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Featured Entries

A Conversation About '2 Factor Authentication'

By Josh Ormond February 8, 2016

[ Edit: 3/16/2016 - With the help of some other people, we have been able to recover, or recreate some of the original images from original thread. ] Security is always a big topic when it involves data, or people, or possessions. Recently, over on the FileMaker Community, there was a very beneficial discussion regarding security. Unfortunately, that discussion was the victim of a necessary action...and was deleted. It was deleted, because the discussion was tied to a video that, as was det
- 1 comment
- 5,556 views
Hacking Your Own FileMaker Platform Solutions

By Steven H. Blackwell April 7, 2016

Hacking Your Own FileMaker Platform Solutions Should FileMaker Platform developers mount hacking attacks on their own solutions? At first glance, this may seem an odd question. But I believe that the answer is “Yes, we should.” Consider this. As developers we see our solutions from a totally different perspective than Threat Agents see them. Without practicing our own hacking skills, we can become blind to the vulnerabilities a Threat Agent can exploit to compromise the Confidentiality
- 1 comment
- 5,511 views

Hiding Objects & Flashing in Web Direct

If you’ve been building layouts for Web Direct you’ve likely seen that Web Direct may draw your objects before conditional formatting or hiding are applied. This never happens in the desktop, where rendering is now double buffered on both Mac and Windows, but it happens frequently in Web Direct. The video below shows this in action and suggests one technique to make it less obvious. The movie is taken from optimizing our Pro Calendar for Web Direct. We’re also rewriting SeedCode Complete for We

John Sindelar

May 19, 2014

Join Our FileMaker St. Louis User Group: FileMaker STL

<p><img src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Untitled-copy-300x83.jpg" /></p> <p>You are invited to join our local FileMaker User Group. This group is for experienced FileMaker Devs, FileMaker users who've poked around under the hood and want to dive into development, and anyone else who wants to learn more about FileMaker. We aim to cover general FileMaker development, advanced techniques, plugin integration, external data access, external tool integration, etc. It's reall

Skeleton Key

May 16, 2014

FileMaker Pro Tips and Tricks: Moving Files Without a PlugIn

<h2 class="p1">Using FileMaker® Pro to move files without the use of a PlugIn!</h2> <h3>By Rob Poelking,</h3> <p> </p> <p class="p1">This FileMaker Pro tip and trick shows a simple method of moving a file natively using FileMaker Pro, and works on both Mac and the PC/Win platforms. No plugins required.</p> <p class="p1"><em>The idea for this Tip-n-Trick originated when building an updater that required files to be in a

eXcelisys

May 16, 2014

Minimize Flashing in Web Direct: do as little as possible

Since layout redraw is one of the slowest things a Web Direct (WD) layout can do, you’ll want to do whatever you can to minimize those redraws (which can appear your users as flashing or as a spinning busy icons). So, “do as little as possible”. This often means wrapping your commands in If() statements to see if they’re necessary. We don’t need to do this in Pro because we don’t notice things like “Revert Record” if they’re not needed. But in Web Direct, you really see Revert Record even if t

John Sindelar

May 12, 2014

Excelisys is recognized as a FileMaker Business Alliance Platinum Member!

<p> </p> <div id="attachment_1129" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://developer.filemaker.com/search/platinum/?flag_platinum=1&country[0]=US&country[1]=CA&country[2]=MX" target="_blank"><img class="wp-image-1129 size-medium" src="http://www.excelisys.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/FBA_PLATINUM_4C-300x114.jpg" alt="Excelisys FBA platinum partner member" width="300" height="114" /></a><p

eXcelisys

May 9, 2014

Time Scales, Kaizen, and Urgency

Doing some financial planning a few months ago, I was thinking about how to budget for all the stuff we’re trying to get done next year–remodeling on the house, some travel, finishing the van/mobile-office/surf wagon–and I just couldn’t get the numbers to come out right. I had this spreadsheet showing how much we’d have available each quarter but it just wasn’t working. And I was getting pretty stressed out about it. But then I added 6 more months to my spreadsheet and everything balanced out.

John Sindelar

May 1, 2014

FileMaker Pro Tips and Tricks – Setting Portal Color, By Rob Poelking

<p><strong>Setting Portal Color</strong>, By Rob Poelking</p> <p>Here is a little FileMaker Pro Tip and Trick… Have you tried setting the color or opacity of your portal object only to find that it doesn’t seem to take? That happened to me and it took looking at the CSS to realize that while my Portal object was set to clear, the portal row was set to opaque white. The portal background colors are controlled by 7 different styles: the portal ( normal, hover, press

eXcelisys

April 30, 2014

The FileMaker Web Viewer as a Javascript Calculation Engine (CSV to JSON example)

The FileMaker 13v2 update has generated a lot of excitement about the fmp: protocol now being available for running scripts in all deployment situations. Previously, locally running files handled the protocol differently than their Go and Hosted counterparts. This made some of us a little hesitant to use this powerful new technology. However, it’s not just the UI power from Javascript that we get, although that certainly is the jewel. We also get access to a rich library of data manipulation

John Sindelar

April 29, 2014

Schedules & Teams

I’ve been thinking a lot about schedules lately–software production schedules, deadlines, sprint plans, etc.–and I ran into this from my Pause On Error session 4 years ago: Below, I’ve proposed 8 “blockers” that, if true, seem to reinforce my skepticism that you can’t really share FileMaker development: that anything bigger than “one developer – one project – start to finish” starts to break down pretty quickly. 1. We have no accurate way to quantify the productivity of a developer. 2. Yet we

John Sindelar

April 23, 2014

.fmp[x]Berlin

FileMaker zealot and all round good guy Egbert Friedrich is putting together the next European FileMaker Unconference, having previously run the successful Berlin PauseOnError in the past. The conference is open to one and all, across Europe and beyond. Berlin: 2nd – 4th June 2014 Where nhow Hotel, Stralauser Allee 3, 10245 Berlin Find out more here... Source

Paul de Halle

April 17, 2014

WebDirect: Early Days for the IWP replacement …

The introduction of WebDirect at the expense of Instant Web Publishing has added a much enhanced toolset to the developers armoury. There are considerable improvements in function that can avoid the clunky, compromising and design limited results of an IWP solution. WebDirect offers the following specific feature improvements that are now supported where they were... Source

Paul de Halle

April 15, 2014

FileMaker Publishes Case Study featuring GoMaps and GoZync

“In our industry, we don’t get big game-changers very often.” – Jason Larson Jason Larson’s sweet mod of GoMaps for Braun Electric. We’re very psyched to see FileMaker, Inc. recognize Braun Electric’s very cool FileMaker Go deployment using GoMaps and GoZync. Read the full case study here. Learn more about the SeedCode add-ons used in this solution: GoMaps – plot your records on interactive, muti-pin google maps. Available for the desktop as ProMaps. GoZync – reliable, scriptable sync

John Sindelar

April 14, 2014

Run Your Own Scripts from Google Maps: fmp urls in FileMaker Pro

SeedCode’s ProMaps lets you add your own links to Google Maps: users can click on a pin and run your own FileMaker scripts–going to that pin’s record in your FileMaker layout, for example. While ProMaps could always do this for hosted files, FileMaker’s 13v2 update now lets scripts like these run locally, not just when your FileMaker file is hosted. Learn more and download a ProMaps demo to see how this works. If you haven’t downloaded the 13v2 update, you’ll want to do so now. This update ext

John Sindelar

April 8, 2014

FM Starting Point 4.0v2 Released!

FM Starting Point 4 is a completely FREE FileMaker template designed for use with FileMaker® Pro 13, and is focused on small businesses, work groups, and non-profit organizations. These templates were built with the experience gained from working with these target groups for over 24 years. FM Starting Point 4.0v2 comes with a number of fixes and improvements! Feel free to download it now! http://fmstartingpoint.com/ Source

Richard Carlton

April 3, 2014

Protect Your FileMaker Server and Files From A Vulnerability

I have recently learned that there may be any number of FileMaker Server installations world-wide that are hosting files that open automatically without credentials challenge to the [Full Access] Privilege Set. The default-installed FileMaker Server Sample File is one of these; however, there are others. This is not such a good practice. Such files offer an attractive attack vector that a Threat Agent can use to inflict damage on the FileMaker Server machine or on its hosted files. If a Thr

Steven H. Blackwell

April 1, 2014

My Time As An Apprentice

As some people may or may not have known, I am Linear Blue’s other apprentice alongside Jacob Unsworth. I am the Web Development Apprentice whereas he is the FileMaker Developer Apprentice. Although we work closely together, even our desks are across from each other, we both have completely different skillsets and work in completely different... Source

Paul de Halle

April 1, 2014

Why you can’t sync with Import Records

Todd Geist has put together a great video showing how imports will let you down when you’re syncing records. Tricky stuff, but the basics are very well explained in this video. (Import failing begins at 11:40) FM13 demo file from Todd’s transaction demo; you can download this here. Todd’s article/video also includes a pretty cool demo file for showing how the sync / import works. It’s not fully fleshed out (i.e. it’s a demo) but it’s unlocked and has got a really nice FM13 interface. Of cou

John Sindelar

March 31, 2014

Preview: SeedCode Calendar in Web Direct.

Needless to say, we’re pretty psyched about what’s possible in Web Direct… SeedCode’s Pro Calendar in Web Direct Editing a record in Web Direct. An alternate theme for the Pro Calendar in Web Direct. Learn more about FileMaker’s Web Direct. So when can I get it? I’m Already Using SeedCode Calendar Good news: the Web Direct add-on should be available as layouts and scripts you can paste into your existing copy of the Pro Calendar. This will be a paid upgrade, but existing u

John Sindelar

March 27, 2014

FileMaker Developer Conference 2014 explores “Business without Boundaries” using the FileMaker 13 Platform

<p><a href="http://www.filemaker.com/developers/devcon/"><img class=" wp-image-1120 alignleft" alt="FileMaker Developer Conference" src="http://www.excelisys.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/devcon_14_banner_horz.png" width="223" height="93" /></a></p> <h3>More than 70 expert-led sessions about building custom solutions for iPad, iPhone, Windows, Mac and the web – plus a hackathon!</h3> <p> </p> <p> </p>

eXcelisys

March 26, 2014

FileMaker DevCon 2014: The Year in Review

John Sindelar will be presenting The Year in Review at this year’s FileMaker Developer Conference. “I get to see so much cool work from other developers over the course of the year, I’m thrilled for this opportunity to showcase some of it. I’ll be highlighting what our peers are finding most valuable in the newest version of FileMaker 13, and demonstrating new techniques folks can put to work in their own files.” “As always, the goal is to find ways to make your FileMaker solutions faster, si

John Sindelar

March 26, 2014

Leadership: change the story

“Q: How do we change the future? A: Change the story people tell themselves about the future they will live in.” “Seen through this lens, effective leadership is made up of of just two core disciplines: Forging plausible, inspiring stories about the future we wish for ourselves, our families, our companies or our communities, and Sharing those stories with people in a way that allows them both to embrace them, and to make them their own.” From http://www.crashdev.com/2014/02/t

John Sindelar

March 24, 2014

Everything on the Go

Over the last decade we’ve seen a huge amount of change in the way we use IT. This is everything from what we’re using mobile phones for to the games we play and everything in between. I did a presentation for a company a little over a year and a half ago which talked about... Source

Paul de Halle

March 24, 2014

Sending Email from FileMaker using Mandrill

UPDATE 27 March: The demo file included with the article now supports Insert from URL ! Both plugin and Insert methods are available in the example file. The article has also been updated to reflect this. When sending Email from FileMaker the most popular methods are the 'Send Mail' script step or a plugin. In this article we explore another method through using Mandrill - a free online service that is easy to setup and integrate into FileMaker. We go in depth in the article to explore wha