 FileMaker Pro Tips, Tricks and Demos
The collective talent pool here at Excelisys have spent years working with Filemaker Pro, and have learned more than just a few tricks of the trade. We also enjoy giving back to the FileMaker developer community. So here’s an assortment of ideas that you can put to use right now in your own solutions. Many of these demos contain embedded PDF white papers explaining their specific technique. Have fun! And let us know if there’s a particular tip you’d like to see posted here.
Audit Log (white paper and demo)
An oft–requested feature for FileMaker Pro solutions is an audit log – the ability to track relevant changes to a record. This tip, accompanied by a white paper PDF, outlines how to do just that. This method will automatically track each change to the fields the developer specifies, including who made the change, when, what the old value was, and what the new one is.
Calendar Navigator (white paper and demo)
One of the staples of many FileMaker solutions is the calendar navigator. It provides a quick, easy and intuitive way to specify dates and date ranges. In previous versions of FileMaker, one had to either create a large number of calculation fields or (more elegantly) use pre–created graphic calendars and link to them with a concatenated key. Since FileMaker 7, all that has changed. Check out this demo and white paper, and find out how!
Color Picker (demo)
This demo provides a familiar, intuitive color wheel interface to allow users to choose a color. They can also enter either HSV or RGB values and the corresponding fields and interface will automatically reflect those changes. Graphical and text areas preview the color for the user. The file is designed to be dropped into any solution easily. Simply change the interface of this file to match your solution, use it as a pop‐up window, and reference the “Red”, “Green”, and “Blue” fields to set and retrieve the color. No plug–ins are used!
Emailing using the MailTo: URL (demo)
This useful demo shows you how to send email from FileMaker Pro using your default email client and the OpenURL script step. Simply fill in the fields for “To:”, “cc:”, “bcc:” and “Subject:”, etc. As you type, you will see FileMaker Pro compose the mailto: URL in the Result box.
Hierchical Portals (white paper and demo)
This demo and white paper outlines how to create hierarchically organized portals in FileMaker Pro, similar to the Macintosh Finder’s list view or Window’s Explorer view. It utilizes FileMaker 7 features to enhance the interface, but this method can be used with versions as early as FileMaker 4.
Hierarchical Portals Advanced (demo)
It is highly recommended that you familiarize yourself with the basic concepts in the Hierarchical Portals demo (above) before delving into this one. The purpose of this file is to take a look at ways to extend the functionality of hierarchical portals with finds and sorts that take advantage of their unique characteristics.
Mail Merge (demo)
It is easy to add mail merge functionality to your contacts databases in FileMaker Pro. This can be accomplished by adding a Letters table to your contacts database and a calculation field using the Substitute() function to insert actual data into a letter template used to print or email personalized letters. In this file, we will demonstrate the management and usage of letter templates.
Portal Line Shift (demo)
Let’s say your a capella band, the ‘B’ Naturals, has a gig coming up. You have a database of 12 songs that you want to be in your first set. Since you’re musicians, you will argue about the order of the songs, and need a quick way to reorganize them. Portal Line Shifter to the rescue! This demo shows how you can slide your songs up and down the portal to the optimum position.
Portal Sort Extreme (white paper and demo)
We are reasonably certain that sometime in the future, FileMaker will add a script step called “Sort Portal Rows”. Until then, building a user controlled variable portal sorting interface involves a couple of fields, a calc or two, and a script. This demo and white paper will show you how.
Record Navigator (demo)
This is a sample of easy record navigation using a portal. Click on any of the listed records on the right side to navigate to that record. Notice also that the item on the portal itself becomes bulleted to indicate that you are viewing one of the selected records. This type of solution can be useful when you need to add access restrictions to your layout and or menus, and want to limit access to certain categories, or record types in an easy manner.
Recurring Events (white paper and demo)
“I need a reminder to pop–up every month to close out the books”. “I want our readers to have the option of auto–renewing their subscriptions.” There are lots of reasons to use them. This file, along with the accompanying documentation, demonstrates the steps needed to implement true recurring events in FileMaker Pro.
Recursive Calculations (white paper and demo)
The ability to create Custom Functions in FileMaker Advanced introduces the possibility of looping calculations, otherwise known as “recursion”. In this demo you’ll see several good examples of recursive calculations in action. A complete white paper covering this topic, which de–constructs the example calculations, is included as a PDF within the file authored by our own Andrew Persons.
Selection Technique (demo)
This is an interface technique you could implement with your contact management modules, as well as other situations that require multiple selections, such as when you have checkboxes to select from a group of people you may want to send an email to.
|