We’re a FileMaker User Group serving the Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware Region
The most important feature in FileMaker 12 is arguably the ExecuteSQL function. This is the first of an occasional series highlighting some real life uses of this new and exciting technique.
One reason I’m learning to embrace ExecuteSQL is because it lets you perform many tasks without accessing the Relationship Graph. Continue reading ‘SQL for the Common Man’
Our next Philadelphia FileMaker User Group meeting has been scheduled for Tuesday evening, November 13th, 2012 at 6:00 PM. The meeting will be held at the IT Solutions Fort Washington Office.
(This is a reschedule due to Hurricane Sandy)
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.
As always, pizza and soft drinks will be provided.
Jerry Salem of IT Solutions Consulting conducted a webinar for FMAcademy back on October 25th. The webinar recording is here:
http://www.filemakeracademy.com/index.php/working-with-and-extending-the-starter-solutions/
Jerry will present aspects of this webinar material in person to the Philly FileMaker User Group next Tuesday November 13th! There will be extended opportunities for some back and forth with attendees and for exploring the files in more depth. If you watch the webinar, you’ll have a chance to dig deeper with the presenter; if you missed it, don’t worry! He’ll get it all covered.
Dr. Jerry Salem began his career in technology as a computer science major, eventually moving to the biological sciences where he earned his Ph.D in Biochemistry. During that time he published papers on malaria, tuberculosis, and AIDS. He holds a U.S. patent and has spoken internationally on numerous topics.
As a researcher, Jerry learned computer networking, web design, and FileMaker. He has worked in various technology fields developing a number of solutions, including electronic medical records software and complex systems for many businesses and organizations. Along the way he has mastered standard SQL tools and a variety of other technologies.
Since 2007, Jerry has worked at IT Solutions, a Platinum level member of the FileMaker Business Alliance. Among his accomplishments since joining ITS are certification in FileMaker versions 8 through 11 and frequent contributions to the Philly FileMaker User Group. He has also been a DevCon presenter and is a FileMaker Authorized Trainer.
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/
Here is a technique for advanced FileMaker users. Most modern solutions allow you to have multiple windows open showing different information. There is a simple way to manage those windows.
How many times has this happened to you? You are working on a database, and you need to open a new window. Maybe you have a list of clients and a detail view of one client. Then you have to open a third window to view some invoices for that client. Now you have three windows named <<Solution>>, <<Solution>>-1 and <<Solution>>-3. You go to the window menu to go back to the list view; which window do you choose?
This is the exact scenario that happened the other day when I walked into a client’s office. Dave turned to me and said, “Isn’t there a better way to do this? I can never remember what window has what info in it! I cycle through 1, 2, 3 then check any other windows open hunting for my info.”
What I really want, is a way to name windows that is flexible and doesn’t have to be maintained. There is no built in menu command or function exposed directly to the users called, “Rename This Window”. However it is possible to build this. Since there IS a script step that can be used to rename a window.
Here is the script that I came up with:
The first step grabs the current window name, so I can present that to the user. This way they know exactly what window they are renaming. Then there is an if statement in case the user wants to cancel. Finally the business of the script, renaming the window.
One thing to keep in mind, the consequences of giving the user this ability. In one solution I have a home button. This button navigates you home. Once I gave the users the ability to change window names, sometimes navigating to the home screen gave funny results. Imagine walking by a computer, on the home screen with a window name of ‘Invoice # 444 for Joe Blow”! To make up for this, I updated the ‘GoTo Home’ script to also rename the window to the solution name. You may also want to ask the user if they also want to close all the other windows.
I try to make this script the first one in the scripts menu. This makes it easier to select for the user.
So now when opening multiple windows, I can name each one. Each window is named with what it represents! See this example;
File this with those other nice tips that your users won’t even realize are there. But design paradigms like this make systems more robust and easier to use.
Jerry Salem
During my last FMAcademy talk, I presented ways to create charts in FileMaker 12. One of the most compelling reasons to use FileMaker 12 is the new enhancements in the Charting functionality. There are twice the number of chart types available, building charts requires less overhead, there is a better interface that allows users to create charts on the fly, and there is more control of the look and presentation of the charts you create. I would like to review some of the techniques we covered in that talk today.
First, let’s start with a sample Chart, showing the number of invoices produced per month. It’s fine for what it is, but we can make it better. The key parts I would like to concentrate on are the X and Y Axes.
First lets look at the X Axis – the horizontal series of values running along the bottom of the chart. For charts with many data points, the number of ticks along this axis may make for a very cluttered chart. For data that is in a continuous series you may not need to show every tick mark.
One way we can hide alternating values in the X axis is to use the mod function.
In order to achieve this illusion, we need to update the calculation used for the X axis data. Using the Mod function we can show just the odd months: January, March, etc.
If(Mod(Month(ChartAxis::MonthOfSale);2) = 1; MonthName(ChartAxis::MonthOfSale) & ” ” & Year(ChartAxis::MonthOfSale))
Now the label only shows up for the even months. How does this work?
Well, the Mod function gives the remainder from dividing the first argument (Month Number) by the second argument (2). Take January, with a Month Number of 1. Divide 1 by 2 has a remainder of 1. Therefore the January label is shown. For February, the Month Number is 2, 2 /2 is 1. The remainder is zero, so that label doesn’t show up. Luckily there are an even number of months in a year so December doesn’t show but January of the next year does!
You can modify this calculation to show every three tick marks by changing the 2 in the mod to a 3;
If(Mod(Month(ChartAxis::MonthOfSale);3) = 1; MonthName(ChartAxis::MonthOfSale) & ” ” & Year(ChartAxis::MonthOfSale))
This modification gives tick marks every quarter (every 3 months), as shown in this graph.
Finally, notice that by default, FileMaker shows the Y axis on both the left and right side. An alternative presentation to conserve space would be not to show the Y axis at all, and put the Y value right on the column. This gives more graph and less white space.
This can be done by updating the Y Axis style as shown. Use custom settings and set the Font size for the Y axis to 1 (you can’t set it to zero).
Using the ‘Show Data Points on Chart’ check box on the Chart section will put the value of each column on it. Although the user can also see this value by hovering over the column, showing it directly lets you scan the numbers and makes it more iOS compatible too.
Finally, I truncate the month names so they are all 3 characters long. So there isn’t so much white space at the bottom of the chart.
To review, we explored how make less cluttered graphs by displaying every 2 or 3 X axis labels, hiding the Y axis and added the chart data directly to the charts.
Your users will appreciate understanding their data better by using charts. If you want to see the implementation in the FileMaker environment, download the demo. These techniques will let your charts pop out better and show more information.
The FileMaker Training Series, now in its fourth edition, has been launched today and is available for purchase at filemaker.com.
The FileMaker Training Series is the official training curriculum from FileMaker, Inc. It offers a series of 13 training modules that cover a comprehensive set of topics designed to help you master the essentials of FileMaker solution development.
The FileMaker Training Series is targeted at intermediate to advanced FileMaker developers, but anyone that creates databases can increase their knowledge from these time-tested materials. This series is a key resource for becoming a FileMaker Certified Developer.
IT Solutions Consulting, the sponsor for PhillyFilemaker.org, is pleased to announce that we’ll be offering a three day FTS training session August 22-24:
FileMaker Training Series for FileMaker 12: Developer Essentials
This course is taught by FileMaker Authorized Trainers and PhillyFileMaker regulars Colin Keefe and Jerry Salem. If you don’t know them from the user group, you can catch a little of their training styles on filemakeracademy.com, where both recently conducted webinars:
Server File Management – Colin Keefe
Charting Enhancements – Jerry Salem
Jerry will also be presenting at DevCon this July, so catch him there!
This is an exciting time in the world of FileMaker and we’re looking forward to the opportunity to explore the new features and capabilities of FileMaker with our students!
You can find the schedule here. Now might be an appropriate time to pick up the $300 early bird discount – there’s a lot of great stuff in there. One interesting change in the Conference is the addition of Vendor Demos as a Conference Track – you’ll see them sprinkled through the posted schedule.
PhillyFileMaker’s own Jerry Salem of IT Solutions will be presenting on Tuesday at 2PM. Feel free to ignore all other tracks in that slot and give Jerry your full, undivided and devoted attention.
Look Both Ways Before Crossing the Street: System Documentation
Why bother writing comments or documentation or following standards in the back end; especially if all the users ever see is the user interface? Now ask yourself another question: if you are hit by a bus, will your clients, colleagues, or development teammates be able to understand the code you have written to a degree that they can complete the project without you? Even in the rare cases where the answer is “yes,” inheriting your undocumented code may well jeopardize the project by delaying the schedule and putting it over budget. The simple act of following standards and creating documentation will make you a better programmer and will also help you to remember design choices you may have made years ago. What exactly are the things you should document? This session will help you make wise choices about the type of documentation to keep for a system, and also to create documentation that will actually help you and others understand your solutions.
Put it on your calendar! COR010.ics
For those of you who don’t know, Philly FileMaker’s sponsor, IT Solutions Consulting, has partnered with 360Works, MightyData, Anvil Dataworks, Fiddlehead Software, Skeleton Key and Kyo Logic on a new initiative called FM Academy, which has been producing free webinars whose purpose is to further educate FileMaker users and developers to encourage best practices, and to foster further adoption of the software.
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
The last couple of installments were about understanding the basics of what makes a Drupal web site. We covered nodes, views, and plugins, among other things. We didn’t go unnoticed either. While at the 2011 DevCon, I was featured on an episode of FileMaker Success Tips.
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.
Continue reading ‘Crossing Drupal Street IV’
The addition of charting in FileMaker version 11 was a long overdue and welcome addition. I don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth. This tool is great at showing histograms of grouped data, but there are a couple of things that are more challenging to do with this feature.
Continue reading ‘Graph Data Not in a Row’
Here is a behavior I am not fond of. When I click on a button to go to a list, I expect to be at the top of the list on the first record. This works fine if you are using any version of FileMaker. However with version 10, Filemaker introduced a new wrinkle, sub-summary layout parts that are visible in Browse mode. This wonderfully useful feature did introduce one unexpected consequence.
Continue reading ‘Navigating to List Views with Summary Parts’
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