The status toolbar is the gray area located horizontally across the top of a FileMaker Pro 11 window and can be easily customized to suit your needs. If you’re using older versions of FileMaker, the status toolbar combines all of the functionality of the old status area, which was located on the left side of the window, and the optional standard toolbar, both of which existed in versions prior to FileMaker 10. By default the status toolbar comes loaded with commonly used features, such as record navigation (the book), Show All, New and Delete Record, and Find. Depending on how you use FileMaker, there may be other buttons that make more sense for you to have on the toolbar. With a few clicks, you can set up your FileMaker toolbar however you’d like.
The button section of the status toolbar is completely customizable so you can remove buttons you don’t use and add functionality that you use often. You no longer have to click through the menus to find your favorite features. The changes you make are specific to your copy of FileMaker, so your favorite buttons are the same no matter which database you have open and don’t have any effect on other users logged into the same database.
When using FileMaker on Windows, right-click in the button section of the status toolbar and then click the Customize button. The Customize dialog box will appear and you can then move the existing buttons to different positions by clicking and dragging them to the new location. Remove buttons by simply dragging them off of the toolbar. On the Commands tab, select buttons from the Customizable or Standard categories. Add new buttons to the toolbar, by dragging them from the dialog box to the desired position. On the Toolbars tab, click Status Toolbar and then the Reset button to restore the toolbar back to the default buttons.
When using FileMaker on a Mac, the process is very similar to Windows but looks a little different. Control-click (or right-click) on the status toolbar and select Customize from the shortcut menu to display the sheet that contains all of the customizable buttons. To add elements, click and drag buttons, spacers, or separators to desired locations on the toolbar. To remove them, simply click and drag them away from the toolbar. To restore the default toolbar, click and drag the entire default rectangle from the sheet. You can also change the toolbar to include text only, smaller icons, or the default large icons.
While toolbar customization cannot be programmed, as it is specific to each user’s FileMaker installation, the button names can be changed using Custom Menus. Since each button corresponds with a menu item, any change to the name of the item will also change the button on the toolbar. Also, if privilege settings prevent a user from accessing a menu item, the corresponding toolbar button will appear gray and be inoperable.
If you have any questions about customizing toolbars in FileMaker or would like more information, feel free to contact Jason Mundok at jason.mundok@itsolutions-inc.com.
Tool bar ontop is terrible mistake for those using tablet or smal lap top! any way to move back to the left margin?
Thanks
In a word, no
It’s a baked-in feature in the application; developers have no control over where the Toolbar appears. We can hide the Toolbar, though – just as we could hide the Status Bar in earlier versions. Not perfect, but it is what it is.
This toolbar sucks! Why can’t I use all that space in the sub bars..to put common items I use a thousand times a day…such as “Unlock” or “Group”??
My hand has to travel 5 times the distance to a floating palatte off to the right…especially when you are designing large spreadsheet type databases on a large screen LCD TV.
This isn’t TRUE customization of your working space.
Its the cop-out WIndows style on a mac..which BLOWS!
Any way to rename a toolbar icon from the default name to another name such as the default one has “New Record”, I want to change it to “New Priority”. How can I do that
Thanks
blewvelvet said: “Why can’t I use all that space in the sub bars..to put common items I use a thousand times a day…such as “Unlock” or “Group”??”
@blewvelvet: Yeah, that would be awesome, actually. I generally reserve the word “Suck” for things that I truly have to walk away from because they’re so bad. Like, say, Vista (the only OS I’ve ever uninstalled out of frustration).
We as developers live on a timeline in the evolution of the product (any product) where the present state of things is far better than the past but nowhere near the ideal, utopian end state we’d like the product to achieve. If you’ve been developing for any length of time in FileMaker you’ll remember a period where the community was screaming for tools to abstract and generalize code. We got some of that, and now – with care – can write portable code.
It could be better.
Some links:
FileMaker has a Feature Request Form:
http://www.filemaker.com/company/contact/feature_request.html
And on the FileMaker Forums, people often post with Feature Requests for public comment:
http://forums.filemaker.com/groups/80a7e0f9d5/search?find=feature+request
An April Fool’s preview of FileMaker 12, with some excellent ideas:
http://www.kegebein.net/blog/2011/04/something-about-filemaker-12/
And the folks at WorldCloud set up a discussion sit for FileMaker 12 – what they’d like to see in the product:
http://fmp12.com/
Tonny wrote:
“Any way to rename a toolbar icon from the default name to another name such as the default one has “New Record”, I want to change it to “New Priority”. How can I do that?”
@Tonny, here’s a YouTube tutorial.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZQPBq9malI
Basically you want to use Custom Menus – enable the “Override Menu Name” field and modify the value there. You can use the calc engine to change the name dynamically based on context.