ISO FileMaker Magazine

One of FileMaker's most advantageous tools added in recent years is the Button Bar. It was the first way to present dynamic, calculated content directly on the screen. This removed the need for the decades-long practice of adding "yet another unstored calculation field." You can calculate something and render it right on the screen.

Then, in FileMaker 20, we got a new layout object called Layout Calculations. While these now provide the same functionality as a Button Bar, they do so without the overhead of unnecessary behind-the-scenes CSS and other extras. However, they are not fully implemented; they don't update any of their calculation references. While this will eventually be fixed, there are unique uses for Layout Calculations that allow for some really cool features—like Render Fields.

In this video, we take a look at generating temporary images for the purpose of PDF generation, which then cease to exist after the script finishes running. These Render Fields can be 100% dynamic on a record-by-record basis and can display whatever you want using an unstored field to show the result. This allows you to multi-purpose a field for multiple layouts. Let's take a look at what Render Fields can provide for your FileMaker solution.

Claris FileMaker is continually adding new features in order to make things easier for developers. In the most recent release of version 19 we found a new function named Get ( PageCount ). This one function essentially emulates the combination of steps we needed to use to determine the total number of printed pages useful for adding a Page X of Y count to the bottom of a printable report. It's available for use within FileMaker Go, which is a big benefit.

However, while the addition of {{PageNumber}} of {{PageCount}} is super helpful, it does not address one of the more common scenarios we find in FileMaker development. That's the situation of a Multi-page report being generated from multiple different layouts. In that scenario we may have a cover page, a summary and then detailed output -all in one PDF report. All this data typically comes from different sets of related data.

So the solution we have above won't work for that type of report. On top of this, one of our standby methods of getting the page count of using the Enter Preview Mode script step simply doesn't function on FileMaker Go or Server. So, we need to create another method of accurately determining Page X of Y. Fortunately, that's what this video and technique file will provide for you. Yet another creative method of solving a common problem within Claris FileMaker. If you need to page number a multi-page report generated from multiple layouts then look no further!

When you think about printing these days, you probably think about saving the environment and just sending out the digital version. Of course, it turns out that many solutions still need to use the good old paper method and print something out. The great thing about having the data in a digital format beforehand is that you can preview the content before you actually hit that potentially wasteful print button.

This video covers just a few of the possible methods for previewing content created for output. You may have already discovered how easy it is to simply take a user into Preview Mode and allow them to make whatever choices FileMaker provides, but, you'll now have more options available as you can easily use a Dialog or Card window in order to present a more customized view of the possible options a user may have.

If you've struggled with automatically generating your printable reports as PDF files, and then injecting them into container fields, then you'll certainly love to learn from what this video has to offer!