Engineers at FileMaker Inc. have finally dispelled a rumor.
During the recent FileMaker Developer Conference in San Francisco last month, quite a few attendees approached us asking whether a statement heard in one of the sessions was true or not. It seems one of the presenters from FMI suggested the idea that Excelisys‘ now famous drag-n-drop technique was not necessarily reliable and should be used with caution.
The statement was made in recognition of the fact that the technique, which allows you to create a once-impossible user interface feature, is based on what engineers call an “unexpected behavior” which could possibly change in future versions of FileMaker Pro. However, this behavior is NOT a bug, and is in fact considered a feature by many developers.
The behavior in question is the fact that an auto-enter calc will trigger before a script trigger is executed. Discovering this behavior was a surprise to many, including FMI engineers.
We wanted to set the record straight, so we spoke with FileMaker engineers. The word finally came down from them this week that there is almost no likelihood of this behavior changing anytime soon. Of course, FMI can’t guarantee the low-level behavior will persist in future versions, nor would we expect them to. But we are confident that such a change is highly unlikely.
So relax and integrate this amazing technique into your solutions with confidence. The advice to use with caution is generally made when any technique is dependent on an unexpected behavior. But with a confirmation direct from the “horse’s mouth”, as it were, we consider this a green light.
South Bend, IN, September 3, 2009 — Excelisys, Inc., a database solutions and consulting organization specializing in quality custom database application design, development, and consulting for LAN, WAN, Web, and Mobile deployments, and a member of the FileMaker Business Alliance, is pleased to announce that all of their FileMaker® Pro development and consulting practices, abilities and methodologies are fully functional and 100% compliant with the new release of the Apple® Mac OS® X 10.6.
Snow Leopard Compatibility
All of the following Excelisys practices are fully compatible with Mac OS X 10.6, a.k.a. Snow Leopard: Initial Free Consultation, Project Scope Gathering, Design Specification Production, Estimating, Interim Build Delivering, Final Deployments, and most importantly, Ongoing Support.
“We are very excited and pleased that our services are 100% compatible and fully functional with this new Mac OS release,” said Christo, CEO and founder of Excelisys. “Our methods are now bug-free and ready to use!”
Scott Mosher, Business Development Manager at Excelisys, is confident that the company’s quick response time was a key element in their smooth transition. “Keeping up with evolving software and operating systems is integral to the success of any good development and consulting firm. At Excelisys, we worked quickly and efficiently to update our practices and policies to adapt to this new OS. We are most confident that our services will continue to be as rock solid as they have historically been, and plan to move forward with no interruptions.”
Geoff Ryle, President and Co-Founder of Excelisys, envisions immediate benefits for the company’s clients. “With the release of Snow Leopard, our clients can now enjoy enhanced productivity and superior performance with the solutions we build for them.”
“The entire computing industry is moving from 32-bit to 64-bit technology, and it’s easy to see why,” explained Greg Furry, VP of Technology at Excelisys. “Today’s Mac computers can hold up to 32GB of physical memory, but the 32-bit applications that run on them can address only 4GB of RAM at a time. 64-bit computing shatters that barrier by enabling applications to address a theoretical 16 billion gigabytes of memory, or 16 exabytes. Does that scare you? It shouldn’t. At Excelisys, we’ve been planning for the 64-bit changeover for 8 years.”
Snow Leopard Discount
To commemorate this auspicious occasion, Excelisys is offering discounted hourly rates until September 30th, 2009, and bonus hours based on time purchased and used. Call one of our FileMaker® experts today at 866-592-9235 or e-mail us at info@excelisys.com to find out the details of this extraordinary offer!
About Excelisys, Inc.:
For over 8 years, Excelisys, Inc. has been helping companies become more efficient, reliable, and profitable by providing excellent, integrity-driven consulting and development software services. From custom FileMaker® Pro database development and consulting, to the eX-File jump-start products, to Web Site/Application design, development and consulting services. Excelisys is should be your first strategic partner of choice for all your company’s technology needs.
Contact:
Excelisys, Inc.
South Bend, IN 46635
Phone (sales): 866-592-9235
Media Contact: 574-273-5805
Email: info@excelisys.com
Web: http://www.excelisys.com/
Copyright 2009 Excelisys, Inc. All rights reserved. FileMaker Pro is a registered trademark of FileMaker, Inc. Apple, Mac, and Snow Leopard are registered trademarks of Apple, Inc.
For our Octo-celebration Excelisys is offering an incredible gift good until the end of September; greatly discounted hourly rates and free time to those who make the wise decision to retain our services! If you have been looking for the right FileMaker, MySQL, Web, PHP consulting and development firm, you found it and now is a better time than any to act on it!
Excelisys was founded initially by Christo & Geoff Ryle on 9/1/01. The Excelisys organization initially started with only FileMaker Pro development and consulting services with Christo handling marketing, sales and administration duties, and Geoff acting as lead programmer and project manager. Both individuals shared many other responsibilities until they grew the team. Since then Excelisys has been honored to have some of the finest talent come, stay, and unfortunately go. With a client base of over 300+ and still growing steadily, Excelisys is pleased that despite this years economic “issues” they are still going strong!
Kurt Knippel, VP of production and a Project Manager stated “Excelisys, Inc. has brought together some of the finest individuals that I have ever had the pleasure to know and work with. The distributed office model has made possible the gathering into a single entity of a diverse group of people, not possible in a traditional centralized office model. I am honored to work with each and everyone of our management, sales and development staff.”
Geoff Ryle, President/Co-Founder and Project Manager bragged “Time sure flies when you’re having fun. When we started this company 8years ago, we had two main goals: to foster long-term technology relationships with our client and create a flexible and positive environment within which our developers can thrive and do their best. We’ve since grown our team to include some of the most talented developers I’ve had the pleasure to know, and in doing so have become a family that works, learns
and plays together.”
Scott Mosher, Account/Business Manager for Excelisys went on with “As Excelisys celebrates it’s 8th birthday, I celebrate my 3rd year as a Business Account Manager for them. Working with this team has been a great experience and different then with most. Although the Excelisys business model is untraditional in it’s work-from-anywhere model, all members perform in a very professional manner with outstanding communication and constant availability. This team consistently shows it’s flexibility and foresight by bending and morphing it’s strategies and dynamics to the current and rising trends in technology and development paradigms. It’s a pleasure and comfort working with such a spirited and progressive company.”
Greg Furry who is Excelisys’ CTO and also a Project Manager claimed “As Excelisys celebrates birthday number eight we stopped to ask. Is eight enough? Heck no! We are just getting started. Think about the tech scene 8 years ago. In September of 2001 the iPod® wasn’t even announced yet! We are excited to continue on the leading edge of high tech for years to come. We have assembled a team of developers, designer, writers and other techie type people across the country to design, develop and deploy solutions to make your life easier and far more productive. ”
Rick Middleton, Account/Business Manager for Excelisys says “Excelisys turns 8 years old this month, I’ve been with them for 3 1/2 years. It has been a wild ride. It still amazes me every day. There are experts in very area of our company, from the “new” tech toy, to the latest and greatest script trigger. Any time I have a question, a Project Manger or developer is ready willing and able to assist me, and they don’t even giggle when I ask “simple” questions. I have never worked with a greater bunch of people. The Project Manager and Developers have worked extremely hard to make sure there is always constant, continuous, communication, not only between us and the clients, but also between the staff.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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Welcome to eX cetra. This is our little corner of our website where you will find the latest tips, tricks and news relating to our company and our world.
