Explain Concept of multiple .FP? files

[Frink1234]

I see some FMP solutions that have many .fp7 files that are opened when the app first runs. I'm not clear on using this technique and what the concept is. Is this somehthing important that I should be doing? Is there an advantage to doing this instead of using numerous related tables?

[LiveOak]

You've picked a topic for which about 500 pages of whitepapers have been written. There are many reasons you might what to break your solution into multiple files (and many reasons you might not). Some of these include:

- Separating the user interface and the data into separate files to facilitate interface upgrades

- Breaking a shrink wrapped solution into modules for independent sale

- Enhancing security by only giving user the part of the UI they need

You can download many informative whitepapers from the FileMaker Inc. web site which discuss this topic in much greater depth.

-bd

[Frink1234]

Thanks Brent -

I understand some of the logic now. I will take a look at the whitepapers.

- rf

[LiveOak]

In reviewing the whitepapers,don't feel that everything has been said. The creators of a software package most often don't have any idea of the best ways to use it. It will take years for the developer community to try a whole bunch of stuff and come to some sort of collective understanding on the best ways to use this new tool called FM7. Myself and my associates are still having this discussion and probably will be for years!

-bd

[Fenton]

I'm not sure I understand the original question. Are you also asking (besides the 1 file or many files question, which, as LiveOak says, is a perpetual discussion), why sometimes people have opening scripts that open all the files, rather than just letting them get opened by single script calls or relationships?

In those whitepapers you'll see that there have been some changes in 7 to do with when an "on open" script will run (the script specified in File Options). For the most part FileMaker 7 almost always runs the opening script, as soon as the 1st window for that file opens, so it's not nearly as necessary to explicitly run an "open file" script as it was in 6.

To see how this works, create an "opener" file, which opens other files, then closes itself; a common practice. Now, try and open that file without it closing itself. This is tricky in 7, because as soon as the window comes to the front, the script runs and the file closes. You have to either add a modifier keys "bypass" into the script, or an Account bypass, or create a script with a "Halt Script" step, and call it from another file. [Don't try this first in a real data file of your own, because you may never get it open again :-]

Another reason people do an "open all files" routine is so it all happens at once, to get it out of the way (and possibly to size and arrange the windows). Otherwise when another file is needed (for a relationship or script), a dialog briefly appears, telling the user that FileMaker's opening the file.

Of course, if a person is only using one "module" of a very large solution, then maybe they'll never need the other files. In conclusion, you decide what you think is best for each situation.

[Frink1234]

Actually, I'm glad you explained both concepts to me as I was unclear about either one.