Custom Menus Common?

[Brisprad]

Hi,

I've been lurking in the forum for a bit now and have found quite a bit of great information. I guess before I ask for help, I should let you know who I am.

I'm relatively new to the FileMaker world and am trying to build my first DB designed possibly to distribute as a runtime. In the very near future, I hope to build a client datebase for the pet hotel I work at. Over the last 9 months or so, I've taken an Intro, Intermediate, and Advanced FM class.

OK, now my question. How common is it to use Custom Menus? The teacher I had for my classes-a FM7 Certified Developer-did teach it but I got the idea that either he didn't care as much for it or maybe it wasn't that common to use. Any help would be great.

On a similar note, is it common to use tab controls in layouts? Again, my teacher touched upon it but showed how he preferred to use buttons to navigate.

Thanks for any suggestions!

Brian

[Genx]

All developers have their preferences, i for example absolutely hate the tab control, but will go through insufferable lengths to make my solution appear tabbed.

But at the same time, i make great use of custom menus.

It depends on what you want your user to see - if youare happy with what they've got with filemaker, and having them access scripts either on layout or from the script menu - do that. With custom menu's you can specify real menu's, restrict user actions, make scripts appear in menu's like menu options -- might put reports etc. in there. Could provide for navigation through your soluion in there etc. etc.

It all depends on what you want to do.

But welcome to the forums :)