Is Developer the right tool for me?

[Ian Murphy]

I'd call myself an intermediate user. I've set up a dozen interrelated databases for my company, and understand relations and lookups, but I learned as I went because I had spare time. Now, a family member wants me to put together a simple address book, and is buying me a copy of the software in lieu of payment. My question: Will Developer allow me to send him a standalone applicaiton [which might consist of a couple of databases]? It would be my preference, only so he doesn't have to install & run FMPro, but I wonder if it will work smoothly.

[Lee Smith]

That would be the way. Also a darn good way to get twice the programs. Developer will allow to make standalones for either platform. Although you can develop your solutions on either platform, you need to bundle each on their respective platform. You get a copy of FM for PC and Mac on the same disk, along with the tools.

HTH

Lee

[Anatoli]

There is also fantastic tool for renaming all the files in solution, which will check for changes all scripts, relations, calc fields etc.

Developer cannot produce networked runtimes.

[Ian Murphy]

Two more questions while I wait for the software to arrive today.

1 - Are the exported, stand-alone applications hybrids? Or will I use different preference settings to send to Mac and Windows?

2 - Will the stand-alone application be happy with relational databases? If I want to store name data in a db called NAMES, and look it up via separate front ends called, say, WORK ADDRESSES and SPOUSE NAMES [which is easy with conventional dbs], is it plausible?

[kenneth2k1]

Hi:

1. As Lee said:

"Although you can develop your solutions on either platform, you need to bundle each on their respective platform. You get a copy of FM for PC and Mac on the same disk, along with the tools."

So, for Windows runtimes, bind them using the Developer Tool on Win. For Mac, bind them using the Developer Tool on a Mac.

2.Your entire relational solution can be bound. The tool will create "mirror" files of your solution files along with some .dlls so that it can run independent of FM. For example, your SpouseNames.fp5 file will be SpouseNames.usr.

Another thing I like to do is create a setup executable so that the solution can be placed in the Program Files directory and shortcuts can be put in the Programs Menu. A very useful and effective program to create setup files is Ghost Installer

It's free, but don't let the XML language scare you. There is a very helpful tutorial.

Ken

[Razumovsky]

Ken,

Thanks for the GhostInstaller Link, I have been looking for something like that. Question: can you use it to automate updates as well?

-Raz

[Ian Murphy]

>> 1. As Lee said:

>> "Although you can develop your solutions on either platform, you need

>> to bundle each on their respective platform. You get a copy of FM for

>> PC and Mac on the same disk, along with the tools."

Duh-HUH!

Thanks again.

[Ian Murphy]

All right, UPS is bringing it to me today. I'm lookng forward to digging in. My last stupid question [before, I'm sure, the legit questions start sometime next week] can the runtime applications exported by Developer take advantage of FileMaker's network capacity? I.e. can I write an address book and make it a database shared by three different users? Or do I need Unlimited or several licensed copies of FMPro for this?

[Fitch]

"...can the runtime applications ... take advantage of FileMaker's network capacity?"

No.

"Or do I need Unlimited or several licensed copies of FMPro for this?"

Unlimited is only required for publishing databases to the web. It's essentially just a version of FileMaker Pro, but with the IP limit removed. So, no you don't need it.

Networking FileMaker requires a license of FileMaker Pro for each workstation, and if you have more than a few users and/or your data is critical to your business, a dedicated computer running FileMaker Server.

[kenneth2k1]

Raz:

I don't know if you can use it for updates. Maybe.

I was looking into this recently also. There was a news link on this site a few days ago for the UpdateGenie. It looked kinda involved, but that's life I guess. The developer license was kinda expensive, too.

Ken

[Razumovsky]

Many thanks!

[Ian Murphy]

I hope it's not a violation of local decorum for me to hijack my own discussion to ask more dumb questions - but the deepr I go, the more I've got.

>> Unlimited is only required for publishing databases to the web.

>> It's essentially just a version of FileMaker Pro, but with

>> the IP limit removed. So, no you don't need it.

What does it mean, exactly, to "publish to the web?" Does it provide a placeholder for a conventional HTML editor, so that with a plugin I can log in from the www? I'm not meaning to be dense, I just don't know what we're talking about.

>> Networking FileMaker requires a license of FileMaker Pro

>> for each workstation, and if you have more than a few users

>> and/or your data is critical to your business, a dedicated

>> computer running FileMaker Server.

What is the advantage of FileMaker Server? A confederate of mine thinks it simply runs databases without associated graphic files, so that they load more quickly. This seems an unlikely property to me.

[kenneth2k1]

Hi:

"Publish to the Web"

This means to make a FM solution available to remote users over the Web. FM has a plug-in that comes with it called the Web Companion. This is the actual CGI (common gateway interface) so that the web requests can be submitted to FM on the back end.

There are two common methods for web publishing:

IWP - Instant Web Publishing - This is where the Web companion renders layouts that are viewed in a browser. It is simple, quick and easy to set up. But it is very limited.

CWP - Custom Web Publishing - This is where you create form pages for each action that will occur on-line (like searching, adding records, etc). So, you create your web pages and then use a language like CDML to add tags so that the web pages can display the info from FM.

You can make a solution available over the web with regular FM, but there is a limit of 10 IPs logged in a 12 hour period. Unlimited makes it so that "unlimited" users can log in.

The manual explains all of this.

Perhaps someone else can explain server.

Ken

[Fitch]

"What is the advantage of FileMaker Server? A confederate of mine thinks it simply runs databases without associated graphic files, so that they load more quickly. This seems an unlikely property to me."

Your friend needs to look here:

http://www.filemaker.com/products/fms_home.html

The backup feature alone is worth it if your data is worth anything.

[stanley]

"What is the advantage of FileMaker Server? A confederate of mine thinks it simply runs databases without associated graphic files, so that they load more quickly. This seems an unlikely property to me."

FM Server is all about using FileMaker in a workgroup environment. You can tell your confederate that it certainly includes associated graphics files - one of my clients has a networked database of their 5000+ designs which is 650MB in size and, with gigabit ethernet, is totally accessible to the entire company. What Server excels at is managing the delivery of data from hard drive to client, and maintaining a unified single source of data for everyone within the networked system.

Further, it does automated backups, which is an absolute necessity in a business situation.

-Stanley