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Our Library of Videos

842 videos found.
FileMaker REST using BaseElements Plugin 07/15/2016 - 3:54pm

REST (Representational state transfer) has quickly become the de facto standard for communication between services and apps. Before it, came SOAP and XMLRPC, but the two buzzwords you’ll hear over and over these days are REST and JSON.

When it comes to FileMaker, you’ve always been able to do super basic REST with the Insert from URL script step. Later down the road, FileMaker added in support for the POST method of service interaction with the httpspost:// url scheme.

While the basics are always nice to have, you can’t do much beyond access public services with what FileMaker provides natively. If you’re ever going to work with a truly powerful API such as those offered by YouTube, FaceBook, Twitter, Google Apps and Vimeo, then you have to use something a bit more powerful.

Fortunately, for FileMaker developers, we have a number of possibilities. One of those options is the freely available BaseElements plugin. The plugin can access pretty much access any web service and will allow you to perform the full suite of possible interactions. It uses the very popular cURL library behind the scenes and with a little bit of knowledge, you’ll be interacting with web services in no time.

If you have the need for integrating true REST client functionality within a FileMaker solution, then you’ll be glad you watched this video!

List View Record Jumping 07/08/2016 - 12:18pm

When developing your solutions for users, you can’t always account for how easy they think things should work. You do your best, but without user testing, they’re essentially stuck with what you initially create. You can, however, put in features which you think will make usability more convenient for them.

Many times, these convenience features can be a bit complicated to implement. Fortunately, with more recent versions of FileMaker, the task of adding in such features has become much easier.

In this video, I showcase a technique for jumping to a given section within a sorted sub-summary list view. I’ve shown this feature in the past, but this implementation is specific to an alphabetical sorting of last names. It can easily be copied into any solution by simply copying one custom function, one script and a few layout elements.

Watch this video if you want a deeper understanding of how to implement this type of functionality into any FileMaker solution. Knowing how to create a recursive custom function and integrating it into useful UI widgets is what this video is all about.

Capturing data with Google Forms 06/30/2016 - 7:37pm

One of FileMaker’s best advantages is its ability to quickly provide an interface to common data tasks. Sorting, filtering and analysis, via automated routines, make a database system better suited to routine tasks. Primarily, because you can control the user interface.

Typically, spreadsheet users don’t think in terms of disjointed data. Boiling data down into a relational model is something which takes a bit of patience and know-how. Data collection, however, is easily done within a spreadsheet because it’s super simple. Rows and Columns, rows and columns.

When distributed data collection becomes a high priority and handling scale is important, then using FileMaker Server’s Web Direct technology isn’t always the ideal solution.

If collecting data from thousands of people within a short period of time is needed, then there are only a few options when it comes to FileMaker. You can provide a distributed database file which runs on mobile and import all the individual files into one or you can use a free service like Google Forms.

The route of using Google Forms is both immediate and easy. The software, a browser, is already on the device and the problem of displaying and allowing user interaction is already solved. All you need to do is create the form and then create the system around it.

In this video, you’ll learn the ins-and-outs of using Google Forms in conjunction with a FileMaker system. If quick and easy is your goal for data collection, then it doesn’t get much easier than this!

Dynamic Record Tagging 06/22/2016 - 5:54pm

One of the best parts of developing within FileMaker Pro is that you don’t need to create every single thing from scratch. For example, having a Popover widget at the ready for immediate use in any layout is a really big benefit. It’s an automatic space saver.

However, what FileMaker doesn’t have built-in are certain features you might expect in most modern day software. How about a tagging feature which allows users to tag records and find those records on demand. This is something which isn’t built into FileMaker Pro. So you have to create the feature.

Well, we can certainly build one into any system within a short amount of time. Knowing how to use FileMaker’s Hide Calculation, Button Bars and script triggers allows for a very nice feature addition.

In this video, I’ll show you how to integrate a user-friendly dynamic record tagging solution which can be used in any FileMaker database. It takes advantage of the default checkbox widget and can be modified to suit your solution’s needs very easily. Sit back and relax as we learn more about using FileMaker to provide valuable user features!

Product Review of FMPerception 06/16/2016 - 1:17pm

FileMaker Database analysis has been around since the days when FileMaker made its meta data available through its Database Design Report - or DDR for short.

The report, for as long as I can recall, has been available in the human readable HTML format and also in the machine language format of XML.

Various developers have always made use of this verbose collection of tidbits about a database, but none have made it as fast as FMPerception. This newly released database analysis tool is the fastest information tool possible for answering questions about FileMaker Pro systems.

If you have any type of question about what’s used where and how within your database, then the fastest answers will come from FMPerception. Its especially helpful when working on a larger system or working within a team and you want to track what others have done to the solution.

This video provides a walkthrough of how to use FMPerception and how you can integrate it into your everyday development workflow.

Developer Time Savers 06/08/2016 - 7:01pm

When you’re in the “zone” while developing, it feels really good to get stuff done. You feel like you’re “flow”-ing through the problems and simply knocking them out one by one.

That feeling which comes from achieving “flow” is often hard to have when you hit situations where you feel like you’re being hindered by the environment or a lack of knowledge. Having to stop for research or fumbling through the development environment is one of those necessary evils. It’s the learning part that takes the time and being super familiar with the environment is when the “flow” arrives - ultimately, it’s a great feeling.

This week’s video is all about finding that “flow” much quicker within FileMaker. Having worked within the environment for a couple of decades, I can say you really only have to focus on the new stuff as it comes out. You’re not overwhelmed by all the other stuff you know you don’t know. This degree of leverage really affords a great sense of developmental confidence.

If learning how to “flow” within FileMaker is one of your own objectives, then allow me to show you some of my personal tips and tricks when it comes to getting stuff done quickly within FileMaker Pro.

(Re)Theming Solutions 06/02/2016 - 3:57pm

As FileMaker Inc adds new features and functionality to FileMaker, it’s really easy for older projects to start to feel like they’re aging pretty quickly. Fortunately, one of the easiest fixes to make is to give things a brand new look and feel.

The process, however, of going about a re-theming isn’t always as easy as it seems. You’ve got new layout objects which may have been added and there are a ton of “older tricks” which may be replaced with newer ways of doing things.

Without going down the rabbit hole of a complete do-over, you can start re-theming with a good starter theme.

In this video, I showcase how I tackle the project of starting a new project or re-theming and existing solution. It’s a process which can put new life into an older project. You just need to have a good place to start and a way to approach the process. That’s what this particular video is all about. Taking full advantage of FileMaker’s Theming tools!

Native Responsive Text Objects 05/27/2016 - 8:42am

Nothing screams responsive more than text which grows or shrinks based on the device upon which it’s being viewed. The sad part of the previous statement is that FileMaker does not provide a native way of doing this. There’s no Conditional Formatting which says when Get ( WindowContentWidth ) > 768 scale the font size by 120%.

There is, however, a quaint little trick you can do with a few of FileMaker’s native functions along with a powerful Custom Function named CustomList. When you know how to piece things together, you can easily accomplish native responsive text within FileMaker.

This inside information is very valuable when you’re designing for a number of mobile devices. You can, for example, design a splash or a floating dialog layout and have its text content scale respectively of the device it’s being viewed upon.

Your 16pt text for the iPhone will easily become 34pt text for the iPad Pro. It’s a simple matter of knowing how to natively scale the text responsively. Fortunately, as a subscriber of this site, you’ll know how to do this in very short time!

Using Utility Scripts 05/18/2016 - 7:16pm

Learning how to efficiently create scripts within FileMaker is a never ending process. It's a balance of leveraging what you know and mixing in newly added features along with new ways of doing things. Optimization and cleanup will always be part of the ever growing software solution.

In this video, I present the topic of using utility scripts in order to save precious development time. You know, those reusable scripts which prevent you from writing unique and dedicated scripts for every possible scenario in which the user will interact with your solution.

They're the scripts which end up saving you a ton of time and get used over and over again. They can be used stand-alone or they can be called by other scripts. But, no matter how they are used, it's certain they are valuable pieces of reusable code.

If saving time and reducing the number of scripts you write is of any interest, then this video will have the information you need.

FileMaker 15 Released 05/10/2016 - 6:37pm

FileMaker 15 was released on May 10th 2016 and includes a few key new technologies.

While much of the focus was on the mobile end of things, there are some speed improvements along with some convenience features which will make working in FileMaker 15 just a bit more enjoyable!

FileMaker Inc. released version 15 on May 10th. Did you miss the news? If so, then here’s a video which goes through the shortlist of new features.

One of the biggest changes was internal in terms of how FileMaker is saving cached data and layouts. FileMaker is now maintaining more resources after closing files so that opening a solution will seem MUCH faster. This is probably where a significant amount of development effort and dollars were spent.

You know, just laying in some ground work to make things perceptively faster for end users and developers. Now, if they will only give us developers control over local caching on a Layout-by-layout basis!

The number of new features, from a developer, perspective is pretty small. Unless you really need some of the new mobile related features, I’d say the biggest benefit to a FileMaker developer is the nicer colorful icons in Layout mode and the culmination of the various tweaks. Hopefully, the next annual release will contain a ton of wiz-bang features made just for developers. Regardless of meager feature additions, the developer perception when working on a remotely hosted database will be pretty significant!

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