Reflections from Exile
In the season finale of “30 Rock”, Jack Donaghee (Alec Baldwin’s high-powered executive character) suffers a heart attack, clutches his chest and cries “Ride it Donaghee! Ride it straight to hell!”
In an effort to avoid a similar fate, I recently took a week of exile from work (pretty fancy term for “vacation”, no?) and went to a location where the only internet access was dialup. Before I left, I opened my “trip packing” database, checked off the boxes for “cold, relaxing, sun” (I was going to Canada), unchecked the box for “work” and set the “willingness to smell” field to a value of 9 (out of 10). I printed the resulting packing list and closed FileMaker for a whole 7 days, possibly the longest for me in three years.
That gap gave me some time to reflect on a number of nagging personal questions. For example: “Do I want to quit my day job and be a fulltime consultant?” or “Which will ultimately be a bigger letdown: iPhone, FM9 or the Heroes finale?” Read more
Google Mapping in FileMaker
UPDATE: I’ve written a follow up to this post which shows how to produce a map with multiple addresses.
Google Mapping in FileMaker
I’m sure you’ve seen the Web Viewer maps in FileMaker. Sure, they’re serviceable, but you’ve got no control. And with Google recently adding “Search Results” and “My Maps” to the screen as well (a laudable feature, to be sure), the available real estate for the actual map shrunk by almost half. What can be done? I’ll show you how to roll you own mapping engine using PHP and the Google Map API.
Hello world (again!)
The FileMaker Collective is now officially hosted, sponsored and maintained by the The Proof Group LLC. It is still in ‘Beta’, meaning that most things should work. Previous comments and posts should be moved over; we are working on migrating files from Typepad. Turns out the exports don’t send everything over…it was too good to be true.
Roll Your Own Edit Mode
The Problem
As FileMaker developers, we take a lot of things for granted. For example, FileMaker’s Browse Mode/Find Mode feature is actually pretty slick; just place a field on a layout and it becomes both a data-update field as well as a query field without additional coding. However, when a layout is set to “save record changes automatically”, the frequency of people thinking they are in Find mode when they are actually happily clobbering data is enough to drive the most laissez-faire FileMaker developer nuts.
Sometimes, calling such problems “training-issues” just isn’t enough.
One solution is to roll your own Edit Mode feature. This technique uses the power of global variables in FileMaker 8+. In this example, I am going to combine scripts, a global variable and a custom privilege set to regulate users’ record-edit access.
Note: this article in intended to illustrate a general technique, do not rely solely on this example to secure your database.
The Triad of Server
I recently attended a FileMaker, Inc. sponsored seminar about proper configuration of FileMaker® Server 8 and FileMaker® Server 8 Advanced. The day-long program featured members of the North American FileMaker System Engineer team.
At the outset of the program, the SE’s made a very critical point about successful deployment of FileMaker Pro solutions to FileMaker Server. That point bears repeating here. For a deployment to be successful, three keys parts must be properly configured and designed as well as properly aligned with one another:
•The Server hardware and operating system,
•The FileMaker Server services/daemons, and,
•The developer designed FileMaker Pro solution.
Typically, there has been some considerable discussion about the third point: solution design. The Certification Program, various on-line resources, educational programs, seminars, etc. focus on this. FileMaker Tech Support, the SE’s, the development engineers, and a few senior developers have provided guidance and information about the second point: the FileMaker Server services or daemons.
However, there has been very little discussion about the first item: server hardware and operating system requirements. Outside of the Server Best Practices White Paper authored by Wim Decorte [http://www.filemaker.com/downloads/pdf/techbrief_fm8_server.pdf] and some postings that he and I have made to various forums, there has been very little discussion about this until the SE’s started this series of seminars.
I want to commend the SE’s for conducting these seminars and to commend FileMaker, Inc. for providing them. They are absolutely critical in my view to having successful FileMaker deployment experiences. The responsibility remains however for us as developers to acquaint ourselves with the requirements of all three parts of the Triad of Server and to learn and follow best practices for successful deployments of solutions hosted by FileMaker Server 8 or FileMaker Server 8 Advanced.
Steven H. Blackwell
Platinum Member, FileMaker Business Alliance
Partner Member, FileMaker Solutions Alliance (1997-2007)
FileMaker 8 Certified Developer
FileMaker 7 Certified developer