Menu Solution

[SteveB]

When I first started playing with Custom Menus, I found that Filemaker added an 'Exit Ctrl-Q' to the first menu and added 'Tools' to the end of the menu line (which couldn't be removed). I had been using Dacons Menu Control for the last 3 years, but its latest version won't run under v8, and Dacons can't give me a time frame for a version that will. New Millenium's version also won't run under 8.

So I went back to playing, and here is what I've come up with:

If you create a runtime (which I normally do) and remove Admin Privileges, the 'Tools' Menu disappears. I created the first menu with a single blank as a title that winds up creating a menu without text which is small (probably 1/4 inch wide). I added text to the menu that says "DO NOT USE THIS COMMAND" (just in case) split on 2 lines. Its not perfect, but most users will never open it.

So for the few of us that need Custom Menus, Filemaker's built in can work.

Steve

Edited September 29, 2005 by Guest

[RalphL]

The Tools menu only appears in FMP8A.

Why did you create the blank menu?

[SteveB]

For some unezplained and fairly stupid reason (as far as I'm concerned), Filemaker adds an 'Exit' to the bottom of the first menu that is created (its in the documentation), which closes Filemaker and the application. It doesn't seem that it can be edited off, since it really doesn't appear. Since it would wind up on all files that have custom menus, this is a show stopper. I can easily envision users inadvertently close the system before I could validate a record...I see loads of incomplete records.

Steve

[Reed]

But if there's field level validation, the application won't quit until the validation is satisfied anyway...

[SteveB]

Field level validation doesn't do it for me, and in fact, I never use it. What happens if you have a record that has 10 fields that are required, some of which are dates that require field 2 to be later than field 1, but less than field 3 which hasn't been entered yet? I validate by script after the user has (hopefully) entered all required data. I wouldn't want the user to close the app and leave a record as incomplete. I also don't think setting a validation flag to be checked when the system is restarted is worth it.

Having the Exit really messes things up in my world. I even tried a binary editor and looked for 'Exit', but couldn't find the string.

Steve

[Reed]

Can you place users in a paused looping script that cannot be aborted without the user click another button. I used to use this script along with a hidden dummy field that could not be empty (would only be filled by the script) Then users can't commit the record, close the file, or even close the window.

[Zero Tolerence]

Or, you could have a script that runs on file close check things out.

[SteveB]

Except that since the Exit doesn't actually appear when I edit the 1st menu, I can't attach a script to it. If it appeared, I would have deleted it.

Steve