Archive for the 'Tips and tricks' Category

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We can Sort it out

Published on March 30, 2011. 0 Comments

The other day I was sitting with a client, looking at a list view layout.  The client said to me, “Can you make it so that when I click the headers the columns will sort, like in Table View or Excel?”  No problem, I said; I’ll just make each header a button that runs a Sort script step.  They she said “Well, when I click each one it should sort ascending and then descending, just like Excel.”  Ok – a little bit more inconvenient; I need to use a script and a bunch of of fields to keep track of ascending/descending.  Finally, she dropped the bomb.  “Oh, can I have those cute little up and down arrows, like in Excel?”  That is the last straw, I thought.  Now I have to make scripts, fields AND graphic calculations for those dumb arrows.

There must be a better way to do this.  Using the great scientific tradition of standing on the shoulders of giants I searched the web for good solutions.  Using  a combination of scripting and merge global variables you can easily put up and down arrows next to sorted headers.  This technique only requires a script.  No extra fields are required go make it work.

Continue reading ‘We can Sort it out’

 
Published in FileMaker and Tips and tricks by Jerry Salem. Tags: Tags: , .

Use “Set Window Title” Script Step to Give Users Feedback on What They’re Waiting For

Published on February 7, 2011. 1 Comment

Problem: Users are waiting for your FileMaker solution to perform an action, but it takes a long time.

How to help ease the pain: Use “Set Window Title” script step to give them feedback.

FileMaker has no built in progress indicator, so whether your scripted processes take 10 seconds or 10 minutes, your users might not know what’s going on. You can create layouts or pop-up windows to tell them “Hang on, I’m working on something,” but it’s hard to give them live feedback. If you’re jumping around to different contexts and doing other things, you usually use a “Freeze Window” script step to hide the ugly guts of the system from the user. So to update information for the user, you have to return to the status layout and refresh or re-freeze the window.

As a developer, that adds a lot of work for you. That’s time you could be spending on making your processes faster, or making your user experience better.

In steps “Set Window Title”. It’s a fast, easy to maintain way to give your users some insight into what you’re working on, or how much longer they need to wait. The best part of it all is you don’t need a “Refresh Window” step to update it. The window title gets updated and is not context dependent. Just set it and forget it.

Set Window Title doesn't need a window refresh...

 
Published in FileMaker, Tips and tricks and Uncategorized by Chad Sager. Tags: Tags: , .

Show Your Stuff: Using Conditional Formatting to fit long content into fixed width fields

Published on January 7, 2011. 0 Comments

A common problem I run into is not being able to see all the information I need to in list view.  Consider the list view shown below, taking note of the Full Name field:

ListView1

As you can see, longer content – such as very long names – don’t fit within the allotted space.  Ordinarily you could just set anchors to have the field grow to the right, but in this particular use case, we already have one anchored field – Notes – set to grow rightward.

In this type of situation, I can call on Conditional Formatting to save the day.  I actually got the inspiration for this one by using the calculator on my iPod Touch.  Type a number and it appears in the calculator, pretty large.  If you keep typing digits, then number gets smaller to fit in the area of the display.   Brilliant! Continue reading ‘Show Your Stuff: Using Conditional Formatting to fit long content into fixed width fields’

 
Published in FileMaker and Tips and tricks by Jerry Salem. Tags: Tags: .

FileMaker: Inspector Keyboard Shortcuts

Published on December 3, 2010. 0 Comments

Enjoy this guest post by our friends at Skeleton Key in St. Louis.

I used to use the keyboard shortcut in previous versions of FileMaker Pro to get to the “object info” window. One of the things I didn’t like about FileMaker Pro 11 is not being able to get to the inspector without using the mouse. Then I found the shortcut. You may have known this from the start, but if you did shame on you for not telling me :-)

Mac InspectorWindows InspectorWhile in Layout Mode on Mac OS X you can use Command+1 to go to the Position tab of the inspector. Command+2 takes you to the Appearance tab and Command+3 takes you to the Data tab. Use Control instead of Command on Windows. Once there, the tab key will navigate you through the items on that inspector tab.

Also if you have multiple inspectors open at once (one showing each tab), then these keyboard shortcuts will switch inspectors for you instead of switching tabs on the current inspector window.

Thought you might want to know about this hidden gem!

Chad Adams, FileMaker Certified Developer at Skeleton Key

 
Published in Tips and tricks and Training by Jason Mundok. Tags: Tags: , , , , .

Crossing Drupal II

Published on September 17, 2010. 0 Comments

In last week’s episode I mapped out our goal for this series: learn how to understand Drupal from the perspective of a Filemaker developer.

Following our motto of “Shut up and Fix it”,  we’re going to simply create a Drupal web site.  We’ll build a storefront that has products and a small blog attached.  Once that is running, we’ll attach the Drupal site to a FileMaker back end system.  This will allow us to pull product info from the back end system and possibly have users log in and track their orders.  That’s the end state we’ll be working toward in this series.

This week let’s expand our understanding a bit by taking a walk through the Content Construction Kit (CCK).

You’ll remember that last week we learned that a “Content Type” is analogous to a Table.  By default Drupal gives us two fields in each table:  Title and Body.  In order to make a useful database, we are going to need to add more fields to each table.

At its heart Drupal is a Content Management System.   Since the content that Drupal is designed to manage is typically a blog, the default Content Types in drupal are a Page and a Story.

The Page Content Type is normally for info that doesn’t change often, and a Story is typically used for things that change often.  Remember these are only the Drupal defaults; as with Filemaker, you are expected and encouraged to change the setup as appropriate.

We’re going to be using the Story content type for our store blog.  If all you are doing with Drupal is writing a blog, you’re basically done.  Stop reading here!

For this project, however, we plan to do a bit more, so  we’ll need to add some more descriptors into Drupal.

 
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Published in FileMaker, Integration and Tips and tricks by Jerry Salem. Tags: Tags: , , , .

Building robust error logs in FileMaker 11

Published on September 14, 2010. 1 Comment

As FileMaker developers, we have all had the experience when a user contacts us regarding a discovered glitch in our systems. And, because users aren’t developers, they may not be able to provide the most accurate information regarding what they were doing on which layout when said glitch happened.

It is possible to set up a FileMaker system to trap for error logs, however. There are a number of tools available to a developer to better track what’s going on with data so that when a user calls you with less-than-clear error reports, you can still track down the source of the problem. Continue reading ‘Building robust error logs in FileMaker 11′

 
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Published in FileMaker and Tips and tricks by Robin Story. Tags: Tags: , , , .

FileMaker User Groups: Thoughts and resources on getting started (Post #2)

Published on September 8, 2010. 4 Comments

You might have said to yourself after reading my last cheerleading post on starting a FileMaker User Group (Why User Groups Matter), “Well, that’s all well and good, but you’re not the one trying to start a group in a virtual vacuum.  Cheerleading’s easy.”  Fine, point taken.

I realize that many of you are in regions that, on initial consideration, might not seem fertile ground for a user group.  You may feel that being located in a smaller metropolitan area or rural region is an insurmountable roadblock to getting a group started.  What’s the point of holding a first meeting if there’s no one else around?

Your first step is finding the 2 or 3 or 10 people you can connect with and agree to meet in person. We’ll get into the meat and potatoes of managing the group later; there’s no point talking about it until you’ve got enough interest to fill at least the seats around a kitchen table or bar booth. Finding people is, admittedly, hard.  Luckily, there are plenty of online resources to datamine for prospects.

I ask for forbearance from those of you for whom all of this is painfully obvious.  It’s not obvious to everybody, and this suite of blog posts is oriented to those at the beginner/intermediate stage of social networking (remember: user groups were perfecting social networking when Twitter’s founder was still in diapers). Continue reading ‘FileMaker User Groups: Thoughts and resources on getting started (Post #2)’

 
Published in FileMaker Inc., Other User Groups, Tips and tricks and Uncategorized by Colin Keefe. Tags: Tags: , , , , , , , .

Crossing Drupal

Published on September 8, 2010. 5 Comments

There has been a lot of buzz floating around the web regarding the content management system called Drupal.  Over the next couple of weeks I am going to investigate this growing platform from the perspective of a FileMaker developer.  Drupal is not a Filemaker replacement, but there are definite use cases where Drupal is an ideal content management choice. Instead of my regular posts about filemaker techniques, I will explore how Drupal is similar and different from my platform of choice.  With a nod to a good movie about exploring other cultures (Crossing Delancey) I am calling this series Crossing Drupal.

In this first installment I would like to simply lay out some simple terms, so we can all speak the same language.  A rosetta stone if you will.
rosetta-stone2 Continue reading ‘Crossing Drupal’

 
Published in FileMaker, IT Solutions Consulting, Tips and tricks and Training by Jerry Salem. Tags: Tags: , , , , .

Why User Groups matter…and how to start one (Post #1)

Published on August 26, 2010. 7 Comments

So this guy walks into a San Diego hotel lobby…

I started thinking about this series of posts (yep, this is #1 in a series) after a few conversations I had with people at this year’s FileMaker DevCon.  I’d strike up a conversation with someone at lunch or at the bar, we’d exchange stories and experiences…and inevitably the talk would shift to why people come to DevCon in the first place.

Reason number 1: for the community.  Hands down.  The clear pleasures and advantages of meeting other people who are engaged in the same practice as you – with whom you can share ideas, learn from and teach –  always trump session topics, what’s on the lunch menu, what kind of swag you can haul back, or how many banners you can affix to the bottom of your convention badge.  One of the things that’s sometimes lost when you do a hand count of how many people in the room have iPads is how many people in the room are there because of the other people. Continue reading ‘Why User Groups matter…and how to start one (Post #1)’

 
Published in DevCon, DevCon, FileMaker, FMPug, Meetings, Other User Groups and Tips and tricks by Colin Keefe. Tags: Tags: , , , , , .

Speak your Mind. Using Comments, part 1.

Published on August 6, 2010. 0 Comments

Recently I was on a family trip to Pittsburgh.  We were walking around the campus of Carnegie Mellon and I saw this memorial brick;
Eschew Obfuscation

It got me to thinking about some of the monster databases that I have had to take over for clients.  When I take over a project, often I am spending a great deal of time just trying to figure out what the developer was trying to do.

Our earlier posts on this blog are generally concerned with improving the user experience(better printing workflow) or getting more out of your data (One Report two sets of summarized data).  Today I would like to return to that lowly person, the developer.  Anything that I can do that can make my job easier will make be a better developer and ultimately make my customers happier.  Or as my grandfather would say to my grandmother, “What would you do if I got hit by a bus?” Continue reading ‘Speak your Mind. Using Comments, part 1.’

 
Published in Design Critique Sessions, FileMaker, IT Solutions Consulting and Tips and tricks by Jerry Salem. Tags: Tags: , , , , .