Community Videos, Tips, & Techniques, Articles.

Assessing Threats, Vulnerabilities, and Risks to FileMaker® Pro Databases Hosted FileMaker Pro databases are susceptible to unauthorized access, manipulation, destruction, and other forms of compromise. Developers and server administrators need to understand how to assess threats and the risks of those risk’s occurring as various threat agents seek to exploit vulnerabilities. This process starts with an understanding of the environment where the databases operate. We have a variety of digital assets that we must seek to protect. Nowadays, for the most part, the assets we are most concerned about are the hosted databases and the information in them.. We need to …

Ten Frequently Encountered Practices That Can Compromise Security of FileMaker Pro Files April 9th 2013 In our last installment, I noted: “In 2013, I will be focusing on promoting the goal of achieving that understanding [meaning understanding FileMaker Server] along with the parallel and related one of overcoming a similar lack of understanding and awareness about FileMaker security items.” In this post I want to focus on ten frequently encountered practices with FileMaker Pro files that present potential vulnerabilities that could be used to compromise the Confidentiality, Integrity, or Availability of the files and their resident data. Most of these scenar…

Video - How many and how different is your list?

A Wrinkle in Timeliness Pt 2 - Perfecting FileMaker Pro Recursion & Virtualization, by Andy Persons of Excelisys Perfecting FileMaker Pro Recursion & Virtualization Part 2 explores the use of recursion and virtualization (through global variables) in solving complex data interconnectivity challenges using FileMaker Pro 12 in a multi-user client-server environment. Using a specific case study of an Excelisys project/client in the medical manufacturing industry, Andy discusses and demonstrate the dramatic performance benefits that can be gained with the techniques involved. Have you ever had a FileMaker Pro project where each task depended on other tasks to be c…

Hello all, Hope you find this interesting - an easy way to implement a progress bar in FM12: Click here

“What's in a name? that which we call a rose,
 By any other name would smell as sweet.” —Juliet (Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene 2, William Shakespeare)— “The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name.” —Confucius— An entire series of recent studies published by well-known and well renown international security analysis and information industry firms have all made, in slightly varying language, the following key points: Data housed in files in organizations are under relentless and persistent attack by a variety of threat agents including criminals, nation states, so-called “hacktivists”, and disgruntled current or former employees. Organi…

A Wrinkle in Timeliness - Perfecting FileMaker Recursion & Virtualization, by Andy Persons of Excelisys This 4 part series article, A Wrinkle in Timeliness Pt1 - Perfecting FileMaker Recursion & Virtualization, by Andrew Persons explores the use of recursion and virtualization (through global variables) in solving complex data interconnectivity challenges using FileMaker Pro 12 in a multi-user client-server environment. Using a specific case study of an Excelisys project/client in the medical manufacturing industry, Andy will discuss and demonstrate the dramatic performance benefits that can be gained with the techniques involved. Have you ever had a proje…

If you’ve ever wanted to generate specific reports for different groups of users, but are intimidated by FileMaker’s, somewhat complicated security schema, this PDF shows you an alternative methodology that is very simple and easy to implement, using FileMaker Pro privilege sets. Recently a client, a large bail bond company, wanted to be able to add reports easily, that could only be viewed by specific employees, and without having to go anywhere near FileMaker’s security schema. This got me thinking outside the box, which is where many good FileMaker solutions come from, and I started to play a game of ‘What If? What if we could use a related value list to populate a …

With vs. 11, we can now easily display certain fields only when others meet our criteria. It requires no additional calculations and one simple self-join for all of the fields we wish to show or hide. Create a new record and type into the text field. Simply use one-row portal (with your criteria on the portal filter) as attached. UPDATE: As with any visibility technique, you may wish to apply rules if text2's data is removed and there is still a value in text3. There are many things you can do with script triggers and/or auto-enter (replace) to remove the value from text3, stop text2 from being cleared and so on ... visible11.zip

HierarchyLite - FileMaker Pro® 12 Tips and Tricks Demo of a Simplified Approach to Hierarchal Portals! Another FREE FileMaker Pro 12 Tips and Tricks Demo file showing an even more simplified approach to hierarchal portals by Doug West, Product/Project manager of Excelisys. Doug has now made this advanced technique, originally developed by our own Andy Persons, even easier! "HierarchyLite" is an EXcellent FREE FileMaker Pro 12 Tips and Tricks demo file which outlines how to create those cool hierarchically organized portals in FileMaker Pro 12, similar to the Mac Finder’s list view or Window’s Explorer view. The general idea of this simplified no-frills version is to mak…

What is this course? Remote FTS Training Course Offered On-Line. Remote classes offer students the same benefits of a traditional classes such as asking questions and in-class exercises but without the cost of travel and time away from work. All you need is an internet connection! The courses incorporate the many new features of the FileMaker 12 product line throughout the modules but stress good programming skills for FileMaker 7, 8, 8.5, 9, 10 and 11. Major course features: Planning a FileMaker Solution Developer Skills Advanced Developer Skills FileMaker Server Security Who should take this course? The first three modules are design…

This event will be March 3rd - 6th (Sessions 4th & 5th) For Details: http://pausepdx2013.wikispaces.com This post has been promoted to an article

I may add some notes later. CrossTab11.zip

File Name: Sample FMGo File File Submitter: Ocean West File Submitted: 05 Feb 2013 File Category: FMGo This is a sample test of the file download system on fmforums.com navigate to this site directly from iOS and you will be able to download the file to FMGO Directly. Click here to download this file

When trying to add tab stops to a field there is no inherent way to visually see if you have it actually lined up correctly. Yes you have the value position in the appearance tab on the inspector. But that is from the position of the left edge of the field not the layout. And you just have to guess where to place the tab stops. When in layout mode you don't have any tab stop formatting bar on a field but you do on a text object. So here is a quick recipe to set your tab stops. Step 1. Format your field - style it the the way you like. Step 2. Create a text object on the layout add some sample text and use option tab (Mac) to add the tabs between th…

Unskilled and Unaware Nearly fourteen years ago two Cornell University psychologists authored a definitive study titled Unskilled and Unaware of It. Their core thesis was that persons who were unskilled in any number of domains suffered a dual burden. They reach erroneous conclusions and make incorrect and unfortunate choices on the one hand. And second, their lack of knowledge and competence robs them of the ability to recognize their errors. They are incorrect; yet, they believe that they are correct, and they are unaware of their errors. In the broader FileMaker community and among significant portions of the broadly-defined FileMaker developer community, t…

Attachment shows how to use the Get(CalculationRepetitionNumber) function to perform recursive calculations. 1103074058-RecursiveRepeaters.zip

FileMaker Inc has released the a revision for Mac and Widows for both for Client and Advance FileMaker, Inc. has released FileMaker Pro 12.0v3 and FileMaker Pro 12.0v3 Advanced. This update addresses issues regarding layout design and rendering, printing, plug-ins, scripting, container fields, portals, and more. http://thefmkb.com/11239 Stephen

FileMaker Server 12 BackUps Frequently Asked Questions FileMaker® Server 12 has a number of new features for creating backups of databases it hosts. As evidenced by questions raised at the 2012 DevCon and as evidenced by a number of items posted on various FileMaker lists, there is a good deal of confusion still about how the new backup system works. Wim Decorte and I have authored a short set of Frequently Asked Questions along with their answers about this topic. You can download the attached PDF that contains this information. Among the questions we address are these: How have backups changed in FileMaker® Server 12? I want to schedule an incremental o…

Hi, I just posted a new entry on 1-more-thing blog, presenting a 'revolutionary' technique allowed by FileMaker 12. It completely changes my life as a developer, and makes it possible to create very efficient online solutions using FileMaker Pro/Go. It's all explained in this video.

A small sample of a window sliding down from top of screen just enough to hide title bar. I have only tested on FMP12 osX 10.7 This is a modular script to apply to an offscreen window. I usually position my offscreen windows top position to: '- Get ( ScreenHeight )' to hide the osX native window drop shadow. Many possibilities, enjoy RIVET slide down window.zip

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