ISO FileMaker Magazine

What do the following have in common? Products with component parts, generations of people, complex study topics with prerequisites and a chain of historically related events. Yep, you guessed it, it's a hierarchy of things. Something which comes before another thing and are somehow tied together.

Within any database system, this is easily accomplished with two simple fields. Yet, facilitating the navigation of the content can be accomplished in a number of ways. One of the more common methods for moving up or down any hierarchy is to use what are known in the UI world as breadcrumbs.

When your number of levels is beyond two, you can implement breadcrumbs into your user interface and provide a lot of UI coherence. In this video, we walk through the data structure as well as what's required to use FileMaker's tab panels in order to accomplish this task in the most efficient manner. If you're taking users down (and up) any hierarchy, then you need to know how to use this technique! This video and the technique file will provide you with all the know-how and code to get it done.

Within the world of FileMaker development, there are always those golden gems which become the hallmarks of "how to do something" - despite there often being more than one way to solve a problem. For managing lists of data, prior to the existence of the While function, the go-to custom function is CustomList. When it comes to variable output display using a portal you'll almost always reference Virtual List as the commonly understood approach.

When it comes to saving user state, there's always been a number of ways accomplish this. But, for my part, I'm going to declare Layout Variables as the way to solve many issues when it comes to saving user state in FileMaker.

While the term "Layout Variables" can apply to either locally scoped variables or global ones used within the layout, the concept is such that you're using variables to store things for the specific layout the user is on. When it comes to saving state, whether for the specific session or in order to persist, there has to be a simple and easy way to store, reference and retrieve these values and I think that solution is finally here. In this video, I showcase the Custom Functions and methods I use to implement Layout Variables.

If your FileMaker solution has a need to maintain state and make it easy to both store and restore global variables used for the user interface, then you simply must watch this video.

When "dark mode" finally creeps into your operating system, you know it's time you consider the trend and possibly adapt your FileMaker user interface as well. Although, "light mode" is still perfectly acceptable too!

In this video, I walk through some of the tips and tricks I use in order to style a FileMaker user interface into a "dark mode" theme. I cover topics such as where and how to find colors, how to deal with grid settings and how to generally convert a light theme into a dark one.

If you've been considering giving your FileMaker UI a facelift, then I'm sure you'll find some valuable goodies in this video about converting a theme into a "dark mode" compatible one.

When you need to display data which is dynamic by nature, it tends to boil down to who's viewing the data and how do they need it presented. There's typically more than one way to solve the same problem and knowing what your options are helps you make a good decision when it comes to displaying that data.

In this video, I showcase what I would consider are the top three methods of displaying dynamic data. Starting with the easiest method first, we talk about how to make things easier by using a templating method to get the dynamic data on screen or for hard copy output.

From there, I discuss the other options you can use for presenting data dynamically from within FileMaker.

There are all kinds of methods for using indicators within FileMaker. We have multi-segment button bars, using the Hide calculation on any number of layout objects and, of course, there's simply using text alone to indicate something. In one of my more recent projects, I needed to group duplicates together.

While normally you'd want to rid your system of duplicates, this particular use case actually wanted them retained as an indication of importance or urgency. So, what was really needed was a method to indicate which members were part of a duplicate group or not.

Within this video article you'll find a very good use of a variety of methods to identify a duplicate and then indicate if it's part of a group of duplicates.

If you've ever have a need for this type of display, you're in luck. And, even if you don't, you'll learn how you can make one record aware of its neighbors. Of course, what you do with that information is between you and your records. ;)

Hopefully, we can all agree that when something is more fully refined, it's the craftsmanship which showcases the higher quality of the work. The time and effort put into making something that much cleaner and that much more efficient.

Such is the case with enhancing FileMaker's portals. Sure, you can use portals as they're provided, and you'll certainly get all the benefits of using them "as is". But, what happens when you want your solution to be that much easier to use and that much more impressive?

That's when you take the opportunity to enhance your portals such that they're more attractive and more user friendly. In this video, we take a look at the various steps you can take to make your portals a bit more attractive and in most cases more useful.

Over my many years of working with FileMaker Pro, I've often talked about adding in a multiple selection feature. Whether working within FileMaker's List View or working with portal rows, this can be a critical feature for allowing users to make selections and then being able to take some type of action against that selection.

Whatever the desired result is, such as processing the data, saving the set, or just being able to see a set of selected records, knowing what your options are, and how to implement is certainly worthwhile.

In this video, I walk through the use of a variety of custom functions and show the multiple options possible when considering a multi-selection technique for record rows. This video is great tool for understanding what can be done and how to implement a multiple-selection strategy.

Over the years, I've created a number of videos which showcase saving the state of various situations. For example, saving how many and which windows a user has open, saving the window positions and also saving the state of which panels are selected on multi-panel objects. Such as tab panels and sliders.

In this video, we revisit the topic because we now have a newer function within FileMaker 18 which makes it even easier to save which panels are frontmost within your user UI. While I personally think this is something FileMaker should do natively, it's currently under our control. With a little bit of code, we can easily keep track of which panes are frontmost and then restore those panes when navigating through the solution.

If keeping things clean and easy for your users is something you desire, then this video will have both the sample code and the instruction you need in order to take full advantage of FileMaker's While() statement and how to keep track of what's going on in the UI while the user is using it.

As the number of web sites hosting icon collections has grown over the years, it makes little sense to have your own collection of icons custom created at a costly premium. Typically, you can find pretty much any icon you could ever want to use and in many cases, you can even modify the icon to fit your specific needs if you need a slight variation.

With the release of Creative Commons licensing, a wide array of freely available collections and the easy ability to modify icons, you can quickly create exactly what you need for most any FileMaker app.

In this video, I go over the recently released Elemental FM Icon database and I cover all the details and specifics about my own personal icon workflow. From finding the right icon to getting it into FileMaker quickly, you'll learn all kinds of information about working with SVG icons.

It's just like when you see someone who is well-dressed, clean and sharp looking, your FileMaker user interface is no different. You're more impressed by that sharp, clean look. In this regard, not having something on your user interface is quite possibly one of the very things which makes your user interface look that much cleaner.

Portals and list views, pretty much anything which repeats itself many times, can be very overwhelming when there are a lot of options. Quite simply, if there are too many buttons, it's too cluttered.

In this video, we talk about getting those buttons off your user interface and making them available only when needed. It's a great way to start to clean up your user interface and make sure that certain option are only available after the user has made the selection of where they want to go next.

It's a simple concept, but one which is often ignored by newer developers because the examples they are shown do not take advantage of the opportunities to hide these types of buttons. So, we end up with FileMaker solutions which are littered with buttons on every list view row and every portal row. So, let's get rid of them until they are needed!