ISO FileMaker Magazine

When you first develop your FileMaker solution you're typically dealing with sample and/or test data. Everything works great. It's fast and efficient and you're guessing users will just love using it. Until you hear feedback like "It takes forever to simply see a list of people to pick from."

As you scratch your head wondering why things got slow, it's likely because you didn't think about what's happening on every record of that simple little portal. Your once wonderful complex filter, which was working just fine on the 1,000 records, now chokes to death on the 10,000 records in the real world.

You ask yourself "Is there something I can do to make this faster?" and you find this video about Fast Filtering Portals. Yes, is the answer. You can optimize that portal filter such that the fewest number of CPU cycles are required in order to show a user's desired results. The trick is knowing how to make it happen with the tools we have available within FileMaker. Need to make your portal filters faster? This video will likely have the answer.

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!

Personally, I've always been dismayed by how portals are positioned within the world of FileMaker instruction. When I see other developers teach about portals, they start with the primary use of portals and then stop. They talk about how portals are there to show related data and that's about it. No way! That's certainly not the end of things. Portals are one of the primary ways to present data however you wish.

If portals were limited to simply showing related data based on a normalized schema structure, then we'd never have the flexibility we have within FileMaker. If you approach portals from the mindset of using them as a display tool, then you come up with all kinds of things you can do. There are three primary uses for portals - at least, this is how I personally think about them.

In this video, I show you what those three key uses are and how to actually implement them. If you're a beginner, then understanding the native portal is certainly the starting point. From there, you progress to the power-developer who uses the Multi-Key global and VirtualList approaches to using portals. This video covers all the core uses and gives you the foundation you need for using portals within FileMaker.

In FileMaker, once you've filtered a portal, which displays a subset of related data, there may be situations where you need to get that data out. A prime example is needing to further manipulate the data within a spreadsheet.

A recent solution I was developing had this exact need. I needed to filter some financial data based on a wide date range. Yet, I still needed smaller subsets, think categories, of financial data and wanted to pull that data into a spreadsheet for a separate purpose.

In order to make this even possible, we need to know the exact records being shown within the portal. There's a bit of a trick in order to make this happen such that you can get the data onto the clipboard. The great thing about FileMaker is if you can find the menu option, then you know it's a script step. Holding down a modifier key while looking at the edit menu, reveals that Copy becomes Copy All Records.

The method of loading the records to be copied, is actually quite useful in a wide variety of situations within FileMaker. If your solution ever has the need to directly copy data being viewed from a portal, then you'll find all the pieces to the puzzle in this video and technique file.