We’re happy to share that Matt has graciously provided his complete demo files and presentation slide deck for download!

Included are some pretty slick iPad geolocation demos, graphical seat assignment, canvas drawing and charting, web chat, and more!  All in all fun stuff.

Thanks Matt!

Edit 1/30/2012:

While this was probably clearer during the presentation, some of the code in Matt’s DevCon 2011 offering should be credited to Todd Geist of Geist Interactive who shared his expertise with Matt for this portion of demo.  Todd has coincidentally released – today – a packaged tool for performing canvas drawing in FileMaker Go, so if any of this has whetted your appetite for this kind of thing, you’re in luck.

It’s called GoDraw.  It looks pretty slick, the lite version is free, and the full version offers editing saved drawings, Save as PDF and more.

 

Why post it here?  Well, PFUG regulars will be very familiar with our own Jerry Salem, who will be hosting a webinar January 18th at 2 PM EST, called Playing Nicely with Others – FileMaker and Content Management Systems.

There’s still time to register!  Go here for details:

http://www.filemakeracademy.com/?page_id=49

 

Our next Philadelphia FileMaker Developer Group meeting has been scheduled for Tuesday evening, January 24th, 2012 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

Please RSVP here if you are planning to attend this meeting:
http://www.fmpug.com/rsvp.php?eventID=1267

Matt O’Dell – HTML 5: An Overview

In recent history HTML5 has become a familiar buzzword in technology news. Besides being the next generation of the backbone coding language of the web, what is HTML5?

This session will cover the beginnings of HTML5 and the problems it is trying to solve. It will show popular examples as well as some simple frameworks to get started easily.

Lastly it will show ways to enhance your FileMaker Pro and Go solutions using Custom Web Publishing and Web Viewers to develop engaging user interfaces.

About the Presenter

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, and tech support professional with Soliant Consulting in Chicago.

About the Philadelphia FileMaker User Group

The Philadelphia FileMaker User Group was founded in 2004 as an initiative by FileMaker Business Alliance Platinum member IT Solutions Consulting. The group’s goal is 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/

Twitter here:

http://twitter.com/phillyfilemaker

We’re also an FMPug Chapter: http://www.fmpug.com/ Consider membership today, especially if you purchase training, plugins, 3rd party products, or web/filemaker hosting – FMPug membership affords considerable discounts across a range of offerings.

Finally, The Philadelphia FileMaker User Group is hosted by:

IT Solutions Consulting, Inc.

Employee ownership – fueling our innovation, strengthening your business.
http://www.itsolutions-inc.com/

IT Solutions is proud to be a member of FM Academy, a consortium of leading FileMaker development companies in the United States whose purpose is to further educate FileMaker users and developers to encourage best practices and foster further adoption of the software through online webinars. Learn more here:
http://www.filemakeracademy.com/

 

Our next Philadelphia FileMaker Developer Group meeting has been scheduled for Monday evening, December 12th 2011 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

This is our Seventh Annual Year End Bonanza!

Please RSVP here if you are planning to attend this meeting:
http://www.fmpug.com/rsvp.php?eventID=1258

THE TOPICS:
We’ll be continuing our tradition of reviewing the 2011 predictions we made last year, and making predictions for the coming year. There are no formal presentations, but feel free to break out laptops while you nosh. Talking about FileMaker is, of course, inevitable – but not required! Mainly this is an opportunity to wrap up the year with some good food, networking, gossip and giveaways. If you’ve never been to one of our meetings, this is a good time to start! We’d love to have you.

THE FOOD:
Catered food will provided, courtesy of IT Solutions, Inc.

About the Philadelphia FileMaker User Group

The Philadelphia FileMaker User Group was founded in 2004 as an initiative by FileMaker Business Alliance Platinum member IT Solutions Consulting. The group’s goal is 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/

Twitter here:

http://twitter.com/phillyfilemaker

We’re also an FMPug Chapter: http://www.fmpug.com/ Consider membership today, especially if you purchase training, plugins, 3rd party products, or web/filemaker hosting – FMPug membership affords considerable discounts across a range of offerings.

Finally, The Philadelphia FileMaker User Group is hosted by:

IT Solutions Consulting, Inc.
Employee ownership – fueling our innovation, strengthening your business.
http://www.itsolutions-inc.com/
Learn more about us on our new Videos/Blog Page!
http://www.itsolutions-inc.com/videos_blog/index.html

 

This is a rare meeting with two FileMaker Inc representatives sharing the stage.  They’ll be reviewing the state of FileMaker Go and how it’s currently being used in the field, using real-world cases.

414 Commerce Dr., Suite 150, Fort Washington, PA 19034
Google Map

Please RSVP here if you are planning to attend this meeting:

http://www.fmpug.com/rsvp.php?eventID=1228

FILEMAKER GO: ONE YEAR LATER

Andrew LeCates and Matthew O’Dell of FileMaker Inc.

It was over a year ago when FileMaker Go was released to the public. Since that time many clients and developers have built wonderful solutions that extend their desktop databases and take advantage of the unique mobility and hardware that iOS devices provide.

Systems Engineer Matt O’Dell and Director of Systems Engineering Andy LeCates from FileMaker will present to us some of the lessons learned over the year in developing for this new mobile platform. Matt will present the basics of FileMaker Go, what things have changed over the past year, and how to use different features specific to this device. Andy will demonstrate some real life solutions built for FileMaker Go and how they solved unusual problems with the combination of iOS and FileMaker Go.

About the Presenters

Andrew LeCates

Andy manages the North American Systems Engineering team for FileMaker,Inc. For 20 years, he’s led FileMaker solutions deployment as a developer, teacher, evangelist, author, and consultant for customers around the world. He’s a veteran speaker and is FileMaker Pro Certified in 7,8,9,10, 11 and  an Authorized Trainer for the FileMaker Training Series track.

Matthew O’Dell

Matt is a systems engineer with FileMaker in the Northeast United States and Canada. Matt has been an avid FileMaker user for over 10 years now, and has been developing solutions for the past seven years. He started as an IT Manager for a small student based travel company in DeKalb, IL before moving to Soliant Consulting. While with Soliant, Matt developed applications for numerous clients, taught training courses, and participated as a member of their IT department. He has been with FileMaker, Inc. for nearly three years and works out of New York City. Certifications include FileMaker 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 Certified Developer, FileMaker Training Series Authorized Trainer, and MySQL 5.0 Developer Certified.

 About the Philadelphia FileMaker User Group

The Philadelphia FileMaker User Group was founded in 2004 as an initiative by FileMaker Business Alliance Platinum member IT Solutions Consulting.  The group’s goal is 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/

Twitter here:

http://twitter.com/phillyfilemaker

We’re also an FMPug Chapter:  http://www.fmpug.com/  Consider membership today, especially if you purchase training, plugins, 3rd party products, or web/filemaker hosting – FMPug membership affords considerable discounts across a range of offerings.

Finally, The Philadelphia FileMaker User Group is hosted by

IT Solutions Consulting Inc.

IT Solutions Consulting, Inc.
Employee ownership – fueling our innovation, strengthening your business.
http://www.itsolutions-inc.com/
Learn more about us on our new Videos/Blog Page!
http://www.itsolutions-inc.com/videos_blog/index.html

 

Pause[x]London will be trying another new concept: speaking via Skype. Our good buddy, Mark Richman, from Skeleton Key in St. Louis will be leading a session on (what else?) WAN performance. Only he’ll be doing it in his fuzzy slippers from the comforts of his digs in St. Louis. We’ll be keeping our eye on this, as this brave new session style could mean great things for future Pause events AND user groups like the Philadelphia FileMaker User Group.

If you can make it to Pause[x]London, do yourself a favor and get there. The Pause On Error events are a great way to build community around FileMaker development and get access to some of the best minds in the business.

 

This week we are going to look at the integration of a Drupal web site and a FileMaker database.  We had a client with a specific need; an art school that offers classes to adults in their community.  They have a FileMaker back-end database that they use for registration and membership.  They also have a web site where people can view class offerings and enroll in classes.  The client would like to create a way to link these two independent databases.

There are two points where the two systems touch each other: presenting the classes offered for a given semester and the registration of students into specific classes.  The client and I decided to leave the first goal for the moment, and concentrate on the second goal of getting the registration data into FileMaker.

I am not working in a vacuum, of course, as there is already a workflow in place.  The accountant logs into their PayPal portal and does a screen print of the daily transactions.  This is handed off to a secretary who keys the information into the FileMaker database.

My suggestion to the client was to remove the excess printing and keystroke entry.  The workflow I suggested was:

1. A user (the secretary who used to key the data into FileMaker) clicks a button and is shown a list view of transactions from the web site.
2. The user then navigates to each record in turn and checks the student registering for the class.  Are they currently in the FileMaker database?  If they are, compare the existing FileMaker data with the data that the student entered on the site. Does the data match, has the address updated? etc.  Or is the student new to the school?  If so, add the student to the FileMaker database.
3. After reviewing the data entered on the web site, the user creates a new Order in the FileMaker and imports all the data.  If there is a problem with the transaction, it is flagged for follow up later.

PROPOSED METHOD

The first thing to do is figure out how to view the registration data from inside the database.  There are two basic ways to do this: import the web data into temporary tables or directly view the data using ESS.  I chose the second method.  The client is using a Drupal plugin called UberCart to manage the registrations.  This plugin is very popular for Drupal sites that sell things; this site is no exception.  Viewing MySQL data using ESS has been covered before but one think I needed to discover for myself was the data structure for UberCart.  This was done by trial and error, reading the documentation, and asking knowledgeable people.  Eventually I came up with this realtionship graph of the UberCart tables:

UberCart explanation;  The base table for the Order (or Invoice) is called uc_Order.  Each LineItem is in the uc_XXX table.  The table that has the products, i.e. the things that are sold (in this case classes) are in the uc_Products table.

When integrating with Drupal it is easy to get burned by placing your own fields in the native Drupal tables.  This is not a good practice.  In most situations, you don’t have much control over the Drupal site.  The administrator may not give you permission to create fields, and since plugins get updated all the time, they may rewrite the Drupal table and you would lose your custom fields.  If you need to create custom fields, do them in your FileMaker database.  To do this you may need to create a special table with a one-to-one relationship to the Drupal table.

In our case, I needed to create a table (Called zWebOrderLineItems, highlighted above)  to hold the status of each registration from the web site (the Status field), and to hold the FileMaker ID of the student taking the class (_kf_ContactID).  From the utility table we can make a relationship to the native FileMaker table holding the students in our database.

WORKFLOW

Once I had figured out the relationships between all the various tables in UberCart, then the rest was just FileMaker.  The workflow looked like this:

1. The user clicks on button on home page.
2. He/she is taken to a list view of the Web Orders that need to be processed.
3. The user clicks on the first order and confirms that the student is in the FileMaker database.
4. If the student is not in the database, the user clicks a button to add the student.
5. If the student is in the database, the data (address, DOB, cell phone, etc.) is confirmed as correct or updated.
6. The user clicks a button to create a new invoice.
7. Then, the user goes to next Order in list.

Here is an illustration of the user interface.  The left side is all info from the Drupal site.  The right side is the corresponding info for that student in the FileMaker database.

DISCUSSION

Creating an ESS link from the Drupal web site to the client’s back-end FileMaker database has certainly made their job easier.  Now students are registered for classes in near real-time.  Before the integration, registrations were done in batch mode the day after the registrations were entered on the web site.  Using a server side script, the main page in the database checks for new web orders and alerts the users within 5 minutes of record creation.  In addition, the registrations are entered into the database using two button clicks, instead of completely re-keying all of the information by hand.

Having a user review the data before it goes into the database is always a good idea.  Unlike using FileMaker as an interface, you don’t have the same control over data input in a web application.  For example, a user may put in their address as Rock Ln., while your business rule (or your direct mail service) may require addresses to be spelled out, i.e. Rock Lane.  In addition, user review will let you have the user search your database for existing fuzzy matches (I may be in the database as Jerome Salem, but registered for a class as Jerry Salem) where you wouldn’t want your database to be freely searchable on the web!  For these reasons, I would always recommend a “scrubber layer” between any external database and your in-house database.

Finally, this technique allows both systems to do what they do well, with minimal amount of interaction between the two.  In this case the data flow is one-way, from Drupal into the FileMaker database.  Next time we will look at the opposite, letting data flow from the back-end database into Drupal.

 

Our next Philadelphia FileMaker Developer Group meeting has been scheduled for Tuesday evening, September 27th 2011 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

Please RSVP here if you are planning to attend this meeting:
http://www.fmpug.com/rsvp.php?eventID=1221

Kyo Logic Presents: Barcode Readers in FileMaker using Script Triggers; What does that affordance tell you to do?

John Mathewson and Tim Neudecker from Kyo Logic LLC will showcase two short presentations to the group!

Part 1: Implementing a Barcode Reader in FileMaker using script triggers and no input fields
John Mathewson

Recently Kyo Logic developed a barcode reader that works on any layout in the application and captures input using script triggers. To optimize performance and respect the user’s current operating environment, this work required careful planning and testing. John Mathewson will review using script triggers for this purpose and will demonstrate how the code was developed and tested.

Part 2: What does that Affordance tell you to do?
Tim Neudecker

The concept of affordance in a user interface is critical to a user’s understanding of how a system works. We will review several examples, both good and bad, of affordances. Visual perception of controls in your software is very important. Developers must avoid false affordances that mislead or confuse users. The first half of this presentation will be a review of real word affordances and examples of improvements to improve user interface controls. The second half of the discussion will be a review of members user interfaces and open discussion about how to improve the controls. Please bring screen shots or sample files on thumb drives you would like to review and improve and the collective mind of the group will help you make your users happier.

About the Presenters

John Mathewson is President and co-founder of Kyo Logic, LLC. He is a growth management and organizational design expert. While President and CEO of AGA, a New York advertising agency, the company reached the final rounds of the Malcolm Baldrige National Performance Excellence Awards. He has spoken frequently at industry conferences on such topics as Implementing High Performance Organizations. He is a Board member of The Connecticut Audio Society and is a former Adjunct Assistant Professor of Information Analysis at New York University. He has been developing database applications using Visual FoxPro, SQL and FileMaker Pro since 1986. He is a certified FileMaker 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 developer.

Tim Neudecker is the co-founder of Kyo Logic. Tim is a leading software engineer who has worked for large companies such as Federated Department Stores and AGA to small offices such as The Mertz Gilmore Foundation and Chess in the Schools. At AGA, Tim led the design team that developed high-speed workflow and digital asset software, an advanced human resources intranet and a customer extranet that greatly enhanced customer access to the creative process. These and other innovations helped bring the agency to the top of its industry segment.

Tim attended the University of Arkansas School of Engineering and is a published author on topics from network engineering to database design. He is the founder and president of the New York FileMaker Developers’ Group where he leads fellow developers in continuing education around database development.

About the Philadelphia FileMaker User Group

The Philadelphia FileMaker User Group was founded in 2004 as an initiative by FileMaker Business Alliance Platinum member IT Solutions Consulting. The group’s goal is 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/

Twitter here:

http://twitter.com/phillyfilemaker

We’re also an FMPug Chapter: http://www.fmpug.com/ Consider membership today, especially if you purchase training, plugins, 3rd party products, or web/filemaker hosting – FMPug membership affords considerable discounts across a range of offerings.

Finally, The Philadelphia FileMaker User Group is hosted by

IT Solutions Consulting Inc.

IT Solutions Consulting, Inc.
Employee ownership – fueling our innovation, strengthening your business.
http://www.itsolutions-inc.com/
Learn more about us on our new Videos/Blog Page!
http://www.itsolutions-inc.com/videos_blog/index.html

 

Problem

In this episode, I will present a technique to show data that is not evenly spaced. As a typical example we are going to look at pricing data. For our example, we are building a solution for a company that sells items. The items are sold at a particular price that is entered into the database. However, the price changes over time. Our task is to present the user with a graph of the longitudinal price changes. As you read through this canonical example, keep in mind we can use the same technique for any variable that changes over time. Here are some other examples where this would be useful: a student’s test scores, the number of orders a customer has placed, a patient’s blood pressure, or the number of times a product has been ordered. Basically any data that is related to the parent record and changes over time. Here is the data we are going to be working with. These are the dates when new pricing has been implemented over the past year for a product:

One might argue that showing the data in a portal like this is all you really need. In many cases I agree with the “less is more” motif. However, you can sometimes learn more from the graphed data than from just looking at the data in a table. First, let’s just graph the data using the new FileMaker Charts tool:

If you don’t look closely at the X (horizontal) axis, you may conclude from this graph that the price has gone up steadily over the past year. Here is the data presented with the correct X axis (I will call this “spaced data”):

From the spaced data, it is much easier to see a couple of trends that were not obvious from looking at the table data or the simple bar graph. First, you can see that there were way more price changes in the first half of the year than in the second half of the year. Second, since about May 2011 the price was relatively stable; the price only changed 3 times and stayed at about $60. Performing this type of analysis can be invaluable for the end users of the database. There are a couple of steps to do to present data in this way. It isn’t too hard once you have done it a couple of times. Method In order to present the data that is spaced properly (as in the “spaced data” graph) we need to be able to tell the database that the date values are actually part of a larger picture. To do that we need to build a “helper table” of date values. In the example file, the table is called Daily. It has a minimum number of fields: a serial number key field (probably not needed, but it is a good habit to have a key field in all tables), a date, a number field set to global storage, and a display calculation showing just the month name from the date field. For this table, you will need to do some maintenance to make sure the dates are always up to date. Typically I would run a server side script that creates new date record every day. What we are really going to plot along the X axis are these date records. The Y values will be the pricing data. Here is how everything is related: The Item table is related to the Pricing table using the “item_PRICING” table occurrence, this makes the portal shown at the beginning of this post. The X axis is the daily records that fall between a Max and Min date. Those dates are in the global date fields gStart and gEnd and are set in the background using a script trigger (although you could set them manually). This is represented by the item_DAILY table occurrence. Finally the Y axis data is that Pricing data that corresponds to the date record and the Item record we are on. To make that relationship we have a helper global field in the Daily table (gLink) which is also set via the script trigger. The Y data is represented by the item_Daily_PRICING table occurrence. Here is the detail for the item_Daily relationship. I am including this, since it usually trips me up too.

Here is the setup for the actual graph. There are a couple of interesting points here. The data in the horizontal axis is “filtered” so only the first day of each month shows a value. Depending on the date range you may want to just show every date. The Y axis is the data from the item_daily_PRICING table. The table object is on a layout linked to the Item TO. Note that we are graphing data from the related table ‘item_DAILY’.

For all this to work, three things need to be set on record load. In the current (Item) table, we need to set the date range for the X axis of the graph. This would probably be the Max and Min of the dates of the things you want to graph (in this case, the dates from the item_PRICING relationship). I set my Min date to the last day of the month before the minimum date, and the Max to the second day of the month after the maximum date. This is just so my fancy axis labels look nice. Also you need to set the ‘helper global’ in the Daily table to be the current item key value.

Once these are all set, the graph will look something like this:

This technique is a bit trickier than the sorting or setting a window title tips presented earlier on this forum, it is definitely worth the trouble. You can get the demo file to get more details on the X axis labels.