FileMaker Pro 10 and FileMaker Server 10 Released
by shblackwell
The release today of FileMaker® Pro 10, FileMaker® Pro 10 Advanced, FileMaker® Server 10, and FileMaker® Server 10 Advanced marks an important new milestone on FileMaker, Inc.’s product roadmap. Congratulations to FileMaker, Inc. and especially to the Product Management and Engineering teams.
With the introduction of thirteen new, long-awaited, and much-sought event triggers and Set Field by dynamic calculation, the new FileMaker Pro 10 is the most significant change since the introduction of FileMaker® Pro 7 in early March of 2004. The User Interface has undergone a significant alteration as well to produce a more contemporary look familiar to users of productivity applications on both Windows and Macintosh operating systems.
FileMaker Pro 10 also has a new approach to the file recovery process exposing many more granular options to developers and administrators as well as producing a extensively detailed log of its results. Moreover, subsummary reports have been decoupled from Preview mode and will now run and update in Browse mode, producing far more dynamic reporting capabilities.
FileMaker Server has also acquired new capabilities including the ability to run server side imports and exports and to schedule sequences of both OS level and FileMaker Pro based scripts. It can also now schedule on-demand verifications of files, something that will aid immeasurably in monitoring file integrity. Additionally, FileMaker Sever 10 Advanced will support up to 999 simultaneous FileMaker Pro client connections, quadrupling the old 250 user limit found in earlier versions.
And, especially good news in challenging economic times, prices for the products remain unchanged, except for a modest increase in FileMaker Sever 10 Advanced reflecting its enhanced capabilities. More information can be found on the FileMaker, Inc. corporate website at http://www.filemaker.com.
Steven H. Blackwell
Platinum Member, FileMaker Business Alliance
Partner Member, FileMaker Solutions Alliance (1997-2007)
FileMaker 9 Certified Developer
FileMaker 8 Certified Developer
FileMaker 7 Certified Developer
FileMaker Authorized Trainer
Thankful for the Era Done, and Thankful For the Opening One.
by shblackwell
“Thankful for the Era Done, and Thankful for the Opening One.” This paraphrase of John Greenleaf Whittier’s Centennial pretty well summed up my sentiments for the World of FileMaker as the year 2008 drew to a close and the year 2009 began.
Next week will be historic as the last ever MacWorld program with Apple’s presence convenes in San Francisco on Tuesday. I have heard no official announcement, but I believe it highly likely that it will be FileMaker, Inc.’s last appearance as well. I have been attending these annual events since 1996, and they have always proved interesting. FileMaker, Inc. always draws large crowds of interested users and developers to its booth. And in the past several years the FileMaker Pavilion with third party developers has been an added attraction.
I have appreciated the opportunity to be part of this excitement and energy. While I understand that markets and times are changing, I nevertheless will miss this opportunity in future years.
But there are going to be other opportunities in coming years as well. FileMaker, Inc. has a roadmap, and they seem to be adhering to it pretty well. The developer community is strong; it will grow even stronger. I look forward eagerly to being part of that growth as well.
I hope to see many FileMaker developers in San Francisco next week at FileMaker’s Booth 1225.
Steven
–
Steven H. Blackwell
Platinum Member, FileMaker Business Alliance
Partner Member, FileMaker Solutions Alliance (1997-2007)
FileMaker 9 Certified Developer
FileMaker 8 Certified Developer
FileMaker 7 Certified Developer
FileMaker Authorized Trainer
June 25, 2008Assets, Vulnerabilities, Threats, and Risks: What Type Security Is Right For You?
by shblackwell
In the FileMaker Pro developer community there is a general lack of clear understanding about the need for the correct type of security in FileMaker Pro solutions.
There is too much focus on passwords and not enough focus on the protection of assets and the mitigation of adverse impacts of breaches. There is also too much focus on the creation of “custom” “security” systems and not enough focus on identifying threats and the risks of their occurring. There is too much complaining about how “hard” it is to have good security and not enough appreciation about the adverse impact of having the wrong type of security.
As a result of all this, at the upcoming FileMaker Developer Conference in Phoenix I will be conducting a special session:
Assets, Vulnerabilities, Threats, and Risks:
What Type Security Is Right For You?
Tuesday, July 15th 2008
11:15 AM to 12:30 PM
Sonoran Ballroom H
This session will feature a discussion of how to determine the right type of security for your solution. It is based on a set of circumstances specific to your individual solution, but common to all FileMaker Pro solutions.
All assets are subject to threats that can exploit vulnerabilities that, in turn, can breach their Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability. The level of adverse impact of such a breach varies situation by situation as do the risks of those threats’ occurring and the prevalence of threat agents that can trigger the exploits.
Security then must focus on closing vulnerabilities, on blocking threat agents, and on mitigating adverse impact of breaches. And a great many FileMaker Pro solutions take no cognizance whatsoever of this key requirement.
So, if you are at the Develop Conference, feel free to stop by to listen, to contribute, or to debate this very important subject.
—–
Steven H. Blackwell
Platinum Member, FileMaker Business Alliance
Partner Member, FileMaker Solutions Alliance (1997-2007)
FileMaker 9 Certified Developer
FileMaker 8 Certified Developer
FileMaker 7 Certified Developer
FileMaker Authorized Trainer
Brain Teaser - Solution
by Peter Vinogradov
Alright, so nobody solved this brain teaser. I’m sure this had nothing to do with people having clients and lives, and everything to do with the original post getting hosed and the challenge being too darn hard anyway 
So here, at long last, is the solution:
Let (
[
NewSubSummary =( GetNthRecord ( MyTable::MyKeyField ; Get(RecordNumber)-1) <> MyTable::MyKeyField ); //Test if record is the start of a new subsummary. MyKeyField is the sort field for my subsummary part.$on = $val; // $on will always be whatever $val was last
$val = If (NewSubSummary; If ( $val = 1;"" ; 1) ) // switch the value of val
];
$on // if $on=1, then apply the conditional format)
[edit:] Or, in much simpler terms:
Let (
[
$b = If ($b ;"" ;1 )
];
$b
)
To me, the interesting thing here is the way that these variable expressions are handled by FileMaker. First of all, the conditional formatting seems to get evaluated, as one might expect, from top to bottom of the page, allowing you to use variables to keep track of formatting decisions that were made earlier on the page, or even on previous pages. It seems there should be some much cooler implications of this, like multiple title headers and pseudo-headers (don’t know what I mean by that? Neither do I…). The other interesting thing is that the variables here are local variables, but they’re kept active while the whole page is rendered by preview mode, which is what allows me to make reference to the last evaluation of $val and produce the alternating effect (yeah, I know I could just as easily use global variables, but it’s handy to know I don’t have to)
The reason that this gave me a checkerboard on the first try:
was because I had placed the formula on a repeating field, meaning that each conditional format formula was evaluated for each repetition, left-to-right. Once I placed the calc on a regular field, the checkerboard was gone and I had nice alternating rows.
Brain Teaser
by Peter Vinogradov
I was working on a crosstab report to show grade distributions and I wanted alternating highlights. I was using Mikhai Edoshin’s snazzy technique (http://edoshin.skeletonkey.com/2006/12/crosstab_report.html), which meant that each row was a subsummary part, which, at least in my copy of FileMaker, doesn’t support alternating fill. Like an idiot, I threw in a conditional format
————-
EDIT: This post got hosed somehow, and everything beyond the part where I refer to myself as an idiot was erased. I can’t remember what was idiotic about my original conditional formatting in this case (if I weren’t such an idiot, I’d probably remember). In any case, below is a reprise of the brain teaser:
———–
Each line in Edoshin’s crosstab technique is basically a repeating summary field based on a repeating summary calc. My goal was to get each one of these repeating fields to alternate its background fill. Using any kind of Mod-based calculation based on record number was going to fail, since these fields are on a subsummary, and there’s no way to predict how many records correspond to each subsummary part.
Taking a purely throw-rocks-at-it-until-it-stops-moving approach, I opened up the conditional formatting dialog on that repeating summary field, and hammered out a calculation. I was astounded, when I went back to preview mode, to see this:
My conditional formatting calc had inadvertently produced a checkerboard pattern. I realized, shortly thereafter, that by placing the same calc on a regular field, rather than a repeating field, I could get the alternating pattern as I desired:
The brain teaser challenge, before it got erased, was to figure out what sort of calculation could yield this effect on a subsummary part. The reward, if I recall correctly, was a signed copy of my memoir.