Community Videos, Tips, & Techniques, Articles.

Over the past dozen years, I have discussed in a number of venues the necessity for robust security practices and the techniques needed to implement them on the FileMaker Platform. Such discussions have as their underlying framework a fairly traditional Information Security paradigm. There are Threat Agents who seek to initiate Exploits or Threats that negatively Impact the Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability of FileMaker Platform systems or other Digital Assets. These attacks also can damage the Resilience of the Digital Asset. These Threat Agents exploit a Vulnerability in the design or the deployment of the FileMaker systems. FileMaker Platform developers a…

I'm not going to say that it's all going to be how-to's, but my second article is on how to install and update FileMaker using Active Directory Group Policy Objects: Installing and updating FileMaker Pro automatically with Active Directory Group Policy Objects (GPO)

Introduction to FileMaker CWP I've started a new blog on my site where I'm going to be making posts related to the Atlanta FileMaker Developers Group meetings as well as other FileMaker tips and techniques. Our meeting for July was about FileMaker CWP, so I've written a getting started guide for CWP as my first post. Please let me know if this is useful or if you have any feedback. Thank you!

FileMaker Themes Best Practices In an earlier article we discussed FileMaker WebDirect and how to optimize your solution. This optimization relied on using FileMaker Themes. In this article, we explore using FileMaker 13's new feature to create custom themes and styles. A custom theme will allow you to create a custom appearance in your application while maintaining an optimized solution. Theme optimization will benefit the entire FileMaker platform including FileMaker Go, Pro, and WebDirect.

The answer might surprise you :-) It turns out that GetContainerAttribute doesn't require a container field. You can use it to get the MD5 hash of any string. There are some neat things you can do with that. And it gets even more interesting when you throw in the new ListOf summary field. I posted a blog with a video and example file on my website that covers a couple of the possibilities. http://g.eist.co/1iddRNk Thanks Todd

FileMaker Increasing Renewal Rates Renew your FileMaker licenses by June 28, 2014 to save money, as FileMaker will be increasing its renewal rates by about 15 percent. This is the first increase in renewal rates in several years.

This morning I created icons for v12 and v13 so I could tell which version was open. Thought I'd post them here in case it helps anyone. I now see that rivet already posted icons for version 12, but maybe someone will find these useful. One icon shows a "12', the other a "13".  Both are png files. For Mac users� 1) open them in Preview, and copy 2) do a get info for each version of FM, and paste  That's it! Works in dock and with com-tab.  Michael

Here is a demo of conditional value lists using FMP12 and ExecuteSQL. In the demo there is one sample of using straight text and another using IDs instead of the text. There are no relationships between the user interface and the tables of values. ConditionalVL_SQL.zip

I read periodically that folks want to have an object hide upon hover (but not require a button click). Or they want an image to appear upon hover. Here is a method to do just that (both an FMP12 file and video). It has very limited use. The labels or images must be pre-determined and established as Styles. This is presented only as another tool for the toolkit. Possible uses: Create the US state's names as an image. Then the state name can disappear when hovering on a map so roads can be easily read. These can be saved as Styles to use throughout the solution or shared with other files. Placing large Section letters A, B, C on auditorium seating where, up…

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 Threat Agent can locate the server and access it, an attack can occur using these files. Most attacks occur when a Threat Agent utilizes some vulnerability to mount an exploit that h…

FileMaker WebDirect is new to the FileMaker platform and allows you to publish your database to the web like never before. Real-time updates, a defining characteristic of the FileMaker experience, have made their way to the web browser now. Read more in our new article. http://www.dbservices.com/articles/filemaker-webdirect

My FileMaker Go barcode example without using any iOS barcode reader app and it supports EAN-8/13, UPC-A/E, Code-39/128 and QR Code. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0GSczzMpv0 I hope you like it. PS: I will post later step-by-step guide.

FMI Security Webinar On February 11th FileMaker, Inc. presented two webinars on FileMaker Platform Security. I am highly gratified that FileMaker, Inc. did this. These webinars, conducted by Consulting Systems Engineer Rosemary Tietge, clearly laid out the case for following Best Practices for securing files and their data across all elements of the FileMaker Platform. I want to expand on a number of recommendations about enhancing FileMaker file security from those webinars. By way of reminder from information in a previous FileMaker Security Blog post (http://fmforums.com/forum/blog/13/entry-600-assessing-threats-vulnerabilities-and-risks-to-filemaker-pro-databases/…

Well version 13 has been release but it is the same icon as v12. Since you can run multiple version on the Mac a visual distinction always helps. I have attached a new 'FM12DApp.icns' file to put into the apps content / resources folder. After you replace it you can 'get info' on the app, select the icon in the top left corner, then copy / paste to refresh the new icon. FM12DApp-blue.zip FM12DApp-green.zip FM12DApp-orange.zip

FileMaker 13 introduced a number of very useful enhancements to the relationship graph, none of which are included in the help file or release notes. Use these techniques to increase your productivity. Check out our new article. http://www.dbservices.com/articles/filemaker-relationship-graph-what-they-did-not-tell-you

For clients on Mac os 10.9 and above only. The attached sample will push an alert to the Apple Notification Centre via applescript. RIVET AppleNotification.fmp12.zip

Here is a simple example of a popover as a user friendly dialog box.

A function to finds all the dates for a week day within an given date range. For example: We need to find what are the dates for the Thursdays in the date range starting from 1/1/2013 to 1/31/2013. In this case: The function would be defined as FindDay ("1/1/2014";"1/31/2014";5) Here the start date and end date in the function parameters are text. Here the 5 refers to the number that represents Thursday in the week. Output: 1/2/2014 1/9/2014 1/16/2014 1/23/2014 1/30/2014 And for the invalid dates passed as the function parameters would return "N" that refers to NULL. For Reference: Sunday: 1 Monday: 2 Tuesday: 3 Wednesday: 4 Thursday: 5 F…

The opacity option in the color palette, is a great way to reduce development time. In the attached example, each state (normal, hover, pressed) of the navigation buttons are filled with a certain opacity of white or black. When objects are setup like this, they will adopt the colour behind, which make the objects very modular. TheBeautyOfOpacity.fmp12.zip

This grew out from: http://fmforums.com/forum/topic/90635-change-text-background-color-of-part-of-the-field/ The attached file allows you to mark text by coloring it using the three provided buttons. The colored text is converted to highlighted text in three corresponding background colors. When done, press the Export button to export a "highlights.html" file (note: the attached "hilite.xsl" file is required for this operation and must reside in the same directory as your solution file). Open the exported file in a browser and print it from there. Select "Print backgrounds" or similar option, according to your browser, when printing. The separately attached P…

Using some of the new GetContainerAttribute function output: http://www.soliantconsulting.com/blog/2014/01/references-embedded-container-data

This is a small technique for removing extra carriage from a list of values where the No of carriage is not constant. For example , "1¶2¶3¶4¶4¶¶4¶¶¶¶5¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶6" is the input and we need the output as "1¶2¶3¶4¶4¶4¶5¶6". This simple online function will help to achieve this. Substitute ( Text ; ["¶¶" ; "¶#"];["#¶";""] ;["#";""] ) We need to be careful with "#" symbol. If the list itself contains "#" then it will create a problem. We can use any symbol or charecter (if we are sure that the list contains only numbers ) in place "#", which is not present in the list. - Thank You.

There are times when you will have a range of values in a field across a found set of records that you would like to scale to another range. Common ranges to scale are 0-1, 1-10, 1-100 etc. The input values could be anything of any range. To do this start by creating 4 global fields called oldMin, oldMax, newMin and newMax. oldMin and oldMax are the smallest and largest values in your found set. newMin and newMax are the smallest and largest values you scale the range to. Go ahead and populate the newMin and newMax values. Let's use 1 and 100 for example. To populate oldMin and oldMax I simply sort the records ascending by myValue field, go to first record and get…

Hello all Here we've posted an example FileMaker 13/12 calendar. You can download it for free and use it in your own code. Go here to read blog post. Have fun! The igeeks

The FileMaker Advent Calendar brought us yesterday a tool called "ThemeMaker" which will help to create and design themes in v13. I'd love to see your creations (with or without this tool ;o) and your feedback! pixi

Newest Version of FileMaker Platform Brings Significant Major Security Enhancement FileMaker, Inc. today released the latest version of its Platform: FileMaker® Pro 13, FileMaker® Pro 13 Advanced, FileMaker® Server 13, and FileMaker® GO 13.

This release brings many significant new features to the platform including the innovative FileMaker WebDirect™ client access. But to me the most significant enhancement is Encryption of Data at Rest (EAR). Addition of this critical and key functionality completes the FileMaker Platform Security Suite: 

 Identity and Access Management Role-Based Privileges File Access Protection Encryption of Data in Transit Encryption of…

An excellent example of how to create a password field that only shows bullets. http://www.nightwing.com.au/FileMaker/demosX/demoX05.html

Just added a blog post on what you get from Custom Function parameters... http://www.soliantconsulting.com/blog/2013/11/custom-function-parameters-value-or-reference

Solution: The Perfect Timer Description: Hello All and thank you for your interest! I have completed the Perfect Timer Demo! Please check it out! Let me know if you find any bugs or have additional features you would like to see. This file has not been throughly tested but so far I have found no problems. This solution is as simple for the user to use as I can imagine. Features include: • Tracks time elapsed over days • Uses only three main buttons; [sTART/STOP/PAUSE/CONTINUE], [EDIT ENTRY] and [RESET] • Has a real time update/loop feature to show timer is running and how much time has elapsed • Calculates time value determined by hourly …

File Name: Dotleft Project FileMailer File Submitter: Cliff Zhou File Category: Solution FM Version: Filemaker Pro 12 Web SIte: www.dotleft.com Main Features: 1. Recieve / Compose email in Filemaker. 2. Manage your email / attachment 3. Combine the management of your emails with the manage your business information ( product/client/project/Task/files&folders on your disk ) Download Links: http://sdrv.ms/14Gwa93 (I will keep updating the new version in future, so if you find the links got invalid, pls go my private website for new updated download links) welcome to leave messages on my website forums (https://moot.it/filemaker)or this topic on FMforu…

From time to time people ask me why the Privilege Set bits in FileMaker Pro are all turned OFF by default. Would it not be easier and better for security purposes, the questions go, if all these were turned ON instead? The answer is No; here is why. First, some history. Prior to the introduction of FileMaker® Pro 7 in March 2004, all of the privileges–as they then existed–were turned on by default. Developers then had to wade through a veritable sea of settings and options to limit access to their files. In the older versions of the products, a table and a file were more or less equivalent. A file could contain only one table. The modern versions of the products change…

Hello all A short blog post you may find useful: improved PatternCount searches: http://www.igeek.co.uk/blog/66/FileMaker-Improved-PatternCount-Searches.html Thanks, The igeeks Twitter: igeekUK

FileMaker Pro Recursion PT 3 - A Wrinkle in Timeliness: The Final Reckoning, By Andy Persons In my first post of this three part series, I posed a challenge: how do you update hundreds or thousands of tasks interconnected with tens of thousands of connections? In my second installment, we explored a possible solution: recursively looping through each task from the end-level tasks, tracing each one to its source, then returning back down the stack and updating the dates along the way. However, one issue was still in the way. Recursion requires that each iteration maintain it’s “scope”. In this case, the current record and found set would have to be unique for each …

Description: The demo file shows how to use VBscript to pop up a "browse for folder" OS dialog and return the path to the selected folder and a list of its files back to FileMaker. Working Under: 8 Advanced Solution Status: Finished Pre-requisites: FileMaker 8 Author(s) Wim Decorte Date: 02/09/06 Credits: Instructions / Other Info: It clearly shows the challenges of using VBscript with FileMaker on Windows: - generating the VBscript syntax - creating the VBscript file on the hard disk & executing it - returning a result back to FM (using the import engine, but not creating any new records) Disclaimer: FM F…

FileMaker Security Survey Reveals Interest and Some Confusion During early and mid-July, I posted on FM Forums a multi-question survey asking people about their use of various FileMaker product security features. I also asked for any comments or for any recommendations they might have for enhancing product security features.

The results are interesting. They reveal a high level of use of many security features; they also indicate some areas of confusion about how security features in FileMaker products work. 



 Who were the people who responded to the survey? Where were they located? Respondents said they worked in a variety of different environments:

 …

The eX-BizTracker 4 is now out for public beta testing, ready for you to put it through its paces! If you were one of the 100,000 plus people who downloaded eX-BizTracker v3.0, you might recall thatFileMaker® Pro template or jump-start solution’s attractive GUI and feature set. You might also remember fondly the advantage it gave your company, or if you were a consultant looking for a quick way to get something for your clients, how easy it was to customize for your distinctive business needs. If you’re new to the Excelisys BizTracker series of FileMaker® Pro templates, you won’t remember any of that, but that’s ok. The point is this: The eX-BizTracker 4 is the next gia…

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…