FileMaker (an Apple subsidiary) recently released version 14 of their award-winning database software that’s been around 30 years (and I should know; I bought the version 1 in 1985). This release is interesting in that while there is a good range of new features, there are a also few updates to some of their core tools. And, like a true geek, the place where this release shines for me is the spectacular update to their scripting. Is it perfect? No, I feel there are several areas where some UI improvements are still needed. Nonetheless, there are new tools, new scripting opportunities, new UI features, and some very powerful server features. So sit back, pick up your beverage of choice, and read all about it.
FileMaker Pro is a database software application that lets you create and manage databases. What’s a database? Consider an electronic collection of business cards where you can search for plumbers, plumbers in your state, and/or plumbers that do house calls. A web search engine is a database, but the contents are based on what’s on the web. If you have an organization and you want to look up members of that organization, you need a custom database.
When you open FileMaker Pro for the first time, you can either open an existing database, create a new database, or open a template database that you can customize. I point this out early in this review on the chance that you download FileMaker Pro for a trial and find that when you open up the application there’s no database ready for you to use. This is no different than opening up MS Word and not finding the novel you haven’t written yet.
There are four parts to the FileMaker Family:
- FileMaker Pro: This is the basic FileMaker database software that lets you create databases and use the databases.
- FileMaker Pro Advanced: This does the basic stuff as well as provide extra support for diagnosing problems in scripts, better support for database management, and the ability to create run-time databases.
- FileMaker Go: This free software for mobile devices lets you access and do basic operations to any FileMaker database on a mobile device.
- FileMaker Server: This version of FileMaker runs on servers and lets any desktop or mobile device access the database in real time and allows changes be made to the database in real time.
The whole FileMaker family has been updated to take full implementation of the new features. This release does not change the basic structure of FileMaker, and still has the suffix of “.fmp12.” This means you can open and (mostly) run any database made from the new FileMaker Pro 13 or 14 on a FileMaker Pro 12 software. However, any functions and/or script steps that were developed after FM Pro 12 (or 13) will not function in an earlier version. For example, below you will read about a new “Button Bar” feature that provides a strip of buttons such as you might find in a website. If you open a database with this feature in FileMaker 13, the Button Bar simply doesn’t exist.
WebDirect
There’s no doubt FileMaker has spent a significant amount of time improving one’s ability to access a database with a Browser over the Internet. Significantly now, users can access the database from the FileMaker Server on a desktop (as before) but now also on mobile tablet devices (sorry, no phones). Maintaining their Apple connection (FileMaker is an Apple subsidiary), FileMaker Go is only available for Apple Devices. However, for mobile devices, the hardware requirements for WebDirect are an iPad Air 2 or iPad mini 3, or (and here’s the big thing) any Android tablet with 2GB or RAM (minimum), 1.4 GHz of quad-core CPU, and a screen size of 10.1″ or greater (those are minimum requirements; more is better).
Getting your solution onto the web is essentially placing your FM Pro 14 solution on a server with FileMaker Pro Server. Done. There are some administrative details for setting up connections, but as far as the look of the database, there’s no html, php, or CSS to deal with.
Improvements include expanding the number of concurrent users from 50 to 100. Unfortunately, this leads to the biggest problem with FileMaker Server in that you are charged for the number of concurrent connections (on Browser and FileMaker Go) based on units of 5. This starts at $1,440 per 5-pack per year. If you are a big business, this is money well spent. If you are a mom and pop store, it might be out of your league.
Scripting Improvements
A certain amount of the focus for this release is to ease some of the processes that have been “pain points” for users in the past; most specifically (at least for me), creating scripts. In the past you needed to know exactly what script function you needed, you needed to know how to create that script, and you needed to know how to implement that script. In addition to these criteria, you also had to deal with the interface for scripts that, while it has improved over the years, was very cumbersome.
Part of that improvement with scripting is that now all aspects of script making are in the same window: viewing, creating, examining, and debugging scripts. This may seem like a small thing, but it’s vastly increased the efficiency of creating, editing, examining, and debugging scripts.
As shown below, on the left you have all of the current scripts in the database at which you are looking. Click on a given script and you can see the steps of that script in the middle “Script Editing Pane.” As you create scripts and/or build upon them, you can access the Steps from the right hand column. In the middle section you can see two “tabs” showing that you can open multiple scripts at the same time, and yes, copying and pasting from script to script is possible. The only limitation on this is that you need to copy and paste from either the keyboard or the menus; there are no contextual menu options for most operations within the scripts, a surprising and disappointing limitation.
On the right hand side of the image above you can see that the Script steps are now controlled by a tipping triangle so you can quickly and easily close categories you do not need to see. This simple addition significantly speeds the process of skimming for the script step you want. More on this in a second. Also note that the bottom of the right hand side displays the purpose of any script you click on. While this may seem small and trivial, it’s a nice addition. (To the right on the bottom is a question mark. When clicked, you are taken to FileMaker’s Help application right to that script step.)
Another benefit of this new Scripting environment where everything is in a single package is that you can open the Script Workspace for one database, open another Script Workspace and go back and forth from one workspace to the other; copy and paste scripts or copy and paste steps, since it’s all in one window, it’s much easier to manage and keep track of…
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