ISO FileMaker Magazine

When first learning structure and schema within any development environment, including FileMaker, the question of “Am I doing this the right way?” always seems rear its ugly head. The answer to that question, however, is not “Yes” or “No” but the more frustrating “It depends”. The reason for this ambiguous response is that the needs of the solution often dictate how it should be structured.

True, there are common pitfalls which should be avoided when planning out the structure of your database. Also, understanding fundamentals, like using a join tables, and how to get at the data you wish to display always depend on where the data resides. In this video, I showcase one of many approaches to managing groups of people. Information about how breaking down a common sentence of requested features can reveal a lot, and how to formulate your angle of attack.

If structuring data is something you’ve always had an issue with then this video may have the insight to help move you along.

Learning how to create an efficient FileMaker database requires multiple disciplines. How to efficiently store data, how to present data, how to optimize for performance and other similar objectives such as readable code and ongoing maintenance. Much of what you know now will evolve with what you learn as your solution grows. I’m often saying it’s important to know that how you store data may be much different than how you present and interact with that same data.

It really all depends on the solution objectives. A database which groups people based on their area code needs an area code field - obviously. However, in many cases, the data itself simply needs to be stored. The degree to which data is broken out, from the outset, really depends on the requirements. If all you need to store is a phone number which can be looked up in part or in whole, then a single field, used to store more than just a phone number, may be what’s needed.

This video is about how simple it can be to structure and interact with data in a very efficient method. It focuses on how data can be categorized and simply identified within the table where it’s stored. Determining how to classify the data is simply a matter of recognizing its obvious pattern in relation to all other data being collected.

Because humans create so many patterns, these patterns can be used to make things easier when collecting data.

It's great to be able to build all kinds of things within FileMaker. It's those few times when you find yourself saying "I wish FileMaker could just do such and such".

Of course, once you come to the point where you realize that FileMaker has access to all these other great technologies, you find yourself saying "I wonder how", instead of "I wish". Along the way, someone comes upon some discovery which allows you to do more with FileMaker than was previously known. Sometimes, using a hack that the programmers of FileMaker never even intended, yet there it is, ready for you to use.

It's actually pretty funny that much of what FileMaker users/developers stumble upon are unintended features by the FileMaker engineers. Then, somewhere down the road, these features become integrated as native functionality.

Well, one of those features is support for a hover event. While FileMaker doesn't offer them natively, you can certainly do this within a web browser. Combine the fact that FileMaker can trigger scripts using a url and you now have Hover Popovers and pretty much any other type of script being run as a result of hovering over a FileMaker object.

This video presents all the information needed to take advantage of hover based events. Even though it is sort of a hack.

Inside of FileMaker is one of the most powerful engines you could ever hope for. It's not even the native FileMaker calculation engine. It has almost two decades of optimization applied to it, and much of the world's most popular software takes full advantage of it. It's JavaScript - and you have access to it.

If you don't (yet) know JavaScript then you can't say "Oh, I just do FileMaker". Because doing so is the same as saying "Oh, I don't really care about solution speed."

In this video article and technique file, you'll find some of the most powerful code for accessing things FileMaker can't currently do and this extends well beyond the topic of sorting.

When it comes to sorting data, not records, there's no native 'filemaker' way of doing this. The solution is typically either FileMaker's custom functions, some creative trick with sorting records or using a plugin.

However, with the use of the readily available JavaScript, you can sort all kinds of things in all kinds of ways. This video will gently introduce you to using one of the tools you should certainly have in your mental toolbox!