ISO FileMaker Magazine

One of the biggest downsides of any complex FileMaker solution is the growing number of layouts and layout elements you'll have to manage. If your number of navigation (or general menu) items is both static and large, then you're going to have issues with keeping the solution well updated. Aside from this, you could have additional complexity when it comes to controlling which menu items show under certain circumstances.

While there are number of ways to make menu management easier, the best solution for most any code is to maintain it within a singular location. Allowing that code, and singular layouts, to serve your whole solution, and be flexible enough to vary when necessary, is ideal. This is exactly what this video and technique file are all about. Not only is this solution one of the most easy-to-manage solutions for a menu system, but, it's also one of the most incredibly easy menu systems I've ever created. Once you see the simplicity of management it's hard to think of going back to anything more complex.

Here's a hint about how it works. If you've used and love the flexibility of managing script steps within a script, then you'll fall in love with using Incredibly Easy Menus!

One of the key reasons for using a database is having a single source of truth. When the possibility for duplicates enters the equation of "truth" we have a problem.

Dealing with duplicates comes in the forms of cleaning and removing them and preventing them. One of your primary tools for preventing them is to use data validation.

It's simple really. You can only continue to do this unless these conditions are met. Everything must be valid. In Claris Studio/FileMaker your options for setting field level validations can be found within the field's options. Once you've set these options you're leaving it up to FileMaker to handle this for you. To be blunt, it isn't pretty.

You, as the developer, need to take control of the situation and handle the validations in a much more graceful manner. This is where you need to know the implications of the various validation settings and how to take control with a scripted process. This is where you'll learn how to do exactly that. Watching this video will give you the necessary insight to handle your validations exactly how you'd like to.

Get ( WindowMode ) can be really useful when used to vary what is shown within your user interface. This video will both introduce and show you how to take advantage of the function.

Claris FileMaker is continually adding new features in order to make things easier for developers. In the most recent release of version 19 we found a new function named Get ( PageCount ). This one function essentially emulates the combination of steps we needed to use to determine the total number of printed pages useful for adding a Page X of Y count to the bottom of a printable report. It's available for use within FileMaker Go, which is a big benefit.

However, while the addition of {{PageNumber}} of {{PageCount}} is super helpful, it does not address one of the more common scenarios we find in FileMaker development. That's the situation of a Multi-page report being generated from multiple different layouts. In that scenario we may have a cover page, a summary and then detailed output -all in one PDF report. All this data typically comes from different sets of related data.

So the solution we have above won't work for that type of report. On top of this, one of our standby methods of getting the page count of using the Enter Preview Mode script step simply doesn't function on FileMaker Go or Server. So, we need to create another method of accurately determining Page X of Y. Fortunately, that's what this video and technique file will provide for you. Yet another creative method of solving a common problem within Claris FileMaker. If you need to page number a multi-page report generated from multiple layouts then look no further!