ISO FileMaker Magazine

For some developers who are new to FileMaker, they may not come from a background of having worked with SQL or some other query language. Creating joins on the fly, as data is needed, is a foreign concept. Yet, when you create a relationship within the Relationship Graph, you’re creating a join which will be permanent for the life of the file or until deleted. This isn’t the case with SQL based solutions.

With FileMaker, the notion of joins comes in the form of persistent relationships within the Relationship Graph. These persistent joins add to the complexity of your solution but stand at the ready to return whatever data you wish to present.

In this video, I walk through the process of breaking down how to extract specific data via relationships. It’s the dark arts of showing exactly what you want to show on screen or being able to isolate that data using a Go To Related records script step.

Whatever your needs are, knowing how to filter out your desired data is a key skill to have when working with FileMaker Pro.

We’ve all been inspired by the creativity and wide array of UI widgets which have come from the mobile side of computing. In fact, what you present and when/how you present it always offers the opportunity to find new ways if doing so. The whole swipe down to “rubber band” a refresh was a breath of fresh UI air.

When presenting users with options, one of the more common methods for presenting these is using a Pop-up menu. After making a selection in an initial menu a second menu presents options specific to the selection made in the first and so on down the tree. It’s a very common UI pattern.

Sometimes, however, this doesn’t quite work from a UI standpoint. It’s at this point in time when another option may be desired. If you’re comfortable with learning and using ExecuteSQL and how Virtual List works, then you’ll find that presenting a hierarchical tree of options can easily be managed within a single portal. Drilling down through the options and having a way to traverse back up the tree is everything you’ll find in this video. The sample file will have all the parts you need in order to copy into your own FileMaker solutions!

Earlier in the year I released a video about using Google Forms in order to capture and then import data into FileMaker Pro. The code I was personally using was a bit more advanced than what I wanted to show at that time, so I simplified the process.

Having implemented, and used, many more Google Forms since that time, and knowing that I was exercising a great degree of control over the import process, I decided to reveal it all.

So, in this video I showcase the method I use to verify that an import is exactly what you expect it to be. I use an MD5 hash, which FileMaker implemented in version 13 under the somewhat hidden feature of GetContainerAttribute(). Using an MD5 hash it’s possible to uniquely identify anything you could ever want to identify. It’s a fast hashing algorithm and it can be used for all kinds of features within your FileMaker database. You can determine if a collection of fields has been changed. Whether an image has been modified or, in this case, whether an import file meets your exact criteria.

If you deal with imports and you like knowing that a file will match the expectations of your scripts then this video will provide a wealth of information regarding that process!

When was the last time you opened the Relationship Graph and heard that little voice say “Wow, you’ve gotta clean this up!”? Maybe it was yesterday, maybe it was just a few moments ago.

Whenever the voices come, it’s a pretty easy task to accomplish when you apply some solid understanding to how the graph works and what it represents in the whole of your solution.

If code could write itself, then organization would never be necessary because no one would need to maintain or revise it. It would simply rewrite itself as needed. Sort of like how a tree grows. When a new branch is needed, it just starts to grow. Unfortunately, you’re the gardner of your own creations so you need to apply some forethought to what you create when working in the Relationship Graph.

In this video, I provide my own personal insights into how I approach the graph and what I think makes for an easier solution to maintain. When you consider how complex a FileMaker solution can quickly become, the notion of keeping things easy to work with should be a high priority.