June 11, 200718 yr I've taught myself the basic and advanced concepts in filemaker pro, Masted most of them. The only problem: Lack of layout experience. I have purchased the Theme Library 3 from scriptology.com - it is a great start, but actually applying it is a bit challenging. Could someone point me in the right direction for how to make better and more efficient use of my space? I have taken several stabs at making a proper fmp database for my company and have always hit the brick wall when it comes to the interface. I get many criticism and have to rebuild them half the time! Thanks in advance!
June 11, 200718 yr I don't think you will actually find a book saying "this is how you make a layout". I believe this is something you learn as you go or by looking at other peoples files/screenshots. I too had issues coming up with a nice interface for files. I ended up using google and searching for other developers screenshots to give me ideas. One layout I always thought was fairly elegant was this one http://prodatasolution.com/resources/100$25+Manager$3A+Tenant.jpg You can also take a look at this thread for a few ideas http://filemakertoday.com/com/showthread.php?t=12383 Not really an answer but should help. Michael
June 11, 200718 yr Author Audiofreak, thanks! I agree with you - it is something you have to learn as you go. And indeed - i've learned a lot from working on production databases, that users are working with. Anyone else have anything else useful to suggest?
June 11, 200718 yr This might not be what you are looking for but it has helped me when trying to work out some ideas for the interface to my solution. I found no example out there no matter how good fit exactly how I needed it to. So in stead of trying to make my data fit into someone else's structure I found that I really need to think how I wanted to present my data in a user friendly way. Yes I do borrow and get inspiration from others designs but I know try to give as much thought to how my users will use my database as to how to structure the data on the back-end. Apple is known for making things user friendly and they have some great free resource on interface development. This might be a good place for you to start. Apple Human Interface Guidelines
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