. This method is suitable for portals whose underlying relationship is sorted by a grouping/category field - similar to if it were like a sub-summary report. The easiest way to explain it is to just get stuck in with an example, so here we go....
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When writing a script to carry out a particular task, ask yourself what conditions need to be true for this script to run properly. Sometimes, a script will do something which can potentially fail, and cause a cascade effect or errors, IF the initial conditions were incorrect. It is always a good idea to check for suitable conditions before doing anything in the script…
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In part two, I demonstrated how to implement the basics of the join table solution in FileMaker. While the solution works fine as an illustration for join tables, it lacked many of the basic interface features that would make it a usable solution. In part three, I will show how to implement some of these features, namely the following: Better selection of a Student for an Enrollment, Deletion of Enrollments & Prevention of “over-enrolling” a course…
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The Replace Field Contents command/script step is a very powerful tool for updating field values across records in your found set. This article goes into depth about the use of this command, some of its benefits, and some of the potential pitfalls you need to be aware of…
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Part two carries on from where Part one left off. This article outlines the construction of a basic join table solution from woe to go…
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FileMaker provides us with the ability to create related records directly from a portal. This is a great and easy way to generate records without the need to script the process, and for that reason it is a popular technique among both new users and Developers alike. This article extends this concept further and suggests various user interface improvements for making data entry in this method more user friendly…
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Perhaps one of the most asked questions that I see asked on FileMaker Forums is in regards to join tables. While some users have an understanding of what they are, they may lack the FileMaker skills to implement them. Others are unfamiliar with the concept altogether, but will explain their real word example. Usually it is a prime candidate for a join table. This article provides a real world example that will give you an understanding of why join tables are important, and in what circumstances
Part two in this three-part series deals with constructing conditional value lists that are to be used within a portal. In part one, the conditional value lists built were for use on a single record on a layout. Portals however may contain many rows, each row being a record with it's own field values…
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In part one, we built a couple of basic conditional value lists to select sport names & equipment items. Part two demonstrated how the conditional value lists could be tweaked for use within a portal. The last part in the series gives some basic techniques to help the selection process from your drop-downs, and ensure that the chosen values remain consistent and correct…
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Conditional Value lists may be the most asked about piece of functionality on the FileMaker Cafe. To try and provide a thorough and easy to follow explanation of what they are and how they work, I decided to write an article on the subject and build a small example file to help illustrate the technique…
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With the introduction of script triggers in FileMaker 10, live filtering or portals was made possible. Numerous techniques were introduced to help achieve this. In conjunction with existing filtering techniques, the "Live" aspect was achieved usually by introducing an OnObjectModify script trigger to the filter entry field. As soon as the user enters a value into the field, the triggered script would force a save of the fields contents, thus updating the relationship in question, which in turn u
Here is a nice quick technique that will allow you to place a layout object or objects into more than one tab on any given tab control object, without actually duplicating the object for each tab...
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In versions of FileMaker prior to 11, working with the Import Records mappings dialog was easy. You could very quickly select and deselect all mappings by selecting all fields and then clicking one of the arrow mapping icons between any two fields in the mapping…
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Recently on the Forum, someone asked if it was possible on a sub-summary report, to display the percentage of records contained within that sub summary part. Having never needed this functionality before, I decided to investigate how this might be done. What I came up with is a fairly simple and straightforward way to implement this.
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A sub-summary report, is a special kind of report where records are grouped together by a specified field known as the "break" field (because it acts as a break between groups of similar records). Normally, the break between parts happens above your records, but there is a way in which to have the break "appear" to be beside your records instead…
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There are four main areas of your database where you can use special separator lines to help keep information organised, these are Scripts, Layouts, Value Lists & Custom Menus. This article will go through each and explain how to use them, and why they are a good idea to use.
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The count function allows you to produce a count of the number of records through a relationship. However what may be less clear is that in order to achieve this, every record must be downloaded to the client computer, making the process very slow over a wide area connection. There is, however, an alternative to count in this situation which is almost instantaneous, this article explains how...
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The Let function is one of the most brilliant and underrated functions in FileMaker, and I think it should be used whenever and wherever possible. This article will give an introduction to the function, some possible scenarios when it should be used, and give an example as to it's use.
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Building layouts in FileMaker can involve adding a number of various elements such as fields, buttons, portals, tab controls, and graphics such as jpg and png images. It is the use of images on layouts that this article is all about.
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This is a simple technique that I use all the time and find works very reliably. It involves having a script create a new window into which the script executes it's necessary steps, before closing it when done.
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