Excelisys Custom Database eX Cetera Blog

Excelisys Sponsors the FileMaker Developer Conference, Again!

July 23rd, 2009

Excelisys is once again a major sponsor for the FileMaker Developer Conference. Excelisys has been a sponsor for the FileMaker DevCon for the last 7 years, this the largest gathering of FileMaker developers in world.

Join us at the Hilton San Francisco on O’Farrell Street, August 13-16, Thursday through Sunday for the annual FileMaker Developer Conference 2009. You’ll get the most intensive technical FileMaker educational opportunity of the year and you can stop by our booth and get some advice, assistance, and maybe a goodie or two to take home!

Excelisys Featured in Latest Adatasol FileMaker Podcast

April 21st, 2009

A group from Excelisys consisting of Andrew Persons, Mike Duncan and Geoff Ryle recently participated in the recording of an Adatasol podcast that was just released. We had a great time, and enjoyed talking tech and FileMaker with co-hosts Dan Weiss and Theo Gantos. In the podcast, we discussed our latest free “tips-n-tricks” postings that take advantage of FileMaker Pro 10‘s new script triggers feature. Check out this and past podcasts at their website or on iTunes.

Excelisys to Appear on Adatasol Podcast

April 2nd, 2009

A group from Excelisys consisting of Andrew Persons, Mike Duncan and Geoff Ryle participated in the recording of an Adatasol podcast last night. We had a great time, and enjoyed talking tech and FileMaker with co-hosts Dan Weiss and Theo Gantos. In the podcast, we discussed our latest free “tips-n-tricks” postings that take advantage of FileMaker Pro 10‘s new script triggers feature. Check out past podcasts at their website or on iTunes, and stay tuned for our upcoming episode.

Drag and Drop-Dead Elegant Interfaces

January 28th, 2009

Everyone at Excelisys loves to hear that rhetorical question asked: “Woah! You can do THAT in FileMaker?” Oh yeah, you can. Well this is one of those moments, and we just posted a demo file and white paper about it up on our Excelisys web site.

http://www.excelisys.com/tips-tricks-filemaker-downloads.php

With the new script triggers introduced in the recently released FileMaker Pro 10, we all can now deliver a richer user experience to our customers – one that incorporates a familiar and elegant interface mechanism: drag-and-drop.

The new demo file we’ve posted is fully unlocked, requires FileMaker Pro 10, and includes three interface examples of the drag-and-drop technique. There is also an embedded PDF white paper that further explains how the whole thing is built, with sample code.

The most obvious use is sorting. Let’s say you’re in a band and you’re trying to organize a set list. Just drag the song titles into the order you want, or change it up again just by dragging. How long have we wanted this feature?

Another great use is building a list. Let’s say you’re managing the receiving dock in a warehouse and you have two lists: the one on the left shows four items ordered on a PO, while the list on the right is blank but will include the items you are receiving. Today you only received one item, so you drag that item from the list on the left into the list on the right. Easy, right?

But here’s yet another great example: nesting in a hierarchical interface. We’ve previously posted a tip on how to build a hierarchical interface, so here’s how to – BAM! – kick it up a notch. Let’s say you have an outline for a presentation, and you decide to move some of your subtopics to another parent topic. By just dragging the subtopic to another topic in the list, you have rearranged your outline – any nested subtopics in the item you moved are automatically moved with it, just as you’d expect.

And that’s when it hits you…   THIS is FileMaker???

These great techniques, examples and white papers are brought to you (once again) by eX-Team Senior Developer Andrew Persons.

Can you think of any other great drag-and-drop example ideas? Leave us a comment and tell us about it, and if applicable let us know how this technique helped you in your projects.

Conversations With Harry

January 21st, 2009

Harry Glos and I had an interesting conversation this week when he asked me to compare details of our Excelisys Business Tracker 2.0 with other “pre-fab” solutions available for FileMaker Pro 10, to post in his forum in the FileMaker Cafe.

Harry has a great disposition and you can tell he REALLY loves his FileMaker, and our solution. I was impressed with the questions he asked, and saw that he appreciated the true benefits of the eX-BizTracker, most important being its multi-user foundation. More of a “smart jump-start”, this design resolves many common issues developers find with “templates” that at first appear useful but ultimately require a great deal more customization to reach this level of detail and control in a multi-user environment. Not to mention the fact that it’s FREE and UNLOCKED. If you haven’t checked out the eXBT yet, go here and see for yourself how Excelisys has taken the idea of a “template” to a whole new level.


Free FileMaker Pro 10 Template

January 21st, 2009

Now that FileMaker Pro 10 is out, what are you going to do with it? Better yet, what can it do for YOU? If you want to learn about some of the new features, go to http://www.fmstartingpoint.com/ and take a look at their free FM Starting Point template.

At Excelisys, we love the idea of free templates — anything that can help jump-start a project. This was one of the reasons we agreed to build the FileMaker Business Tracker in 2005 for FileMaker Inc. We then updated it as the eX Biz Tracker 2 for FileMaker 9 in 2007, unlocked and completely free. In today’s economy, free goes a long way.

After reviewing all the free templates, give us a call. We can modify them to fit your needs or create a custom FileMaker solution for you.

Toll Free (866) 592-9235 or fill out our Services Request Form


Change the icon color in FileMaker Pro

January 21st, 2009

So You just got the latest copy of FileMaker Pro. Looks great. Installed in your dock and ready to go. All you need to do now is click the icon in the dock and away you go. But wait, you have FileMaker 8, FileMaker 8.5, FileMaker 9 Advanced all in your dock already. If you do you know what the problem is already. ALL the icons are the same! Here is a quick fix to save your sanity.

To so this video in higher quality click the YouTube logo on the video and then click “Watch in High Quality”


FileMaker 10!

January 6th, 2009

FileMaker just announced FileMaker 10 today. What is new? Should I upgrade? Go check out the new features at Filemaker and then go see our friends at six fried rice for a more detailed look at what has changed.

Don’t forget to look at the Server version over here. Do you need FileMaker Server? Take this quiz to find out. If you don’t like quizzes I will give you a hint, Yes!



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