To get around the problem of having a many-to-many relationship you need to break apart the many-to-many relationship into two one-to-many relationships. Using a third table, commonly called a “join table”, does this. Each record in the “join table” would have the foreign key fields of the two tables it is joining together.
Continue reading
Display Formatted Text in a Web Viewer
November 11, 2015 
2 Comments
This idea has been documented before, (Using a Web Viewer as a Field) but I rediscovered it myself recently and thought I might have something to add. As was pointed out in The Support Group article, sometimes as a developer, you want to display a long chunk of text (anything that requires scrolling within a field) to the user, but not allow them to edit that text. Some examples might include displaying a block of help text, or a long software agreement. It is obviously possible to format your text using HTML to achieve this effect, but that can become complicated especially if you are not that good at HTML. Fortunately FileMaker offers a much simpler way to display formatted text this using the GetAsCSS function.
Continue reading
Smart Phone Caller ID Triggers Customer Search in FileMaker Pro Database
October 19, 2015 4 Comments
A while back, I did a blog entry on capturing Caller ID to look up FileMaker database contacts using a VOIP system. I thought it might be interesting to see if the same thing could be done with just a mobile phone, such as an iPhone or Android device.
Continue reading
Taking & Sharing Screenshots of FileMaker Go layouts on your iPad/iPhone
August 24, 2015 2 Comments
Communicating with your FileMaker application developer or other users of a database system can be greatly facilitated by the use of screenshots. Sending a screenshot from FileMaker Go is fairly easy to accomplish, if you know the secret of capturing. Here is how to do it.
Continue reading
FileMaker Go 14: Keeping Button Bars and Slide Panels in Sync
August 17, 2015 4 Comments
Someone suggested using the combination of FileMaker 14’s new button bar with a slide panel to emulate a tab panel. Why bother you ask? Well you get the cool slide animation effect.
Continue reading
Free Mortgage Calculator for FileMaker Go 14
August 13, 2015 1 Comment
The beauty of the FileMaker Platform is that in a few hours you can create an ‘app’ …
Continue reading
Alphabetic Search Buttons using Button Bars in FileMaker 14
August 10, 2015 Comments Off on Alphabetic Search Buttons using Button Bars in FileMaker 14
FileMaker Pro 14’s new button bar brings a new twist to an old technique for creating alphabetic searches of your data. Instead of creating 26 individual buttons it is possible to create a single button bar object and then easily reformat it using text style changes or FileMaker CSS style changes. The button bar can also be repurposed to horizontal or vertical layouts. Finally I demonstrate how to use the same script from different contexts to perform different searches — a list search and a portal filter.
Continue reading
Click, Display, Capture – Google Map Longitude & Latitude into FileMaker Pro
July 17, 2015 3 Comments
Using a Javascript overlay on Google Maps and FileMaker’s URL scheme to channel those coordinates into FileMaker records. Click on a map, add longitude and latitude to FileMaker Pro.
Continue reading
Locked into a FileMaker Go Screen? You Won’t Believe How One User Got Out!
June 8, 2015 Comments Off on Locked into a FileMaker Go Screen? You Won’t Believe How One User Got Out!
FileMaker Go has a great new features called ‘Reconnect to Server’, which helps keep your database connection open if your iPad/iPhone falls asleep or your WiFi connection gets dodgy. This great new feature can become a problem if your solution sends the user to a layout from which there is no return. Obviously the first step as […]
Continue reading
Flipping in FileMaker
June 2, 2015 6 Comments
Rotating Images or PDFs in Containers with Applescript (Mac) In my previous blog post I talked about automating scanner documents into FileMaker container fields using AppleScript. This was based on a customer request. Logging in to that system recently, I noticed that it was fairly common for staff members to scan documents in upside down. […]
Continue reading
Automating Webcam Photo Capture within FileMaker (Windows)
May 25, 2015 Comments Off on Automating Webcam Photo Capture within FileMaker (Windows)
OK folks, here is a hack for you. The Challenge: Capturing images from a web cam into FileMaker on Windows. I was able to achieve this previously on a Mac using AppleScript, but there is no similar easy inter-application scripting language on Windows. FileMaker Go on mobile has the ability to grab photos right from […]
Continue reading
Window Management in FileMaker Pro – Preventing Extra Windows from Opening
May 19, 2015 Comments Off on Window Management in FileMaker Pro – Preventing Extra Windows from Opening
My first version of the system was rejected by the customers because it kept opening extra windows, confusing the users. So I set about writing a fairly modular script that I could reuse to test if a window was already open and if so, simply select it, rather than opening another new window. This seemed to make the users much happier. I share it with you and my future self here.
Continue reading
Create Folders from FileMaker Pro Using AppleScript on a Macintosh
May 14, 2015 11 Comments
Someone on one of the Facebook FileMaker Group pages recently asked for a simple method, using AppleScript of creating a folder on the Desktop. FileMaker Pro can generate a variety of file formats, including Text, PDF and Excel, and it is possible to script the names of these files. It is also possible to script […]
Continue reading
FileMaker 14 – Resources
May 12, 2015 2 Comments
Well it is finally shipping. After glimpses under NDA and slips (it showed up on Amazon early), FileMaker 14 platform is now shipping. New versions of FileMaker Go, FileMaker Pro, FileMaker Pro Advanced and FileMaker Server are available for trial and download. I didn’t have time this round to do a full writeup on what […]
Continue reading
The End is Near – a Minor Datacalypse is Coming
April 23, 2015 Comments Off on The End is Near – a Minor Datacalypse is Coming
I have written before about the need to stay current with FileMaker Pro, operating systems and hardware. I recently received an email from a reader who asked: Between me and a colleague we built a large database with all the bells and whistles back in the days of FM 5.5 and yes, we fell behind or […]
Continue reading
