Interface and data separation?

[topic]

We are a very small business, usually one of us in and one out of the office. Our client, appointments and project information is held on an FM 8.5 database, which runs on the main office machine and in runtime versions on each of our laptops.

The office machine holds current data and the idea is to update the runtime versions when we go out on the road so I’ve been looking at the easiest and quickest way to do this without having to create a new runtime version each time the main database is updated.

If I understand correctly (and I may not!), rather than the single file holding all layouts, scripts, tables etc. we have at present, I should be separating this into two files, one to hold the regularly changing data and one for the layouts etc. that will only change infrequently.

It’s a lot of work to separate in this way but I’m still new to FM and if I got the basic design wrong I would like to correct it before I go too far.

So, is the best approach to separate as above then transfer current data to the laptops by overwriting existing data files?

Hope that’s clear and I would be grateful for any guidance.

[Fenton]

It could be that I'm confused. You are really talking about "updating" as upgrading in the sense of new development of the structure, and updating the data ONLY on the office copy, not about "synchronizing" the data with the returning files.* Right?

In that case, when you work on the file you're opening it with FileMaker, not the runtime engine. You are not making any changes to that file that would disconnect it from the engine.** So all you have to do is replace that same file in the runtime folder with the new one.

*If the "take away" files' data are being modified, then you've got synchronization problem. But that's really a whole different question. It would involve synchronizing the data between the 2 data files, before replacing the one in the runtime's folder. You'd likely want to copy that file first, just in case something went wrong.

**The file you're developing on should be one that has been bound once to that engine. Otherwise yes you would have to remake the runtime. It's really just a FileMaker file with a different extension, and with a little key code somewhere that ties it to its runtime engine. It will still function fine as a FileMaker file, and can be hosted, using regular FileMaker or FileMaker Server.

I don't think there are any other changes, unless you specified them when you bound the file. If however you stripped out the Full Access account (a reasonable security precaution), then of course you'd have to build the runtime again.

It's a little annoying to open a once-bound file with FileMaker. You can drag it onto FileMaker.

On the other hand, it doesn't take very long to make a runtime, though it is kind of large to transfer.

[P.S. I don't think "separation of data" would really help much here. You'd want the take-away files to have both new structure and data. The data is usually larger. Save a clone of your file and you'll see how big the interface is.]

Edited October 26, 2006 by Guest
PS

[topic]

Fenton

No, there are no synchronization issues to contend with and following your comments, maybe no advantage to separating data from interface.

Simple conclusion is that I have not fully understood the nature of runtime files and I need to read and experiment more before asking any more questions!

Good to learn though….just need to find more time for it.

Thanks for the reply, appreciate the help.

Tony