FileMaker 8 - fresh news

[joaocarlo]

Frow ThinkSecret.com :

FileMaker Pro 8 in development, Mac OS X 10.4.1 released

By Ryan Katz, Senior Editor

May 17, 2005

Apple subsidiary FileMaker, Inc. is hard at work on the next version of its FileMaker database software suite, which sources say is slated for announcement towards the end of the year and will be rolled out as version 8.

Early builds of FileMaker Pro 8 were in extremely limited hands until early April, when testing is said to have expanded to a larger group consisting of a few hundred more dedicated FileMaker Pro 8 developers and customers.

FileMaker Pro 8 will feature a number of significant technical improvements as well as more skin-deep user interface and layout features. Interface enhancements include the ability to create design-simplifying Tabbed layouts and the create custom menus sans plug-ins, limiting what users can see.

Sources also report that in a marketing maneuver, FileMaker Developer will be renamed FileMaker Pro Advanced. Features of the Pro Advanced version will include the ability to copy tables within a file and import tables between files and increased script debugging capabilities, including being able to view the contents of any field at anytime.

One of the more significant features of FileMaker Pro 8, sources said, is the ability to save layouts in PDF and Excel format. Sources also added that FileMaker Pro 8 will continue to use FileMaker Pro 7's file formats, giving FileMaker Pro 7 customers the ability to upgrade with minimal effort.

[QuinTech]

Apple subsidiary FileMaker, Inc.

I'd say that casts a little doubt on the reliability of this source, no?

Anyone heard this from another source?

[trevorg]

Not sure what you mean. FileMaker is a wholly owned subsidary of Apple.

FileMaker Company Page

Ownership: FileMaker, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Apple Computer, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL).

[QuinTech]

Whoops... that was embarrassing. I was sure they had spun off several years ago. Sorry!

Exciting news, then! Especially:

create custom menus sans plug-ins

[Ted S]

Good news. I like the tabbed layouts.

This website - ThinkSecret - was dead-on in its pre-release gossip about v7.

I didn't see anything about event based triggering of scripts. If they don't include this in v8 some of the gang here on the forum are going to go ballistic.

[raymanj]

Yes we need event triggers, ASAP.

[Søren Dyhr]

Yes we need event triggers, ASAP.

With native validations, auto-enter fields as well as custom functions with recursive definitions???

Believe me!!! Take 4D for a spin - and you get your boots filled with issues, not particular mac'ish in their user-interface behaviors...

Where you are to expect buttons and dialogs letting you REGRET your actions, and in particular not letting the application decide the pace!!!

Try to explain me what you need the triggers for - many of HUI guidelines are already easy to break as it is!!! If it's purely a desire to make records in a join-table to make the connections in a many2many relations ...then you'd better investigate better in the possibilities for making multiline keys ...if say you use either custom functions or repeating calc'fields, is it as responsive as making and deleting dedicated records ...and considerably faster!!!

--sd

[DykstrL]

I can't tell from where, (I'll probably lose my decoder ring for this) but I have heard the same things from a very reliable source.

I would look for something official toward the end of DevCon.

...just my guess.

[RSGC]

Try to explain me what you need the triggers for - many of HUI guidelines are already easy to break as it is!!!

Uhh -- maybe I am missing you humor? My list of uses for this feature is long. It is a feature other databases I was using almost 20 years ago had, and it proved mighty useful.

One example: you want to trigger an event (new record, pager, email, etc) when a user changes the value in a field. With triggers you can capture the value when they enter the field, and compare that to the value when they leave (depending on the model the title and number of events of tabbing/clicking in and out might be simple or complex), and then trigger an event if the value on departure is changed. Can this be forced now? Sure, but there are a lot of hoops to jump through, and the interface is not going to be the same. With triggers/events/whatever you want to call them, you are able to do this with reasonable ease.

Now there are also things called triggers that could reside in the database and just automatically fire scripts when certain database criteria happen as well. Such as, after every 100 new records are added an email is sent sending an alert, or a value of some sort is reached, then the database automatically does x,y,z.

The list of uses is long. Could a user interface be made worse with this addition to the toolset? Certainly. But, as you say, there is plenty of opportunity for that now. We would have to take away an awful lot to prevent people for breaking the HUI Guidelines. That is why they are there -- so thoughtful people can consider what they are doing, and make it nice, or they can ignore all that and make a mess. But please don't delay triggers (and a robust implementation of them at that would be appreciated) to try and prevent people from doing stupid things.

Bob

[Søren Dyhr]

With triggers you can capture the value when they enter the field, and compare that to the value when they leave (depending on the model the title and number of events of tabbing/clicking in and out might be simple or complex), and then trigger an event if the value on departure is changed. Can this be forced now?

Yes it can, audit trails is the name of the game - take a look at this thread:

http://www.fmforums.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=91448

...or download this template:

http://www.filemakerpros.com/CHANGEFIELD.zip

But what you seem to forget is that Filemaker has carved thier own nieche, being the tool for people used to improvise around inadequacies - by being a hybrid between spreadsheets and and an implementation of some of the database theory ...not confusing the main goal for databases as such namely to be a "Vessels of Meaning" with being a providing engine for precise information...

Read this, and especially the joke in it:

http://www.smallco.net/RestrainYourself.pdf

...I would say that filemaker primary target is people who has considerabel information to transport via corpus callosum and actually does it, and not for those having overemphasised one half in particular

I came to think of a grook:

TWIN MYSTERY

To many people artists seem

[RSGC]

Yes it can, audit trails is the name of the game - take a look at this thread:

. . .

But what you seem to forget is that Filemaker has carved thier own nieche, being the tool for people used to improvise around inadequacies - by being a hybrid between spreadsheets and and an implementation of some of the database theory ...not confusing the main goal for databases as such namely to be a "Vessels of Meaning" with being a providing engine for precise information...

I have seen the examples you point to previously. I think they make my point. The examples point to what I consider to be non-trivial solutions. In fact, I doubt that the vast majority of users of Filemaker would ever happen upon these solutions on their own to solve this type of problem. Whereas, a simple option to execute/run/whatever a script at various times (when a field is entered and exited, for example, others would be helpful too) would lead to an inteligent, but "average" user being able to do the same things as described by the examples (and much more) without having to search for non-obvious solutions. Further, the solutions are not comprehensive. They are fine for audit trails, but they are not particularly extensible.

As for your second point, I am not sure I am forgetful of the audience for Filemaker. Filemaker is a great tool. It has shortcomings like any tool. It is my perfered tools these days. The goal here is to point to areas that the tool can be improved so that it will a better tool. If this feature is added, and it is objectionable, I should think it would not be at all hard to ignore it.

The issue of HUI is, in my opinion, completely unrelated. The PDF you directed me to demonstrates that it is easy enough to create "unfriendly" interfaces today, without this feature. Features do not make bad HUIs, people do. Likewise, other people make good HUIs.

I suspect that we will have to agree to disagree on this issue.

Best,

Bob

[Søren Dyhr]

The issue of HUI is, in my opinion, completely unrelated. The PDF you directed me to demonstrates that it is easy enough to create "unfriendly" interfaces today, without this feature. Features do not make bad HUIs, people do. Likewise, other people make good HUIs.

Well not quite unrelated, what you ask for is to get rid of buttons, that is the metaphoric layout ...that makes one of the finer points in HUI when we're talking MacOS is forgiveness, with triggers is the machinery desiding the pace ...not the user.

without having to search for non-obvious solutions.

Buttons seems pretty obvious to me, and if you can't find the realestate in your layout ...is it likely to be a interface issue, as Albert Harum-Alverez talks about in his .pdf.

--sd

[Young Padawan]

But what you seem to forget is that Filemaker has carved thier own nieche, being the tool for people used to improvise around inadequacies - by being a hybrid between spreadsheets and and an implementation of some of the database theory ...not confusing the main goal for databases as such namely to be a "Vessels of Meaning" with being a providing engine for precise information...

Yes, but why should people be forced to improvise around inadequacies when those inadequacies could easily be fixed? Why should a person have to spend time coming up with complex or clever solutions when it could just as easily be integrated into Filemaker's next release?

As for why event triggers would be nice, how about if I want to email a user when a specific event has occured, such as a quantity reaching a specific amount? That's just one example out of many that I at one time or another wished for event triggering. Event triggering doesn't always mean sloppy programming, sometimes there is a legitimate use for it.

[Steve N]

I don't know why anyone would argue against adding features. If I were FileMaker I would add every possibly feature to sell more product. The only reason not to have a feature is the feature does not work, but there are companies that have made triggers work so it can be done.

The real reason for my post and this thread: has anyone heard anymore about when fm 8 is comming out. If they are going it introduce 8 at devcon I would consider going. I understand this is a guarded secrest since no one would buy 7 if they know 8 was comming soon. however I was hoping someone would spill the beans. Spill Spill Spill

"Search your feelings" your know you want to tell us.

[Søren Dyhr]

If I were FileMaker I would add every possibly feature to sell more product.

Is it always the number of features that sells a product??? Try to butter a bread with a swiss knife!!!

--sd

[Ted S]

More info:

http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1144

[QuinTech]

automated data entry and completion

Does this mean the celebrated but cumbersome "clairvoyance" technique will be obsolete?

It's a great workaround, but it is just not the same as type-ahead!