Community Videos, Tips, & Techniques, Articles.

A simple trick to create a basic survey and accommodate the various field types; checkbox, radio button, and dropdown. Enjoy RIVET dynamic field type-fmp12.zip

FileMaker Pro 12.0v2 and FileMaker Pro Advanced 12.0v2 updaters are now on the FMI web site. Steven

Hello everyone; I have done another video on Virtual list technique demonstrating how to apply styles to the vlist variable. enjoy. Vlists.zip

July 10th 2012 In a variety of FileMaker community venues in recent weeks there has been a lot of confusion and unhappiness expressed about any number of changed behaviors and new features in the FileMaker 12 product family. There has also been a lot of speculation and hypothesizing—dare I say fantasizing-- about the future of the products and of the company. Some of this commentary on both counts has been reasoned and constructive. Other parts of the commentary can best be characterized as coming from beyond the square corners at the flat ends of the Earth. There has also been a considerable amount of misinformation and incorrect characterization of the way F…

A short article on copying Value Lists from one database to another: http://www.igeek.co.uk/blog/34/Copying-Value-Lists-in-FileMaker.html Hope you find it useful! The igeeks

Hey everyone! Part three of our series on creating a calendar in FileMaker 11/12 is now live on our site. There are links to the earlier parts too, if you need to catch up. http://www.igeek.co.uk/blog/36/Creating-a-month-view-calendar-in-FileMaker-Part-3.html The igeeks

With FMP12 we can now sort portals by multiple columns. This demo expands and slightly tweaks some of the scripts from the original portal sorting demo using FMP12 posted here. Portal_sort_multiple.zip

Note: I do not by ANY mean call myself a pro, I learn this stuff from this and other forums. thanks for not beating me up to bad Attached is a Filemaker 12 example database of how I validate serial numbers in my small by profitable runtime application. Due to how my software is provide I don't offer refunds but every now and then I need to do one so I needed the ability to deacivate a serial number remotely. This script in a simple way helps me do that. Anytime a user tried to register the software it calls home and does 2 things. Validates the serial number for use via external php and mysql database, if no match or it's a deactivated serial number it er…

Andy Persons of Excelisys has done it again! A revised way for drag and drop using FileMaker 11 & 12! Get Demo and WhitePaper The demo includes consolidation of several of the ‘Move’ scripts and removal of extraneous ones. We’ve also included a new approach for the ‘Sort’ technique that removes the need for two adjunct TOs. There have also been various smaller enhancements/cleanup. This file demonstrates how to use FileMaker Pro’s event-based scripting features to allow the use of drag-and-drop interfaces. It has been updated to demonstrate how to use the technique with the data separation model, as well as streamlining certain elements... ______ …

Hello For those of you who've read part one, here's part two of our article on how to create a workable monthly calendar in FileMaker: http://www.igeek.co.uk/blog/30/Creating-a-month-view-calendar-in-FileMaker-Part-2.html And if you missed part one, it's here: http://www.igeek.co.uk/blog/23/Creating-a-month-view-calendar-in-FileMaker-Part-1.html Happy reading! The igeeks

@jbante tweeted he discovered a previously undocumented feature in FMP12 - Get (UTCmSecs) Example: GetAsTimestamp ( Get ( UTCmSecs ) / 1000 ) Very interesting...

Although there are plenty of forum members more qualified to dole out advice, I've been reading a large number of posts and examining example files whose authors could benefit from my advice. I think it's a good idea for many, if not most, people to learn about database principles away from the computer. When I began trying to get a grasp on FileMaker I purchased the FileMaker 8 Bible and studied it away from a computer then later tried out concepts on a computer. That way I wouldn't be in a huge hurry. Nor would I turn to a forum immediately for a quick answer to a simple question. I'm a musician and have had to become familiar with lots of music over the years. I found …

Hello, This is a great technique for creating a month view calendar, with just a SINGLE relationship in FMS10/11; http://www.igeek.co.uk/blog/23/Creating-a-month-view-calendar-in-FileMaker.html Enjoy! James

April 27th--Update. We were recently advised that a last minute change in the encryption level of secure storage resulted in that encryption's being 128 bit, not 256 bit as the attached document on Containers states. This is still a strong level of encryption. April 4th 2012 Today’s release of FileMaker® Server 12, together with its companion FileMaker Pro and FileMaker GO products, marks another important milestone on the FileMaker, Inc. Product Roadmap. FileMaker Server is at the center of all robust and business critical FileMaker solution deployments. It provides safe and reliable hosting of multiple files for access by multiple simultaneous users em…

April 4th 2012 Today’s release of FileMaker® Server 12, together with its companion FileMaker Pro and FileMaker GO products, marks another important milestone on the FileMaker, Inc. Product Roadmap. FileMaker Server is at the center of all robust and business critical FileMaker solution... View the full article

We've talked about portals at some length in another post, but what we haven't talked about is how to add records to the portal. There are three ways you can do it; two of which are scripted and one of which allows records to be added via the relationship which is the method we're going to discuss... By Michael Rocharde Full Article and PDF

Portal Sort Extreme 2! This is yet another sorting technique based on its predecessor yet simpler, that allows for dynamic multicolumn sorting. The user can click a button to sort a column, shift-click to add additional columns, click or shift-click sorted columns to reverse the sort order, AND option-click sorted columns to remove them. The scripting is even designed to allow the user to unsort the list. It can handle sorting all field types and it can sort by value lists. With only one minor difference the technique can be used to sort both list view layouts and portals. And each list can have it’s own unique sort order. Go Here to Download The Demo

Solution: List a Found Set Description: to get data list coming from a foundSet, without CF, with a field calculated unstored the field must be in the table source not on the layout Working Under: list Found Set Solution Status: Beta Author(s): Agnès Date: 08/01/08 Instructions / Other Info: Hello, it is a method much faster than CF especially if the data are sorted. Little slower than copy all the records, but may be more flexible because you can list the various fields. It is limited to 60000 records and I do not know the behaviour on a database It's a test. I tested with 50000 records, and by script f…

Portals have been around, in FileMaker Pro™, for as long as we can remember and they are an ubiquitous part of the program. Portals have both positive and negative points to ponder, which can be maddening! This article by Michael Rocharde explores what they are, when to use them, and the pros and cons associated with them to try and keep your database solution from the Edge of Forever failure. Read the article in its entirety on the web or grab the PDF for your reviewing pleasure at leisure.

This is my Interpretation of the Virtual List technique and the absolute basic use. Enjoy

Hey Gang, I am new to this so please comments are welcome as well as assistance from any of the experts in the field. These vids are based on an article written by Will M. Baker a while back. Link is here.http://buzz.beezwax....epeating-fields enjoy.. -ian part 1: part 2:

Perhaps one of the most significant advances in FileMaker™ was the introduction of native tab panels. There are many different ways to use tab panels... good, bad and cool - so let's EXplore some of these tab techniques and uses as I share some tricks I learned along the way! Check out our Blog for the article in its entirety and a link to a PDF force, yes free, no strings or rope attached.

Here is a quick video of a project I worked on - showing that FileMaker can be used to as source for printed catalogs. The data can be output to csv files and using a plugin EasyCatalog for Adobe InDesign.

Its a tree use for product managment or Navigator. cliff_zhou_tree.zip

External Server Authentication and [Full Access] Privileges… Life (or FileMaker) May Not Be What At First It Seems -By- Steven H. Blackwell Someone recently advised me about a discussion on a FileMaker List that focused on the supposed ability of a user with an Account authenticated by External Server Authentication and attached to the [Full Access] Privilege Set to make changes in a hosted file’s security schema. (Technically this is a Group, not an Account, but we’ll call it an Account here for sake of simplicity.) If someone has actually done this, we need to learn the circumstances under which it happened including the versions both of FileMaker Pro and of …

External Server Authentication and [Full Access] Privileges… Life (or FileMaker) May Not Be What At First It Seems -By- Steven H. Blackwell Someone recently advised me about a discussion on a FileMaker List that focused on the... View the full article

I've been fascinated by Bruce Robertson's Virtual List technique, but became frustrated by the difficulty of formatting the Virtual List, and wished for a way of formatting the results in the virtual list as though they were fields. I realised that the idea of using a global list of values could be replaced by a global list of data dictionaries. A data dictionary is a concatenated list of name|value pairs which can store as many namevalue pairs as you need, so you can put as many data items as you want in the dictionary. In effect, you can store one 'record' per line in the list of dictionary entries. So my virtual list of Dictionaries (with 3 entries in it and …

I have recently been searching around for a template or plug-in that would do bibliographies through FileMaker, and was astonished that I was not finding many options. I thought that bibliographies would be a very common need, but I was surprised that most of the mentions I heard of were all out of date. After digging around for quite awhile on Google and the FMP forums, I found an old mention of Referencer, created by Glen Greenberg, which is a FMP db for bibliographic references. It is pretty amazing, and quite powerful for generating bibliographies and keeping record of content abstracts and files. A great template to work with. If you are interested, you can cont…

hey gang, I was doing some testing after looking at a file from Todd Geist on his devcon discussion on commit records and learned alot from it. I suggest you take a look. http://www.geistinteractive.com/blog/2011/08/understanding-commit-record-video basically i downloaded the files and was looking at his sort on one of the portals as i did not see a realational TO for sorting ; which i thought was the norm. Also, his take was pretty darn ingenious. he uses a Let([ ] ) statement within the portal he wants to sort and a global field is placed on layout for you to type in information to find precise name, etc. I have definately made this very simple a…

File shows a technique for automatically assigning a new record created in a filtered portal to the corresponding category. This is done by auto-entering a value derived from the active portal's object name. FilteredPortalCreate.zip Compare to a method using a script trigger: (can't find this one at the moment)

Gas, Liquid, or Solid: Drive On --By— Steven H. Blackwell January 3rd 2012 Happy New Year to FileMaker developers and users around the world. We have a lot of work to do in the FileMaker World in 2012, and I am eager to get started. A very key element and requirement... View the full article

I do not know if someone has already written something about it. We all know that's not allowed to use the Self function in a script parameter calculation, but ... ( Try to duplicate any button and change its text ONLY ) P.S.: It works for sure on Win but I do not know if it will work on a Mac. Self into the Script parmeter.zip

I've always loved conditional value lists, but I've been bothered that it's easy for data errors to be made: 1) select an entry from the first menu 2) select an option form the second menu (that's related to the first) 3) change the first menu's entry This will leave the record with an entry in the second menu that is not related to the first menu. There are ways to avoid this, but (until now) all have required modal interface designs or event plugins to run scripts after fields have been entered, or both. No more. This technique uses the auto-enter calculation feature of FMP 7+ and combines it with the Evaluate() function. Evaluate has the o…

Solution / Tab Memory Description: This expands on the technique presented here: http://fmforums.com/forum/showtopic.php?tid/173566/ It employs a repeating variable (finally found a good use for one I think...) to track visited tabs which is then used to restore the complete nested hierarchy when returning from a different layout. Working Under: 8 Solution Status: Beta Pre-requisites: Author(s): Razumovsky Date: 01/12/07 Credits: Instructions / Other Info: Disclaimer: FM Forums does not endorse or warrantee these files are fit for any particular purpose. Do not post or distribute files without written appro…

Hey all, some more videos added using the Let Function:

If you like me, found that you could no longer use ctrl ↑ or ctrl ↓ to change between records because of Mission Control, then I've a simple solution. Go to Apple Menu / System preferences / Keyboard / Keyboard Shortcuts Tab Then under Mission Control, double click on Mission Control keyboard shortcut and enter a new shortcut such as Ctrl alt ↑ Repeat for Application Windows. Close System Prefs and you're done. I hope this helps. Zane, Ireland

A Different Perspective On Recently Released FileMaker, Inc. How To Paper Regarding External Authentication Configuration By Wim Decorte and Steven H. Blackwell I am pleased to have as co-author of this BLOG posting the renown... View the full article

I've been developing with FileMaker for a long time and I've always specialized in eBay and PayPal integration. I've got a pretty good reputation in the PayPal community (I got the star developer award in 2008, 2009, and 2011) and I've finally taken the time to develop a set of custom functions for FileMaker that give you direct access to PayPal's API's. I wish I would have done this years ago as it's already saved me loads of time. Get it Now The solution consists of a simple FileMaker database that when loaded, populates your External Functions with a bunch of custom functions that coincide with PayPal's API's. Just like any other function in FileMaker, a…

File Name: ProductWithRecipes File Submitter: SilverReed File Submitted: 20 Oct 2011 File Category: Samples FM Version: 11 The files consits of the table of materials (products) and recipes for these products (the recipes use the materials) Click here to download this file

File Name: Where Are You ? File Submitter: Raybaudi File Submitted: 15 Sep 2011 File Category: Samples FM Version: 9 A way to know which tab you are on ( and which tab you come from ) No triggers. ( You may need to search... ) Click here to download this file

THis is a technique adopted from Matt Petrowsky. I think it is an awesome technique, just simplified what he had. Enjoy. rapid_Data_Entry Copy.fp7.zip

Locks, Keys, and Lock-Picking By Steven H. Blackwell Platinum Member Emeritus, FileMaker Business Alliance Recently, an experienced FileMaker Pro developer posed a question on developer group list about the behavior of FileMaker Pro files. Paraphrased, that question is as follows: We've come across a small, but possible, security issue.

 If a... View the full article

Pause[x]London 2011 A PauseOnError FileMaker Developer's Unconference, Meetup, etc. PauseOnError is a gathering of people who use FileMaker. This is a self-organizing event; content is user-generated, and attendance is free thanks to the support of our donors and sponsors. London, Oct 20 - 21, 2011 Where Park Plaza Sherlock Holmes. Reservation details here: hotel info. When Oct 20-21, 2011 Why We're holding this one for the same reason Pause was started... ...to spend some time with, and learn from, folks we just don't get to see often enough. We are, in part, inspired by the various community-driven events such as th…

Requires: Version 11 or higher New way to add records to a portal without scrolling portal to end. Now with portal filtering, no extra utility fields are needed as in the past. Past techniques referenced: Comment's SansScript Helpful Harry Technique Updated Portal_AddTo_11.zip

Hey everyone; Just another video here to show you how to limit a checkbox options to only 1 or the other selection. I have gone on to create a custom function for my library as this is something i need to keep on hand for the future. here is the video on how to implement and i have also included the custom function for you. enjoy; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgDq71qaNWw limit.checkbox.calc.zip

Hello Everyone; i hope you watch this video before watching the truncateList function video. This one will explain the left function a little bit before taking a dive into that video. hope you enjoy and again, any feedback is much welcome & appreciated. Happy Filemaking!! -ian

Hello Everyone; here is another 4 part series in the article written by FMweetbicks using a custom function to truncate a list. here is the article: Simple Truncated Displaying of Long Lists (+more) And here are my videos. enjoy, -ian LINKS: Archive.zip

Hello everyone; another video explaining for the beginner about the functions left, leftwords & leftvalues(). I hope you enjoy. Video is here: left.fp7.zip

Hey everyone; here is my latest on choose & case functions. Hope you enjoy choose_case.fp7.zip

Hello Everyone, i hope this helps some people because it took me a while to figure it out so here is the attached sample file as well as a link to the video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2abc1jIgsLc enjoy, -i cond-value-lists.fp7.zip

If your Filemaker suddenly stops working and you have exhausted all other possible causes. Try updating your Internet explorer or uninstall and reinstall your Internet explorer. I had a case where a faulty ieframe.DLL registry entry was causing filemaker to crash and doing above seemed to solve the issue.

File Name: GoogleVoice.fp7 File Submitter: Angelo Luchi File Submitted: 12 Aug 2011 File Updated: 12 Aug 2011 File Category: Samples FM Version: 11 This file demonstrates Google Voice integration with FileMaker Pro 11. Using ScriptMaster and a custom JAR we can bring some basic Google Voice functionality to a users solution. This file is a basic contact manager allowing its user to Dial a phone number, send SMS messages, and receive SMS messages. There is no official API for Google Voice so this solution or Java code may need updates. If there are any questions, please contact Angelo Luchi at [email protected]. Click here to down…

July 26th 2011 Did You Hear What I Said? By Steven H. Blackwell ... View the full article

File Name: avaya1416.zip File Submitter: FMP12 File Submitted: 14 Jun 2011 File Category: Solutions FM Version: 11 This is a fm file to print out the button labels on the avaya 1416 phone and the DBM32 sidecar... this is not intended to use with their labels, just print on plain paper and cutout... Click here to download this file

Back Me Up, Don’t Take Me Out, Are You Never Gonna Do That? --By-- Steven H. Blackwell June 13th 2011 Well, with apologies to Emilia De Poret, this adaptation of her hit song’s title pretty well describes the system and process of FileMaker Pro file backups. Most all developers and IT Administrators who design or manage FileMaker solutions and deploy them in conjunction with FileMaker Server understand that a good backup system is absolutely one of several major requirements to assure the integrity and availability of business data the files contain. But a significant number of developers and administrators do not understand what best practices are for making …

Back Me Up, Don’t Take Me Out, Are You Never Gonna Do That? --By-- Steven H. Blackwell June 13th 2011 Well, with apologies to Emilia De Poret, this adaptation of her hit song’s title pretty well describes the system and process of FileMaker Pro file backups. Most all developers and IT... View the full article

I hope some of you find this useful. Blog post and sample file here: http://www.fitchandfitch.com/2011/05/filemaker-portal-sorting/

File Name: Multi-Column Printing (Faux Down) File Submitter: Ocean West File Submitted: 02 Jun 2011 File Updated: 02 Jun 2011 File Category: Samples FM Version: 11 FileMaker has two methods to print in columns Down First or Across First. When using DOWN first any summary parts are only the width of the column. When it reaches the end of the page it resumes at the top of the page next column. When using ACROSS first summary parts are the width of the page. However any alternating row colors do not alternate as you'd first expect. Since all odd rows are on the left and the even rows are on the right (if using 2 columns). My first attempt to cr…

Hi all friends did you know that you can have recursions w/o CFs and scripts ? Loop_into__the_field.zip

The Power and Advantages Of External Server Authentication With FileMaker Server By Steven H. Blackwell May 9th 2011 Since the advent of FileMaker® Server 7 in 2004, FileMaker developers have been able to employ External Server Authentication for controlling Identity and Access Management to... View the full article

Left outer join (from Wikipedia): The result of a left outer join (or simply left join) for table A and B always contains all records of the "left" table A, even if the join-condition does not find any matching record in the "right" table B. Example: You want a report based upon the Payments (child right) table but want to include Invoices (parent left) without payments or you want a report of Sales (child right) but you want all Sales Persons (parent left) listed even if they have no sales. This files shows dynamic way of using one temp table to merge table data and generically label the fields, all using global variables and merge variables. This is an in…

Permissive Versus Restrictive Privileges In FileMaker Pro Databases —By— Steven H. Blackwell April 25th 2011 In older versions of FileMaker Pro, those prior to FileMaker® Pro 7, privileges were, by default, permissive. This means that users were... View the full article

This is the method I have recently adopted to allow the user to sort ascending/descending/by value list, and know which field is sorted, and which direction it is sorted. The nice part about this setup is that different windows of the same layout will each have their own sort status icon, and the icon will disappear when records in the window are no longer sorted. 2011-04-23_Sort.zip

If $variable[7] contains "Alpha", and field Repetition contains the number 7 - what should be the result of = List ( $variable[Repetition] ; "Bravo" ) ??? List&RepeatingVariableBug.zip

Sometimes you need to add a field to an existing database that should have values for all the already existing records in the table. Say you’ve added a new field on an existing database. It’s not a calc field, but will have an auto-entered calculation field that will always be filled out. For example, in the table People you add a field called “Full Name”. It’s a combination of First Name and Last Name fields which are in the same table. = First Name & “ “ & Last Name. You want users to be able to modify the combination, so it’s an auto-enter field and not an uneditable calculation. Easy enough, except that for existing records, there’s no value…

Welcome to the first posting to my new FileMaker Security blog. From time to time, I’ll be discussing issues of significance and importance related to FileMaker Pro and FileMaker Server security. In all these discussions I will keep foremost the concept that security is supposed to be focused on the preservation of the Confidentiality, Integrity, and... View the full article

Over the years I have been a big fan of using Quickeys with Filemaker, but just recently I stumbled on "BetterTouchTool", and I have to say it is blowing me away. http://boastr.net/ While it offers keyboard and trackpad customizing, I am really enjoying its options for Apple's Magic Mouse. EXAMPLE Two finger Swipe Down: Layout Mode Two finger Swipe Up: Browse Mode Three finger Tap: Enter (Ok) Two finger Swipe Left: Previous Record/Previous Layout Two finger Swipe Right: Previous Record/Next Layout etc. Then there is the all powerful 'TipTap' http://www.youtube.com/user/andreashegenberg#p/u/14/svUHAzjcf80 I use TipTap left to call up the app…

File Name: Sokoban File Submitter: andries File Submitted: 15 Feb 2011 File Updated: 15 Feb 2011 File Category: Samples FM Version: 10 This is an example I found in my archives when FileMaker 10 introduced ScriptTriggers. It was fun to create, not really useful in a solution, but fun to play :-) Help Santa to deliver his gifts ! Click here to download this file

File Name: Set Graphics to Global Variables File Submitter: Ocean West File Submitted: 20 Dec 2010 File Updated: 21 Dec 2010 File Category: Samples FM Version: 10 This technique is used on startup of a solution where it will run a script and set the contents of a container field to a global variable ( $$variable ) for use elsewhere in the solution, such as a calculation that determines the boolean state of a flag on/off and allowing you to use the corresponding graphic. By referencing the global variable in the calculation. Click here to download this file

File Name: ClockMaker Pro Advanced File Submitter: andries File Submitted: 20 Jan 2011 File Category: Samples FM Version: 8.5 This is just a nice use of the webviewer to display an analog clock in FileMaker using the webviewer. You can play with the parameters until you have the clock you want. With GetLayoutObjectAttribute ( "wv Copy" ; "content" ) you can grab the HTML code and place it in a webviewer in any solution. Click here to download this file

File Name: Sexagesimal Expression s Evaluator File Submitter: raybaudi File Submitted: 07 Jan 2011 File Category: Samples FM Version: 9 A simple sexagesimal expression's evaluator. Click here to download this file

One of the Features that I missed in version 11, was the ability to select a function using the space key in the Calculation box and Manager Scripts Steps and/or Functions. Guess what? I read a tip a few minutes ago by Darren Terry (Experts List) that makes this option available if you change the Preferences for OS Keyboard shortcuts, of Spotlight which will then allow you to use the Keyboard combination of Control + Spacebar. A Big thank you Darren! Hope others find this helpful. Lee

I thought I might as well share this, as it's taken me a while to figure this out. We needed a script to automatically connect to our FM host's FTP server, and download that day's backup. This shell script here does that, plus compresses and renames the resulting .tar file to date. This will run on any Unix system; we use it on a computer in our office running Mac OS X. #!/bin/sh ############################################################################## # script that downloads a file, compresses and renames it to date # copy to plain text editor and save as fmbackup.sh # open Terminal, run "chmod +x fmbackup.sh" (drag sh file into terminal aft…

I needed something to generate a bunch of unique serial numbers. I found a great custom function by Martin D. Brunner - [email protected]. @ www.briandunning.com. and built a file around it. Hope you can use or improve it. RIVET_Unique_Serial_Number_Generator.fp7.zip

Another effort to eliminate TO's and fields. Note that each parent retains its own selection. ViewSelectedChild11.zip

A way to visualize points on an image ( or a chart ). It needs 10 ( at least ) _10_PointsOnImage.zip

Compare with previous versions: http://fmforums.com/forum/showtopic.php?tid/171912/ http://fmforums.com/forum/showtopic.php?tid/172518/ MatchAnyOrAll11.zip

Horizontal portal with scrolling. As in part 2 of the series, each parent retains its selection for the duration of the session. HorizontalPortal11.zip

This file demonstrates a concept I am calling "single field edit". Under every data field is a different copy of the same global field. Script triggers control access to the field, and you can control access, editing, auditing, tab order, etc with a very small set of scripts because all activity is routed through the same field. In find mode, the user enters the standard data fields. SingleFieldEdit.fp7.zip

We get questions about how to format a text field so that the user doesn't override fomatting set place by the developer. In orther words, the users will paste in data from the clipboard, that uses a different fonts, or they type in a phone number XXX-XXX-XXXX or XXXXXXXXXX, etc and you want it to display (XXX) XXX-XXXX etc. You can control this somewhat by using the Auto Enter >> Calculated Value. There are several example files showing the use of the Auto Enter Function, but sometimes we spend a lot of effort spelling out the steps involve. The purpose of this tip, is to show visually the steps. [color:blue]To start, you need to go into the Man…

Hi all A way to change the background color of a field, going from one color to the other(s) with a simple click. ( No containers ) This works on 10 ( and UP ), but can be adapted to work ( slowly ) even with 9. _10_Toggle_Field__s_Background.zip

I've been using Filemaker as a college teacher for almost two years now, and I thought I'd share the fruits of my labors with others on this forum. I'm posting this here as a way of offering my help to others who are interested in using FM in place of a traditional gradebook or a spreadsheet. Please reply with any questions; I'm more than willing to offer further guidance or even post my FM solution as an example. I'm not posting it here now only because my actual FM solution has a lot of personal tweaks which will make it less than helpful to a newbie user. What my FM solution does: 1) keep track of student data (grades, mostly) 2) produce grade reports for assi…

This is cool. It's a quick and dirty demo of the substantially improved letter merging features in FMP 7.0. Basically, text and paragraph formatting can be used in a template that is then applied to another database through a related calculation field. It is seriously serious stuff. For some reason my clients all want letter templates like this. In FMP 5 it was possible but no formatting (character or paragraph) could be used -- if they did it was lost during the merge. In FMP 6 character formatting could now be applied in the templates, which was a big step forward, but it required the use of the Replace function, copy and paste, and each record had to be proce…

Just thought I would share this with others; especially those that have not played with merge variables yet ( dunno if it has been shared on other sites yet ). With the implementation of layout level variables, they can be used as layout level calculations. To address the refreshing of the data one could use an OnRecordLoad and call a script to refresh the data using Refresh Window []. However, this looks horrible with the flash particularly on Windows. A better way would just use a Freeze Window. To refresh the layout merge variable values just call a script with a single Freeze Window step. Allow the setting of the variable to be set as a Script Par…

After a fair amount of Googling, I worked out the technical details to use a real drawing language inside the FileMaker Web Viewer. This method does not require any external files, web servers, or plug-ins. It uses only FileMaker's built-in web viewer and its ability to render an internally calculated URL using the "data:" protocol. The HTML or XML is generated by a FileMaker calculation for the Web Viewer to display. The drawing language used is either SVG or VML depending on the platform. SVG is not yet supported by the IE-based Web Viewer on Windows. The attached file demonstrates the technique to draw circles, ellipses, arcs, lines, rectangles, and r…

I just finished recording an 11-video series on FileMaker 11. They are anywhere from 5-10 minutes and cover new features (along with tips and tricks) in the new version. MightyData's "11 Days of FileMaker 11" is available at http://www.mightydata.com/11days.html. The videos are published through YouTube (low-res) and Screencast (high-res). Enjoy! - Martha Z

FileMaker gives us local and global variables, which are quite useful. Further, these variables can have a "repetition number" in square bracket format such as $data[23] or $data[0] or $data[-128]. The repetition can be "sparse" - you can set rep #1 and 17 and 85 without setting any other rep numbers. As it turns out, these integer values can be large. As in quite large; as in integers of over 400 digits. Well - OK - but what good is that??? Let us consider another FileMaker feature. We now have the code() and char() functions. Code( "a") produces result 97. Code( "FMForums") produces: 11500109001170011400111000700007700070 And it is reversible: …

Here is an organizational concept for organizing the Relationship Graph. mwI5BYEZ1Yg

Solution / : Horizontal and Vertical Photo Browser Description: A browser that uses portals, and a repeating calc field to simulate vertical and horizontal tiling of photos. The "photo's" used are just returned from a google search for small clip art images. As usual if you download this file, please put a vote in, there is no real point to the vote except it's the only way i get feedback as to whether you think it's a decent file or not. Working Under: Solution Status: Finished Pre-requisites: Author(s): Genx Date: 02/22/07 Credits: Comment -- Just cause he rocks : And also because I learnt that you could use GetNt…

February 9th 2010 One month from today, March 9th 2010, will mark the sixth anniversary of the release of FileMaker Pro 7 and the advent of the .fp7 era. An auspicious anniversary it will be, to be sure, and worthy of appropriate commemoration. I am curious what other developers may think are the top five items that characterize the modern .fp7 versions of FileMaker Pro or FileMaker Pro Advanced and that have come along as the product matured and advanced. Here are my five: 1. Security schema 2. $ and $$ variables 3. GetValue and List functions 4. Conditional formatting 5. Triggers Steven

Probably here is a bit more like just to make a relationship or calculation. Making database for home movie collection is one thing. Making database to register student activities is another. Making CRM or ERP database again is different case. Skills can be on the same for ALL variants and in a lot of cases some average or intermediate is enough. Difference is in understanding FOR WHAT database is created. As higher is knowledge "for what" as more complicated database you can create with the same skills. What I want to say - you need to knew much more to develop good database for situation: how user and admin look on your created result, how easy is to imple…

Creating application "Lesson content sources management" I use Layout Tab panels. And here I face some navigation problems. The way I have solved them is here. Probably here isn't much new. What is interesting here? - navigation from portal record to related record field on Layout Tab panel - GoTo Object, - multilingual labels via separate table records (similar to many internet portal solutions), - script to insert in to Container field located on Layout Tab panel, for example - PDF file reference and calculate web viewer address from reference, - on this layout - instead to define Window width and height - hairline and Resize Window to Fit do the job, …

Not being one to read manuals, just stumbled across this one in FM10. Double clicking on the tool icon in layout mode locks the tool, great for quick format changing, always hated having to go to prefs for this option.

Solution / Dynamic Labels Description: I have been playing with global calculations for a while and this the first fruit from that investigation. This little example lets you change the language of the labels in your solution without scripting (other than on startup). I think its pretty powerful stuff. Have fun... Working Under: Solution Status: Finished Pre-requisites: 8.5 untested in 8... Author(s): Stuart Taylor Date: 12/31/06 Credits: Instructions / Other Info: Disclaimer: FM Forums does not endorse or warrantee these files are fit for any particular purpose. Do not post or distribute files wit…

Microsoft has now released Windows 7. [color:red] FileMaker, Inc. has some important information on compatibility of its products with Windows 7: http://thefmkb.com/7453 http://thefmkb.com/7454 At this time the only FileMaker Pro version we expect to run correctly on Windows 7 will be FileMaker Pro 10.0v3. There are a few minor issues, but we expect it to run. No previous version of FileMaker Pro is compatible with Windows 7. If you plan to run FileMaker Pro on Windows 7, you should be running version 10.0v3. Steven

The FileMaker Design Caucus presents SmallCo's Design SMACKDOWN! Thursday, Oct 22nd at 3 pm Eastern Time (UTC - 4). No Caucus membership is required. Join as a guest at: http://smallco.net/caucus --- Join us, and help to SMACKDOWN three FileMaker solutions: 1. SmallCo alum Curtis Michelson returns from The Land of Open Source with The Synchorator, a developer utility for syncing SQL and FileMaker data. 2. John Weinshel shares his pain with a particularly tough redesign of a "ransom note" FileMaker layout. 3. Albert, Scott, Dave and Jose ask you to throw darts at their work for The University of North Carolina Press. Did we get TOO big for our …

This solution helps tie the real world to the data world by allowing a project to be open, active and span any length of time while having the capability to invoice Assignments as be become completed. Goal is to build an iron clad project based invoice system. This file is a good solid start.Tho this file is raw and the interface is not done, the structure is pretty much established. Tho I believe some of my coding, relations and scripts are dodgie and could be a lot cleaner and sound. Please play around with this file, take a look on how it works and make some suggestions on how I can make this better. Thank you so much for your time!!! project_invoice_mo…

I have been working on this script logging file for the past few days, and I was hoping I could recruit some help with testing, development, and ideas. I guess I'm kinda wanting to make it an "open source" project. The file is still rough - the layouts aren't pretty yet, but the system works. I included my RowHighlightSelection demo file, as the test file with script logging enabled on it. The "Help" layout has a To Do list and Instructions on implementing it. Please have a look and tell me what you think. If you can contribute to any of the To Do list items, it would be much appreciated. ScriptLogging.zip

A workaround for the annoying "keep sorted" behavior of version 10. SortOnce10.fp7.zip

Solution / Browse Portals As Pages Description: Thought i'd post this as i haven't posted any in a while. This is sort of a follow up to a previous topic called Horizontal Photo Browser. I really don't like list view, in fact i personally think its kind of useless and will never give me the end user experience i want. So, this sample file is designed to get around it and simulate a web-like paging interface. I don't expect you to share my opinion, but for those who do... Another issue with list view is that IWP's list capabilities have no real use, displaying only 15 records at any one time. You can use the scroller and the script without the po…