We’re a FileMaker User Group serving the Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware Region
We have a new survey – very short – for those who either came to a meeting for the first time on January 28, or have never attended a meeting before. Regulars can skip this one.
Please fill it out if you get a chance – this helps us tailor the group’s focus to better fit your needs.
Thanks, everyone, who braved the…um…non-snow. All 39 of you! Flakes are falling just now, as I look out the window of my living room. I’ll do a recap later this week.
For those of you who didn’t make it tonight due to “inclement” weather, FileMaker is presenting several Webinars on FileMaker 10. They require registration to view. Tomorrow’s 11AM PST session was still open earlier tonight, so you may get lucky.
http://filemakerevents.webex.com/
Chad is going to recap his portion of the presentation with a series of blog posts over the next few weeks outlining some of the techniques he discussed at the meeting. More on that later!
Best,
Colin
At the moment, Fort Washington is scheduled to experience light flurries in the afternoon, turning to real snow after 9 PM:
http://www.weather.com/weather/hourbyhour/19034?begHour=14&begDay=27
We are still on for the meeting. See you tonight.
Colin
User Group Coordinator
(Editor’s Note: Here’s the first post from Chad. I’m monkeying with how to display author names in WordPress, but until then, you’ll have to live with a stupid Editor’s Note.)
Anyone with the dream of being able to show field comments as the tooltip, there finally is an answer.
In previous versions of Filemaker it was possible to grab the field comments on a layout for a tooltip, but only by hard-coding the name of the field in the tooltip. This makes managing the tooltip a little cumbersome, you’d have to touch every field and give it an unique tooltip if so inclined. In that case you might as well manage the text of the tooltip on the layout object.
You’d need to put:
FieldComment ( Get ( FileName ) ; "Ship_Date" )
A couple of new functions now make this a lot easier, potentially inserting a single tooltip into all fields on all the layouts across your system, and then editing them in a centralized location. The first is the Self function, introduced in Filemaker 9, and now the GetFieldName () function.
When editing a field definition, you can add comments to the field like so:
Then, in layout mode you can select one or more fields and enter this as a tooltip:
FieldComment ( Get ( FileName ) ; GetFieldName ( Self ) )
And now when you mouse over the comments appear.
Just a quick introductory post:
You’re going to see new authors crop up here from time to time, to post tips and tricks, thoughts on FileMaker, or ruminations on the state of software generally. This is part of my push to expand the usefulness of the User Group beyond the the actual face-to-face meetings themselves. We’ll be rolling in new contributors slowly, so you don’t need to pop in here every day – but know that going forward, not every post here will be a meeting announcement.
With that preamble over, I’d like to introduce Chad Sager.
Chad’s a lead FileMaker developer here at IT Solutions Consulting who’s been at the forefront in our office in terms of exploring the new possibilities that FileMaker 10 features offer us – new coding practices, old coding practices that can be retired, tricks and cool stuff generally.
He’s the second act at tomorrow’s meeting too, following up after Matt O’Dell.
Just a reminder: we’re meeting tomorrow at 6PM; details here:
This is our first meeting since FileMaker 10 came out, and it’s going to be VERY well attended. Please RSVP if you plan to come, because it’ll help tremendously with our planning (we actually have to rearrange the office a bit to make room for you all).
http://www.fmpug.com/rsvp.php?eventID=858
Thanks, and looking forward to seeing you all. This’ll be a really fun way to kick off the new year!
Colin Keefe
User Group Coordinator
These fine folks meet about 4 times a year at the Manayunk Brewing Company in Manayunk; their next meeting is January 31st.
I mention it because this is fresh off Macworld, and they may discuss things of interest to FileMaker folks – you may even get some first hand reflections from visiting the FMI booth.
I’m going to drop by, and hope you will too.
Colin
Just so you know what’s in the pipeline for this spring:
January: Introducing FileMaker 10! Matt O’Dell, regional Systems Engineer from FileMaker Inc, presents an overview, and Chad Sager from IT Solutions Consulting explores techniques.
February: Ben Waldie from Automated Workflows discusses Applescript, Automater and FileMaker integration on the Mac. Also, we’ll introduce the 2nd Design Challenge/Charrette; this one’s going to be 10 specific.
March: Folks from the Proof Group drop by to talk about FMSpark and NinjaCal. We’ll also review members’ solutions to the 2nd Design Challenge/Charrette.
April: Jesse Barnum from 360Works will talk to us about the plugins he’s been working on, and also walk us through building a plugin from scratch using Java.
May: Jason Mundok from IT Solutions Consulting, on a topic to be announced.
June: Design Critique – members present their solutions for open critique, Colin Keefe from IT Solutions Consulting will guide the discussion.
July: Open
August: 2009 Devcon Recap
It’s an exciting time to be a FileMaker developer, and with the introduction of FileMaker 10 this year promises to be an interesting ride. I hope you can join us.
Colin
Greetings FileMaker Enthusiasts,
Our next Philadelphia FileMaker User Group meeting has been scheduled for Tuesday evening, January 27th 2009 at 6:00 PM. The meeting will be held at the IT Solutions Fort Washington Office.
414 Commerce Dr., Suite 150, Fort Washington, PA 19034 Google Map: http://tinyurl.com/37mhhh
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Join Us for an Exclusive Look at the All-New FileMaker 10!
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We have a very special featured speaker coming from FileMaker this evening – Matt O’Dell, our regional FileMaker Systems Engineer!
Matt will be giving us an overview of the new features in FileMaker 10, and their implications both for making life easier for FileMaker users and for new techniques for the developer. What’s new in FileMaker 10?
- The newly redesigned user interface (Status Toolbar)
- Saved Finds
- Dynamic Reporting
- Office 2007 support
- Native SMTP mailing for easier emailing directly from FileMaker
- Updated Templates and New Themes
- Enhanced Quick Start Screen
- Bento Integration
- Script Triggers
- New Resource Center
- Set Field By Name script step
- Insert Tab Order
- More comprehensive/improved ESS Support
- Better File Recovery auditing and more granular Recovery options
Obviously, more than a mere human can cover in one sitting – so we’ll be cherry-picking features to talk about. This is a great opportunity to get in on the ground floor with an expert and learn about FileMaker 10 first hand.
Then our very own Philly FileMaker group member Chad Sager will follow up with a presentation on some interesting programming applications for new features in FileMaker 10. He’s been experimenting since the beta came out, and has implemented some very thoughtful ideas that will give us a sense of how these new features can really change the way we program.
As always, pizza and soft drinks will be provided.
Please RSVP here if you are planning to attend this meeting:
http://www.fmpug.com/rsvp.php?eventID=858
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About the Philadelphia FileMaker User Group:
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The Philadelphia FileMaker User Group was founded in 2005 as an initiative by FileMaker Business Alliance member IT Solutions to provide an open forum for FileMaker developers and those interested in FileMaker to meet, brainstorm and network.
We hold meetings the 4th Tuesday of every month at 6PM, in the office of IT Solutions Consulting, Inc., at 414 Commerce Drive, Suite 150, Fort Washington PA. Meetings are open to all, regardless of background and there’s no charge to attend.
Please subscribe to our Mailing List to get announcements on upcoming meetings. The list is set to Announce only, so the volume is typically between one and 2 emails a month.
http://fmpug.com/mailman/listinfo/philly_fmpug.com/
You can read our blog to get updates and meeting recaps:
http://www.phillyfilemaker.org/
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About the speakers:
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Matt O’Dell is a Systems Engineer with FileMaker in the Northeast. He has 10+ years experience using FileMaker and building web solutions. Along with being a certified FileMaker Developer, he also is an authorized FTS trainer and a certified MySQL 5.0 developer. Prior to working for FileMaker, Matt was an application developer, trainer, tech support with Soliant Consulting in Chicago.
Chad Sager is a certified FileMaker Developer with IT Solutions Consulting in Fort Washington, PA. Before moving to Philadelphia and working for IT Solutions, he was an artist and gallery preparator in Houston, TX.
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FileMaker 10 was released earlier today. There are a bunch of noteworthy changes here for both developers and power users – among my favorites are Script Triggers, Saved Finds, Dynamic Reports and better Recover auditing.
Take a look here:
Geoff Coffey of SFR has written a great overview of the new features here:
http://sixfriedrice.com/wp/introducing-filemaker-10/
We’ve been anticipating this release and are going to swap out our Jan/Feb Meeting schedules. More on that to come, but short story is, we have a blockbuster meeting planned! Matt O’Dell, our regional FileMaker Inc. Systems Engineer, will conduct a special presentation overview of FileMaker’s new features, and our own Chad Sager will investigate some interesting techniques that are now available to us through these features.
Ben Waldie will conduct his presentation on AppleScript/Automater/FileMaker integration in February.
- Colin
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