FM7 - Allow printing without giving access to ALL menu commands?

[sbg2]

Surely there must be a way to give users the ability to print without giving them access to all of the menu commands? However, I can't seem to be able to find the magic settings that can do this. If I check the allow printing checkbox under Other Priveleges the only way printing is actually allowed is if I select ALL from the Available Menu Commands.

All I want to do is allow my users to print some reports without giving them access to dangerous commands like Delete All Records.

[Fenton]

I believe you'll have to give them a button. FileMaker only has 3 settings for the menus available. Unfortunately "Editing only" also blocks all the command keys.

I've often wished they had a 4th choice, which was the same, but allowed command keys for "non-destructive" commands, like Find, New Record, Print, etc.. I imagine that would be controversial however.

[sbg2]

A report is shown in preview mode where no buttons work... am I missing something?

After some more experimenting I see most menu commands are not available when paused in preview mode. However, I still have the same issue with the Allow Printing option... I have to have the Available Menu Commands set to All in order to allow printing. Further, the Allow Printing checkbox should be greyed out if it is overridden by the Available Menu Commands options, I'm rather disappointed in FileMaker in this respect.

So now I have a lot of files I need to give users full access to just to be able to allow printing. This is very dangerous. How do I now restrict users from actually getting to these files so they don't delete important data? Since the table they need to print from from are child tables how do I make sure those tables are not accessible from the Windows>Show Window menu so that my users can't create problems?

[Vaughan]

One of the later versions (was it 8.0?) introduced custom menus. Custom menus is IDEAL for doing this kind of stuff.

Alternatively, a technique I use is to script the process so that the display pauses in Preview mode, clicking the Continue button then displays the Print dialog which the user cancels if they don;t want to print.

It's a wee bit awkward but as long as the design is consistent the users get used to it,and it becomes pretty fast and easy.

Edited September 28, 2007 by Guest