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Our Library of Videos
While barcodes have been around for decades, and we all know how fundamental they are to everyday life, it doesn't mean your last implementation is still the best way to integrate them. Technology is always changing and it's moving forward while new technologies replace older ones. A barcode which used to be in JPEG format can now be in the scalable SVG format.
In this video, I walk through the use of a JavaScript library which allows for the easy creation of SVG barcodes. This works without a specific font and allows for a scalable file which can be integrated into a PDF or any other type of output. Need barcode support on FileMaker Go on iOS? Need to generate barcodes client side on either Mac or Windows?
If you're building a solution which needs to use barcodes, and you're looking for the least expensive option, then you can't get much better than a commercially free JavaScript library. All it takes is a little bit of know-how and you're creating barcodes in very little time!
FileMaker Pro has a wonderful PDF generator. In fact, one of the biggest benefits of using FileMaker for the purpose of output is that you can make any layout look exactly how you'd like and with a few script steps, you've got PDF output which will fit 95% of the situations you'll come across.
There are, however, certain situations where knowing how to generate a PDF using JavaScript, from within a Web Viewer, will give you the exact results you're looking for.
There are a number of advantages with this approach. First, it can be SUPER fast when generating the PDF and second, you can selectively decide what you want to output from within the whole of your HTML. So, if you're using HTML to present a lot of information, but only want a PDF of a portion of that HTML, then you can certainly accomplish that with this technique.
Even if you don't need the exact functionality of HTML -> PDF output there's a lot to learn from this video if you've never used JavaScript in order to call a FileMaker script and pass in some data.
While FileMaker's own Layout Mode provides excellent tools for formatting data for display and output, it isn't always the most convenient for certain types of output. A prime example is a pivot table. Or, the output of data which is normally columnar formatted into a horizontal format.
When attempting to do this with native FileMaker functionality, it quickly becomes a bit of a hassle, typically including more relationships than should be otherwise necessary.
There are solutions which can make use of repeating horizontal fields, but these typically have a hard limit and the width of the data does not dictate the largest column width. If you work creatively with HTML/CSS and the other available features within FileMaker, you can realize a more flexible solution for horizontal data display and output!
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.
Managing user accounts within FileMaker is pretty easy and straight forward. This, however, is an aspect of access control which only applies to what a user can do within the world of FileMaker's interface.
When it comes to your own solution's user interface, it doesn't exist until you create it. And, of course, FileMaker knows nothing about what you create. It's just a tool. This means it's up to you to add your own security controls.
In order to do this, you need to take advantage of all of FileMaker's security controls. Once you understand how to use these controls, you can create an access system which has various levels of access and allows some users to advance or reduce the access of other users. If you have a database which needs to have managers, employees and various levels of access then you need to watch this video.
In the world of serialized data, there's only been a few key technologies and XML was certainly the forerunner. It's been around since the mid 90's and was originally added into FileMaker around version 5 - if memory serves. The implementation of XML/XSLT/XPATH wasn't fully complete with compatible functions and it only works as an import and export feature via the use of an XSLT style sheet.
Learning XSLT and XPATH weren't the easiest things to do and as computing moved forward, so did other technologies. Now, with JSON and JavaScript taking the programming world by storm, we have a new method of serialization and this one is baked into FileMaker.
So, these days, you have the choice of learning xpath and using a plug-in in order to extract data out of XML or you can just convert it into a format such as JSON for simply pulling the data out using FileMaker 16's new JSON functions. With this technique file, and video, you'll be well on your way to extracting data out of XML files if you need to do so.
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.
While creating videos on my YouTube channel for my beginner/intermediate series of videos, a viewer asked if I would create a video about migrating from using Serial values as primary/foreign keys to using UUID key values.
The process is actually quite simple, but not so obvious when you start thinking about all the scripting you might have to do for all the various tables and connections within your solution. The benefits of switching to a UUID key based system is that you no longer have worry about duplicates with disconnected files and you also gain the piece of mind that you don't have to worry about updating the serial value every time you perform an export/import process for updating a database which is not updated directly within production.
So, in this video, I show the easiest method for moving from using serial key values to using the more modern UUID values. If you have an older FileMaker system and you'd like to update it to UUID keys, then this video should have all the info you need.
When FileMaker, Inc. released the new theming system for FileMaker Pro a while back, they made one of the best decisions possible for a development platform. They chose to go with an industry standard instead of rolling their own solution.
The standard they chose to use was CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). While their implementation was specific to the platform, and the whole "cascading" part didn't really apply, the choice was a good one.
Today, the upside is the fact that it's the same language of the web. The same which is used to provide ultimate control over how everything looks on a given web page. Essentially, full power and control to the designer or developer. The downside, in FileMaker's case, is they can only expose certain aspects of the CSS as their internal development resources allow. They have to keep moving the product forward in other areas as well as the user interface.
So, knowing that CSS is behind the scenes, there are certain things we can do to modify the look and feel beyond what FileMaker's Inspector palette exposes. This video is about a certain insider trick which can make your use of a company logo infinitely easier when it comes time to make a simple change down the road. Check it out!