Vaughan

First get a backup copy of the database to play with, the optimum strategy will take some time to work out. Decide how you'd like to clean the data. For instance, should double-dots be replaced with a single dot or removed completely? Replacing double-dots to single would be Substitute( self ; ".." ; "." ) As for cleaning up the rest of the data, the easiest method is to replace the field contents with GetAsNumber( self ) which will take the data, interpret it as a number, and put that number back into the field. This will strip all non-numeric characters and spaces etc. You'll need to test it and see how it looks. "$4.60" will be replaced with "4.6" for instance.

I have had a couple of small to medium clients become aware of their lack of security only when a staff member leaves and takes a copy of the clients (or even the whole database) with them.

Do you have window zoom set to something other than 100%?

What Matthew said: globals calculate differently when hosted. You need a preferences table to store the file path, not a global field.

The scrolling issue sounds like software problems rather than file corruption. What version FMP are you using? If is anything less than FMP 10 then it's probably not compatible with your OS.

Budget for a license of FileMaker Server and a dedicated box to use as the FMS host.

I say it too. My reasoning is this: if the server goes down *unexpectedly* the files need to be checked. If you come in on Monday morning and the files are not available then you know the server went down some time over the weekend. If the server automatically opened them there is no clue that something has gone wrong. I do not want the server opening the (possibly damaged) files up and users going back in a doing work with them. If they went down then they stay down until somebody checks them, possibly restores the previous backups and opens them back up. Also of the server opens the files again then the backup schedules will run. This could possible delete the previous backups that you need to restore from.

When weird things like this happen to me (typically users report that new records seem to be displaying old data in portals) it's because I've done an import or something and not updated the next serial numbers in primary key fields. Eg: in main table, next serial number is 101. Import 100 records process the data, create new primary keys, etc which now go up to 200. Forget to update the next serial number. User creates new record (pk=101) and it matches old data. So I'd start by checking all serial number key fields and making sure that they are not creating duplicate ehtries, or doing anything else unexpected.

You cannot convert files from Bento to FMP, or FMP to Bento. Data entered into Bento can be imported into a FMP database, but that's not the same as "converting" the file: only re-using the data.

The Get( WindowDesktopHeight ) and Get( WindowDesktopWidth ) functions will return something close to what you ask for, but what will you do with the information: have several different sets of layouts and switch between them based on whether the user has the dock on the bottom or top? You could I suppose, but it's be a HUGE amount of work to create and even MORE to maintain, and it still won't really solve the problem that there is an infinite variety of screen sizes and OS interface user preferences that the solution could run on, and for which you have no control. Any solution that uses applescript will not be cross-platform. The majority of FMP licenses are for Windows. Ultimately, the size and position of a solution's windows are under the control of the user, not the developer.

Ultimately all you can do is design for the default sizes and positions of windows and OS widgets, or if you're keen, take into account the window size when the dock/taskbar is on the side rather than the bottom. If I want to make my task bar half the height of the window, there is nothing you (as developer) can do about it. Decide what the *smallest* screen your solution will support. For me it's Apple Macbook Pro 13 inch 1280 by 800. Make a test file with a layout and size this so the window just fits without the scroll bars appearing. Now move the dock to the side and resize the width of the window so it still fits. Load this same file onto a machine running Windows 7 (and/or 8) and resize the layout so it fits. Only make a dimension smaller, not larger. The resulting layout is now cross-platform.

Preview mode only relates to FileMaker Pro. When accessing a database in IWP you're using a web browser.

Create a calculation text field that is = the other field, and put this cal field on the layout. Allow entry into the field and users can scroll, select and copy the text but cannot edit it (because it's a calc field).

Page scaling and the generic "any printer" option (and print to pdf) is standard on Mac OS X but not WindOS. The page scaling option is usually available in WindOS if the driver is Postscript, but PS drives are not always available and if they are they are usually not installed by default so it cannot be relied upon even for PS printers. To make the printing more portable, consider using only the intersection of A4 and US Letter as your design template, then use the auto-sizing feature to allow the objects to expand if there is more room (or let them centre themselves on the page). A4 = 210 x 297 mm US Letter = 216 x 279 mm US Legal = 216 x 355 mm A design template for a "safe" print layout should be 210x279 mm.

That calculation looks good, and the error message also looks correct if the data being entered does not validate. So the question is, what data were you entering into the serial number field? The field should be of type number, not text. Finally, make sure that your FMP software is updated to the final patch version. That was 5.5v2 for Mac and 5.5v4 for Windows. To be honest I'm surprised that FMP 5.5 is working on 10.6 at all. Do not discount incompatibilities as the cause.

You cannot connect to a web page. Each time you view the csv file, a process on the web server has probably performed a find in a database and returned the results formatted correctly. Which means the file does not constantly get updated (or even exist). The ideal situation is to get direct access to the database that's behind the web site.

Some things are under the control of the end user: these include the things on the custom toolbar, and the size of the dialog boxes. As developers we have no control over things that are under the control of the user -- by design. Custom dialog boxes are NOT a good solution when the user needs to be given a lot of information. Instead change them to the new floating window that was instrduced in FMP 12.

FMS caches a lot of data and delays writing to disk to improve performance. This would make calculating the file size quite difficult while the file is hosted. If the file is hosted in FMS then you should NOT be accessing it directly, not even to calculate the file size or get other metadata.

Use only fonts that are installed by default on both Mac and Windows. Arial is a solid choice. Note that MS Office installs a large number of fonts, these are cross platform, but consider that not everybody has MS Office.

No, you did not understand me correctly. I said that the report needs to be generated from a table that has all those fields (or can pull in the related information). The features_JOINTABLE has all those fields, or can pull the data in from related tables. Sometimes it's very hard to display data through portals: often you need "portals-within-portals" which FMP cannot do. In those cases a summary report does the trick, but it's not quite the same since it needs to be generated and is not a live display.

Use plain words: what is a feature, store, division? I'll guess: There are DIVISIONS of a company; a DIVISION can have one or more STORES; STORES can have one or more FEATURES. To make this work you need a table that contains records which will look like this: Division, Store, Feature I'd say that this is the features_JOINTABLE. Rather than use a portal to display what you want, use a sub-summary report based on the features_JOINTABLE TO, and sort by Division, Store, Feature.

The challenge comes when on 1 January the year rolls over and the serial number resets to 1, several projects are created AND THEN somebody wants to create a project and back-date it to the previous year. It can be done if you are smart and use a table to store the project numbers: each record is a year, with a field to store the next project number. As projects are created the serial number is incremented. When a new year is started, a new Year record is created and the serial numbers for this year are tracked. The previous year's serial numbers are still remembered. If somebody wants to create a project for last year, just look up that year's record and increment that serial number.

If your FMS is being hosted in your own "dedicated" virtual machine then you can use the local OS accounts instead of an AD/OD for external authentication.

No, you do not NEED to make user's privileges fixed across files. It does make things less complex, but it's not necessary.

I did this a couple of years ago with multiple solutions that shared several files, with many users using both solutions. It gets complex, and there is no real way to decrease the complexity without decreasing the security. A couple of things: 1) Identify separate "solutions" and give them unique names. Identify which files are linked to each solution, which users need access to the solution, and what the access is. Create separate EA groups for each Solution_Access combination. If you have dozens of access levels for each file: simplify. 2) In each file, add the EA groups and set the authentication order so that the groups with most access are top. This ensures that the files open with the most access needed for each user. 3) The magic of making all this work happens when you create the EA groups for each Solution_Access and add users to them. An example to illuminate the issues: Natasha uses the Invoices solution as admin. However she only needs read access to the Marketing solution. Both of these solutions link to the Contacts file: through the Invoices solution she has write access but through the Marketing solution she has read-only access. Natasha occasionally has a problem where the Contacts file is locked and things don't work properly in Invoices. This occurs when she opens the marketing solution first, before opening the Invoices solution: the Contacts file will open read only and it STAYS read only for the entire session even after opening other solutions. The fix is to ensure that every user always open each file with the MAXIMUM user access they are entitled to across all solutions. This is achieved in by using external authentication and making a group for every solution and access level (e.g., Invoices_Admin, Invoices_User, Invoices_Read). Then in each file, make sure that the external authentication accounts are in the correct authentication order: from MOST to LEAST. Then as each user opens the files, they will automatically get the correct access.