FileMaker 12 Behavior Changes

[Andrew Robinson]

Hi, here are few of my observations since upgrading to 12. Anyone have any fixes.

 

1. Holding down ALT (mac) to copy items does not give you all the guide help (all the blue arrows etc to help you place it.) You have to copy it, release the mouse then move it before you get the guides to help you.

2. When selecting all, you dont get to see all the items and where they are, you just get a big box around the whole selection. Useful when you have lost a little shape or text box on the layout somewhere.

3. Nudging items, you used to be able to nudge very small increments by holding down the CMD key and then use the keyboard arrows. It now will only nudge to the grid lines.

4. Aligning Text in fields to middle. I can get it to left right center but top middle bottom seems to just ignore what you tell it and goes to the top regardless.

 

Anyone found any solutions to these?

[Cable]

Just found something tonight that is kind of a pain and don't remember seeing it discussed. When I select multiple objects the Inspector no longer shows all of the coordinates of the selected objects. For instance if I select 4 buttons in FM11 the Inspector shows the Top, Bottom, Left and Right coordinates of the objects selected. In FM12 it puts a - in the area for Top, Bottom, etc. depending on what is selected. I can get around the issue by grouping the objects, but if I am copying elements from one layout to another and want them in the same position I would rather not have to Group/Ungroup every time.

 

I recently built my first solution in FM12 after using FM since version 3. I hate that you no longer see the coordinates for the group of selected objects. I use that all the time to set things exacly where I want them. Sure, you can group and ungroup but why? Why add clicks? What exactly did we gain by taking away those coordinates???

[LaRetta]

I agree ... it is major pain. I read someone said that once they are selected just nudge them 1 px and the coordinates will display but that was in v12.0v2 ; it doesn't help me on XP anyway (in v3). There are so many incredible improvements in 12 with these new design elements and I am very impressed with 12 but they need to fix this issue. Currently I group/ungroup as well.

[Genelia]

Hi,

I am getting very strange behavior of FM 12.On 1 of my portal 1 put delete button right side of portal and wheni am clicking ..button not working ...screen movesto left side of portal.

 

 

Please sort out if any one knows?

 

Thanks in Advance.

[LaRetta]

Hi Genelia,

I have not heard of this oddity mentioned before. 12 portals and tabs ( as well as other 'parts', I suspect ) now identify whether objects are within their realm. Objects properly within portals move and resize if portal moves and objects within tabs can disappear if you resize tab to smaller than its objects instead of objects simply popping outside the tab like prior versions. You can sometimes feel the 'drag' on your cursor when moving an object in or out of portal.

This new stickibility means that portals are sensitive when near portal border and sometimes objects completely within portal can be mis-identified as outside. This can happen when you have grouped objects and you paste and some objects are outside and some in ... when you ungroup, those objects inside can still be seen as outside. Most times, moving the object a few pt then back ( or cut re-paste ) fixes the issue or making object smaller to ensure it is completely within the lines on all sides, but I assume you've tried those things so this may not be your issue.

Next step would be providing screenshot in layout mode and then providing file itself if all else fails.

[NYPoke]

Well, I am moving us from 11 to 12 this weekend.  It seems way too good to be true...too easy.  I have found a couple problems, but nothing serious, yet.  Would have been nice if the conversion would just comment out Update Link.  Would it have been that hard?  I can live with it though.

 

I found one check box that "did not work".  It needed a change of line color, to see the X.  Odd but not a big deal.

 

Our Imports are slower.  Appears that Matching Field Names resynchs each time the import runs. That is actually good, just slower.

 

Something has to break, just because.

 

Will know on Monday & Tuesday.

[Rick Whitelaw]

Check your layouts, especially if they use sections of PDF files copied into them.check lines and borders. These were issues for me on complex layouts.

[NYPoke]

Thanks Rick.  I have checked most of them.  We do not have any PDF Docs embedded, that I know about.  We did have Word Docs embedded, but those got really, really ugly as Word advanced & the docs did not.  I replaced all that I could with Merge Fields.  Much cleaner.

 

We are built more on business functionality than appearance.  Will catch the rendering issues as they come.

 

Funny thing is that Management loves the new Gradients.  Break up those solid colors.  The People will love that.  Give their eyes a break. 

 

Only I.T. cares about 2 Gig of RAM Cache & Progressive Backups.  Geek Cool.

[NYPoke]

We are up & running.  Really smooth so far.  A few checkboxes needed a different pen color.  It appears to be a little slower on general navigation.  Users were not happy about the Paste function now bringing in original formatting, but Control-Z clears it.  Not a big deal.

 

Our bigger processes are really slow, twice as slow.  The Importing takes a lot longer now.  Not a big hit for us though.

 

Overall, A++ for the conversion.  We might have problems closing tonight, but everybody is working like nothing changed.