FILEMAKER: IWP Support For Keyboard Navigation Between Fields / Objects

From Dwayne Wright - Certified FileMaker 10 Developer
WEB: www.dwaynewright.com
EMAIL: info@dwaynewright.com
TWITTER: dwaynewright
YOUTUBE: FileMakerThoughts

CHAPTER 1.6: Working With Fields

This is one of those little things that can get you if you are not careful. In FileMaker IWP (the quick and easy way to put a FileMaker database on the web), tabbing to the next field / object can ONLY be done by hitting the tab key. The other options you can define in the Field Behavior setup dialog box for the classic FileMaker experience will not work in IWP.

© 2010 - Dwayne Wright - dwaynewright.com
The material on this document is offered AS IS. FileMaker Pro is the registered trademark of FileMaker Inc.

A READER ASKS: Calculated Record Status Display

From Dwayne Wright - Certified FileMaker 9 Developer
WEB: www.dwaynewright.com
EMAIL: info@dwaynewright.com
TWITTER: dwaynewright

APPENDIX 1: A Reader Asks

A READER ASKS
I am attempting to get the database to show what record out of how many records found it is showing. Is there a trick to this?

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DWAYNE RESPONDS
There are a number of ways to achieve this and most involve some use of the Get family of functions. Here is the calculation that I typically use and you should be able to plug it right into your tables.

Get(RecordNumber) & " of " & Get(FoundCount) &"¶" &
Case(
Get(FoundCount) = Get(TotalRecordCount); "Viewing All Records";
"Viewing Subset Of " & Get(TotalRecordCount))
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More info about the author and FileMaker in general, contact me at info@dwaynewright.com.

© 2009 - Dwayne Wright - dwaynewright.com

The material on this document is offered AS IS. There is NO REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTY, expressed or implied, nor does any other contributor to this document. WARRANTIES OF MERCHANT ABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMED. Consequential and incidental damages are expressly excluded. FileMaker Pro is the registered trademark of FileMaker Inc.

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FILEMAKER: List View To Browse View Methods

From Dwayne Wright - Certified FileMaker 9 Developer
WEB: www.dwaynewright.com
EMAIL: info@dwaynewright.com
TWITTER: dwaynewright

CHAPTER X: Navigation

Going from list view to the form view for a particular record can be handled a number of different ways. Now if you allow your users access to the layout pull down menu, they can navigate layouts from there. This is one of the methods that works just fine with simple databases. Sometimes FileMaker databases mimic teenagers and seem to grow up overnight. I don’t think they will ever ask you for the keys to the car but they can outgrow your earlier methods to deal with them.

In this case, the layout list menu can get a little crowed when a FileMaker database evolves to the state where it has a lot of layouts. It is not uncommon for every table to have separate layout for a form, list and print view. So a button / menu activated navigation system is quickly created by the FileMaker developer to overcome the need to navigate a long list of layout.

Another advantage to developing your own method of layout navigation is that you can flavor the experience. For example, you can have the layout window resize, give it a custom name in the title bar or perform some other background action. So here are some designed variations I've used or seen.

Now I want to steer this discussion to the moving from a list view to the form view techniques. However, the technique of moving from a portal row to the related record is quite similar and most developer use the same implementation for both.

BIG FORM VIEW BUTTON IN THE LIST HEADER
One very simple technique is to put a button in the header that goes to form view. So the user needs to select which listed record they want first and then click the form view button.

MY FAVORITE, A LITTLE ICON
My favorite method is the button icon (typically a magnifying glass icon, but more about that debate later). I put the button along the left side of the screen. Clicking upon it will take you to form view from that particular record. In some ways, using a magnifying glass icon is confusing. Many times that icon is used to illustrate a search procedure and I use it as a "drill down" indicator. I just have never seen an icon better than the magnifying glass icon.

WHOLE LINE IS A BUTTON
Now I was watching one of the training videos from VTC.com for FileMaker 10, given by longtime developer / trainer John Mark Osborne. The second to last movie in the Final Touches series, John illustrates how to make the entire line of the list view into a button.

FYI ... I’ve really enjoyed the FileMaker 10 VTC training series lately. I've been watching the Advanced version with runs about 12 hours in duration. There are also Beginner (15 hours) and Intermediate (15 hours) FileMaker 10 training series.

SCRIPT TRIGGER?
I'm not sure how I would do it but there may be a technique in there somewhere. Going back to the VTC training movies for a moment, there is a movie called Navigation in the Event Driven Scripting section of the same FileMaker 10 Advanced VTC Course. It uses a variation of an old value list pull down layout navigation. Before FileMaker 10, you had to click a "Go To" button. Script triggers take away that limitation and really makes you start thinking about navigation in new ways.

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More info about the author and FileMaker in general, contact me at info@dwaynewright.com.

© 2009 - Dwayne Wright - dwaynewright.com

The material on this document is offered AS IS. There is NO REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTY, expressed or implied, nor does any other contributor to this document. WARRANTIES OF MERCHANT ABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMED. Consequential and incidental damages are expressly excluded. FileMaker Pro is the registered trademark of FileMaker Inc.

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FILEMAKER: Reorder FileMaker Layouts Explored

From Dwayne Wright - Certified FileMaker 9 Developer
WEB: www.dwaynewright.com
EMAIL: info@dwaynewright.com
TWITTER: dwaynewright

CHAPTER 1: About The Layout

By now you are probably comfortable creating layouts and you may have dozens of newly created layouts within your FileMaker file. By default, all new FileMaker layouts are added to the bottom of the existing layout list. Unless you really did create the layouts in the same order you wanted to view them, you will want to organize them in a new list order. This is particularly true if you have a large collection of layouts that are linked to different table occurrences.

LAYOUT REORDER IN FILEMAKER 9 AND EARLIER
The reorganization of layouts is available from a menu command under the Layout menu in Layout mode. This is true for all versions of FileMaker previous to version 10.

IN FILEMAKER 10 AND BEYOND (assuming)
The Set Layout Order feature that had been under the layouts menu (previous to FileMaker 10) has been been moved and renamed to the Manage Layout command. The new Manage Layout feature is part of the overall family of commands under the Manage menu.

Here you can see the Manage sub-menu for advanced copy of FileMaker 10. This contains the new option of layouts alongside the options for the manage database dialog box (for tables, fields and relationships), the value list definition dialog box, scripts, external file references and the security settings for the file. Since this is a snapshot of the Advanced copy of FileMaker 9, it includes the Custom Function and Custom Menu option.

LAYOUT REORDER DOES ...
When you choose to reorder (FMP9) or the manage (FMP10) layout option, FileMaker will bring up a dialog box allowing you to move layouts up and down the layout list for organizational reasons. For instance you can group all the data entry layouts together and then all the list layouts together. The actual process of reordering the layouts is accomplished by clicking a small double arrow handle and dragging the listed layout to its desired spot in the order.

Here you can see a layout list from the FileMaker 10 status bar.

In the status bar (FMP10) or status area (FMP9), you will find a list that allows you to jump to a particular layout. In this same general area of the manage layout dialog box as the reorder handle, is a checkbox that allows you to show or hide the layout in the layout list in browse mode. If you are not using the layout menu for navigation, it is probably a good idea to hide all the layouts from browse mode.

Finally, you also have the ability to jump to a layout in the layout list by selecting it and then clicking the Layout Setup button.
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More info about the author and FileMaker in general, contact me at info@dwaynewright.com.

© 2009 - Dwayne Wright - dwaynewright.com

The material on this document is offered AS IS. There is NO REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTY, expressed or implied, nor does any other contributor to this document. WARRANTIES OF MERCHANT ABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMED. Consequential and incidental damages are expressly excluded. FileMaker Pro is the registered trademark of FileMaker Inc.

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FILEMAKER: Visual Spell-Checking Explored

From Dwayne Wright - Certified FileMaker 9 Developer
WEB: www.dwaynewright.com
EMAIL: info@dwaynewright.com
TWITTER: dwaynewright

CHAPTER 1.6: Working With Fields

FileMaker includes the ability to spell check text fields or text on a layout when in layout mode. Visual Spell-Checking is a feature that underscores a word that FileMaker may think has a spelling error. When you see the indication that a word may be misspelled, you can right click on the word to bring up your contextual menu options to address it.

Here you can see that the visual spell checker has flagged a misspelling of the word FileMaker.

Here you can see the contextual menu showing you alternate spelling options and the ability to add a word to your FileMaker dictionary.

Not all words flagged by the spell checker are misspelled. You may want to add words to the internal FileMaker user dictionary to accommodate people names, slang, industry related words and the like. This way they will not be flagged as spelling errors in the future.

Now with the release of FileMaker 9, visual spell-checking can be controlled via the Field Behavior dialog box.

FYI... Up to version 9 of FileMaker, Visual Spell-Checking used to be an option that you could turn on or off on a per file basis only. This limitation became a type of “damned if you do / damned if you don’t” choice for developers and users alike.

FYI... FileMaker has the ability to use multiple dictionaries and you can select which one to use during different data entry situations!

FYI... You might not know that you can edit the user dictionary, import new words from a text file or export the user dictionary so that you can share it with other FileMaker users in your workgroup! This is all accessed from the Spelling sub-menu under the Edit menu. Hey, you can even have multiple dictionaries and switch back and forth depending on unique FileMaker usage situations.

Here are some links to other posts that might be of interest in regards to this topic...
Field Behavior
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More info about the author and FileMaker in general, contact me at info@dwaynewright.com.

© 2009 - Dwayne Wright - dwaynewright.com

The material on this document is offered AS IS. There is NO REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTY, expressed or implied, nor does any other contributor to this document. WARRANTIES OF MERCHANT ABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMED. Consequential and incidental damages are expressly excluded. FileMaker Pro is the registered trademark of FileMaker Inc.

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Help support this blog by considering a donating to its ongoing growth. For more details, please visit http://www.dwaynewright.com/donate.html