BH&A announces LayoutProperties 2.0

[fabriceN]

read more on http://www.bh-a.com/downloads_1.1.html

June 6th, 2007. BH&A announces LayoutProperties 2.0

thanks to the community dynamism, LayoutProperties concept is alredy revamped and improved, only a few weeks after the release of version 1.

Developed by Fabrice Nordmann, working for BH&A, this revolutionary technique saves precious time for developers and considerably reduces the error risk.

The principle: rather than placing the way in which layouts must be displayed in scripts or in their parameters, this is embedded directly in the layouts.

Thanks to the functionalities of FileMaker 8.5, the layout can become an object in the sense that it is understood in the object-oriented programming. This technique makes it possible to largely overcome the limitation of FileMaker 8.5 – that it does not allow to set a property for a layout’s object.

This is not a plug-in, but rather a grouping of custom functions, scripts and a layout to copy in your file. No field or relationship is required for LayoutProperties to function! Implementing LayoutProperties in your application takes no more than five minutes.

Ease of use

One of the version 1 strengths was already its ease of use, but version 2 makes it a child play : only one layout object to manipulate, that can be resized to one pixel by one, so you will need no more hiding tab panel, or zoom in, or even type in a small size font.

More Powerful

LayoutProperties now can be applied to a layout before leaving or after displaying a layout.

Included navigation history : a layout can be recorded in the navigation history or not, making it a snap to offer your clients a back/next internet-browser-like interface.

Declare variables, trigger as many scripts as you wish (free third party plug in required)

Center or align window on parent window or on screen

By adopting LayoutProperties, you immediately gain hours of development time. By freeing yourself from the context, you considerably simplify your development work. You radically reduce the risk of error. You make the navigation and display of your applications more flexible. Put more simply, by giving the model its own display characteristics, you eliminate the risk of errors related to programming scripts or to the quality of the data of your interface.

But above all, the reason why we have decided to distribute this file commercially is to encourage you to advance this technique further. We are convinced that these properties that have already been developed can be improved and that other layout properties can be envisaged. By buying LayoutProperties and passing on your improvements, you receive the improvements made by other developers that have been passed on to us. Regard this as an open-source platform with an entry ticket, one that will enable us to support developers and co-ordinate future improvements.

Of course LayoutProperties 2.0 is free for version 1.0 buyers (so will later versions be).

Reasons for buying LayoutProperties 2.0

If the general principle is in the public field, the LayoutProperties file includes many advanced features that will immediately make this modest investment cost effective (the most spectacular are indicated in bold in the list below):

- Navigation history

- Move window

- Resize window

- Center or align window (on both screen on parent window)

- Adjust window (Windows users can now maximise a window without maximising all of them!)

- Set variables and evaluate calculations.

- Trigger scripts (third party free plug-in required)

- Popup window

- Window uniqueness (a layout can be set so as to close every other window when displayed)

- Window title

- Zoom level

- Zoom lock

- Status area show/hide

- Status area lock

- Text ruler show/hide

- View as (form, list, table)

- Window mode (browse, preview, find)

- Memorise user's modification within a session (resizing, zoom, status area, etc.)

- Go to an object (look at the demo file to see how powerful this is)

- Restore tab panels state

Bundled with layout properties, Fabrice Nordmann's 'restore tabs' technique allows you to store and restore all selected tab panels (visible or not) on all layouts: no more ‘switch to default tab’ hassle.

- Hard code or use formulas

This is revolutionary as it allows you to overcome FileMaker 8.5’s limitation, which is that it does not allow a property to be set for a named object. Thanks to this feature, the layout itself is able to behave according to your data!

- Simplified syntax

Several properties include a simplified syntax. For example, if a window should pop up with a height twice as big as the original window, simply write "*2" instead of a long calculation! Simply use ‘+’ and ‘-’ to zoom in or out instead of many Case statements.

- Audit function

LayoutProperties includes a powerful audit function that allows you to see the layout properties immediately, without even switching to layout mode.

May 7th, 2007: Matt Petrowsky, ISO FileMaker Magazine, talks about LayoutProperties:

"Watch this video if you want to learn a powerful method for controlling how your layouts are rendered. Using a dedicated layout object, you can reduce the total number of steps in many of your scripts. Full window control can be harnessed when using this technique - it's something I would consider core to any solution!"

LayoutProperties2Demo.zip