ISO FileMaker Magazine

Don't get me wrong, FileMaker has a lot of cool things it can do all on its own. In fact, they keep adding more and more useful tools which makes it easy to create great working software.

There are, however, those certain things that FileMaker just can't do on it's own. For example, you can't interact with images within container fields quite like you can certain web pages. Yet, right in front of us, we have the wonderfully powerful Web Viewer which exposes access to the power of JavaScript and all those wonderfully free libraries.

Enter the common scenario where an easy-to-understand image file directly represents a nicely complex data structure. We'd like to use the image to navigate the data and we can certainly add it directly to a layout and overlay buttons over it. But, hold your horses there señor gung-ho developer. What if your image is so complex that it would be absolutely tiny if you placed it on the layout at 100%.

Well, that's when we ring up our wonderful friend Mr. SVG. He'll take care of us. He's scalable you know! So, how about a zoomable and clickable SVG which directly represents how we'd like users to navigate the data? No problem!

FileMaker 16's new Card Windows have opened the flood gates for all kinds of new methods for presenting information. Not least of which are your common dialogs and wizards. But, what about using them for navigation? Why not?

In fact, you'll find so many benefits from using a Card Window, for the purpose of navigation, you may think it makes little sense to use anything else. Especially, when you want the navigation to both hide and reveal as needed.

In this video, we walk through a wonderful technique of using a Card Window for the purpose of sidebar navigation. Not only does it blend in well with the user interface but it retains which menus were collapsed and which were expanded. It works in both Form view and List view. Overall, it's one of the best methods you can choose for solution navigation if you're using FileMaker 16 or later.

Hacking away at FileMaker objects seems to be the theme for a few of my most recent videos. In this video, I'm back at it and hacking again on Tab Panels. These ever so useful layout objects allow you to show a ton of information on screen by allowing users to reveal what's important to them when they want to see it.

Through understanding how individual layout objects are composed, we can take a crack at customizing them in ways in which are not current possible - at least not through FileMaker's inspector palette.

And so, a handy little tool is born for performing a simple little task. Making iOS-looking native FileMaker tab panels.

If you're creating any type of solution for iOS and using either FileMaker Go or the iOS SDK for FileMaker, then this video will help you make your FileMaker user interface that much sweeter!

One of the most wonderful things about FileMaker 16's release were Card Windows. While we've been able to create new windows for quite some time, the number of controls afforded those windows was limited. With card windows we can now present those windows within the main window. This provides for any other context than the current context.

You can show related records or completely unrelated records. The great thing about the card window is, like all windows, it can use any of the 3 possible views FileMaker provides. Need a list? Use List View. Need a form? Use Form View.

And, once the window is shown, it can present any number of records. In particular, it can show a related set of data which needs to be processed. The only thing missing is a progress bar to indicate the status of the processing of said records.

No problem, we'll just build the feature directly into our card window. That's what this video is all about. Using a card window in order to process a related set of records.

Making it easy for users to search for content is what your job is all about. If you're relying on FileMaker's default Query By Form method of searching, then many users may not know how to use the full functionality of FileMaker's search.

This is where you, as the developer, get to control how users interact with the data. By taking advantage of both FileMaker's QuickFind and the normal Query By Form, you can implement really nice features like an easy-to-use search bar.

In this video, we walk through the process of adding just such a search bar into the Custom Function database. If you're interested in learn about how you can take full control over the searching process then this video will provide you with a lot of insight!

FileMaker 16 introduced a new and very powerful feature. Its called Card Windows and they allow you to access a totally different context than what is currently being viewed.

If you're unfamiliar with what context is in FileMaker, then to put it plainly, it's the layout being viewed, its own associated table plus all related tables connected to that layout's table occurrence. It's what the current layout can "see" in terms of accessible data. Yep, that's a bit confusing if you're not super familiar with FileMaker. But, if you are, then congratulations, you should be able to see how powerful this new feature is.

The way FileMaker, Inc. has implemented Card Windows is a nice start. The Card Window is truly another window being drawn on the screen with the exception of being able to drag it around. It's a modal window which is typically presented within the parent of where it was created. In order to continue working in the user interface it must be dismissed. It's not quite like dynamic or context independent layout parts, but it's getting closer to the ultimate feature.

When you take the results you can get from a layout object's bounds ( its location and relative size ), using FileMaker's GetLayoutObjectAttribute function, you can put a few pieces together to make for a great windowing feature which allows you to draw a window wherever you want. This is enhanced by using the info supplied by a target layout object. It's a great feature for any solution where progressive disclosure is a desirable feature. Have too many elements and info on the screen? Use an Inline Card Window!

Our FileMaker Custom Function database is moving along quickly as we add more user-based features. The feature being added in this part of the series is a Tags/Tagging feature where it takes the concept of a “favorite” much further.

Rather than using a single field for tagging a record as a favorite, we’ll be using a join table and allowing the user to add as many different tags as desired. The implementation applies to “all users” of the database system, but could easily be modified to become a user centric tagging feature - such that each user could maintain their own set of tags and tagged records.

Understanding how to implement the full suite of options for interacting with tags is the key to making this feature so valuable for the user. This video will walk you through the pieces and parts of how to implement this useful functionality.

Moving forward with the Custom Function database project, we now have the opportunity to copy and paste our groups of custom functions. The trick to accomplishing this requires a modification to the singular copy/paste being used for a single custom function.

The database now needs to provide a list of functions, in the xml snippet format, to be copied to the clipboard. This is easily accomplished through the relationships and by modifying the original script.

If you’ve never had the problem where you needed to copy well structured data through a few relationships, then watching this video will give you some insight in the the various possible ways and the one way which may be the most simple when needing to copy that structured data to the clipboard.

Most everyone likes to know what's going on when something is happening. Being kept in the dark is something which causes possible anxiety and certainly a fair amount of impatience. So, it's always nice to provider your user with a little bit of status when there's some type of progress happening.

Fortunately, this is a very easy thing to solve when a lot of the work is already done for you. All you need to do is wire things up within a FileMaker web viewer.

Using the information within this video you can easily present your users with an indeterminate progress indicator. At least letting them know that something is happening rather than nothing.

There are all kinds of nice graphic tips and tricks within FileMaker and one of my most favorite is using the transparent line setting in order to create the rounded effect on multiple segment Button Bars.