FileMaker 8+ gradient progress bar with one field - without containers

In the following article I will share a technique that I implemented in our current development, which needed FM8 techniques, as our client currently uses that.

I needed a progress bar, which looks great to show a script progress on a found set.

I didn't want to use containers and started thinking about how I would be able to create the progress bar without them.

Here's what I came up with:

The progress bar is a simple repeating field calculation(text) with 100 repetitions.

It uses the following calculation:

Let ( [r1=123;g1=80;b1=200;r2=10;g2=180;b2=50] ;

If ( Truncate ( (Get(RecordNumber)/Get(FoundCount)) * 100 ; 0) ≥ Get ( CalculationRepetitionNumber );

TextColor ( "█" ;RGB(

r1 + Floor((Get ( CalculationRepetitionNumber ) * (r2 - r1) / 100));

g1 + Floor((Get ( CalculationRepetitionNumber ) * (g2 - g1) / 100));

b1 + Floor((Get ( CalculationRepetitionNumber ) * (b2 - b1) / 100))

)

);""))

The first part of it is a LET calculation where I set up the beginning and the ending RGB colors, which will be used to calculate the actual repetition font color. The second part is a percentage calculator based on the current record and the found set.

The last part is used to calculate the actual RGB color.

The layout is simple, I just added the 100 repetitions, resized it, and set the font size to 72 points. I also added a fill color to the containers, that is what you can see under the gradient bar.

By modifying the rgb values you can come up with any color gradient you like:

I attached a sample file where you can find the calculation, investigate it, etc.

You can download it here.

Please check the demo file, and use this technique it if you like it.

Please visit our site, http://crm.fm which has our main FileMaker product, and support us by buying it. Thanks!

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 post. Consequential and incidental damages are expressly excluded. FileMaker Pro is the registered trademark of FileMaker Inc.

Moving in your previous FileMaker found sets

In the following article I will share a technique that I implemented in our CRM system quite long time ago. It's about getting back to your previous found sets.

The main part of most business softwares is the Search part, by which you can create complex search requests (extending existing lists, constraining, etc).

The main problem is that once you did a search and got a search result, you cannot get back to your previous list, or the one before that one, etc.

We faced this problem, and tried to implement a method by which you can move back and forward in your previous 5 (can be increased... see below) found sets.

FileMaker makes this quite easy, as a new table occurrence of the same table can hold a different found set!

So here is the technique. (Be sure to download the demo file I attached, so the you can understand this!)

You need to create five(or as many found sets you want to keep) table occurrence of your result table. In the example I attached It's the clients table.

So I created Clients_1, Clients_2, Clients_3, Clients_4, Clients_5 table occurrences in the relational graph and created 5 empty layouts with the same name (the source table of them was the appropriate table occurrence!).

Then I created two global fields, ( CurrentFoundSet_Global- This one is to know which found set we are currently on, and TotalFoundSet_Global- This one holds how many founds sets have been saved already).

The next step is the [SRTN]- SaveFoundSet script, which saves the current found set to the appropriate place, and checks if we have reached the highest value we can keep. If we did then it shifts the found sets left, so we loose the very first one.

This is done by the Go To Related Record script step on the appropriate layouts.

The [SRTN] - RestoreFoundSet script is to restore a found set.

There are two other scripts which are attached to the Restore Previous and Restore next buttons. (RestorePrevious,RestoreNext).

The saving happens at the search layout, in the [PANE]- Main bar script.

I attached a sample file where you can find these scripts, you can download it here.

Here is how you can try this:

1) Click on the Search Pane

2) Enter a "a" in the FirstName field, then press Enter

3) Go to the Search Pane again

4) Enter a "b" in the FirstName field, press enter

5) Go to the Seach Pane again

6) Enter a "c" in the FirstName, press enter

7) Now you can navigate backward in you found sets, and see the results.

This can be improved, modified, just wanted to share the basic idea of this thing. Please check the demo file, and use this technique it if you like it.

Note: In the sample file I used Brian Dunning's sample data file.

Note2: The original idea came from this article by Danny Dawson, worth reading!

Please visit our site, http://crm.fm which has our main FileMaker product, and support us by buying it. Thanks!

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 post. Consequential and incidental damages are expressly excluded. FileMaker Pro is the registered trademark of FileMaker Inc.

QuickTip: Creating a drop down list from an unstored calculation

The following technique is a quick tip, which may be known by some, but I needed it so many times in our current development that I thought I would share it.

If you have ever tried to create a value list from an unstored field, you may have noticed the following error message that filemaker gives you:

This means that our value list based on this calculation won't work.

What can we do now? Don't give up!

It's really simple.

If you have an ID field in your table (auto enter, serial), create a relation based on this field to itself like this:

(ID=ID)

The next thing to do is to modify the value list, so that it only includes values from this relation:

If you press OK now, you will still see the error message appear, but the value list will work now.

Please visit our site, http://crm.fm which has our main FileMaker product, and support us by buying it. Thanks!

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 post. Consequential and incidental damages are expressly excluded. FileMaker Pro is the registered trademark of FileMaker Inc.

Speeding up related record creation with importing

The following technique can be used when you have to create related records on a huge found set.

What is the main problem?

FileMaker can be really slow when you manually create many related records using a script, and we faced this when we developed our mass action (bulk mailing, exporting) part of our FileMaker based CRM. (Note: in our CRM there are two other related tables in which we needed related record creation which made things much worse)

Let's say you have client table, which has about 100.000 records. You also have a related table called History, which is to hold the events that happened to the clients.

If you try to add a history record to all clients in the found set, you'll have a script like this:

Freeze window

Go to Layout[Clients]

Go to Record/Request/Page[First]

Loop

Set Variable[$clientid;Clients::ClientID]

Go to Layout[History]

New record/request

Set Field[History::ClientID;$clientid]

Set Field[History::Event;"Client exported by user"]

Go to Layout[Clients]

Go to record/request/page [next, exit after last]

End Loop

It's an easy related record adder script which adds a "Client exported by user" text to the History table(it's related to the Clients table).

This would work well on small found sets. But when you try this on a big found set, you'll find yourself waiting for ages (and things get worse if we speak about a shared database and online usage).

How could it be sped up?

This is where exporting and importing can be a good solution, as you may noticed these functions create records much much faster.

This is how our script should be modified:

We'll need a global text field at the Clients table, where we set the "Client exported by user" text, let's call this Event_Global.

Now we can do an export on the clients table (we only need ClientID, and the Event_Global) to a temp directory in FP7 format.

After this we go to the History layout (and also table) and import that exported file as the following:

Clients::ClientID to History::ClientID

Clients::Event_Global to History::Event

And we're done.

So the modified script is the following:

Freeze Window

Set Field[Clients::Event_Global;"Client exported by user" ]

Set Variable [$path; Get(TemporaryPath) & "export.fp7"]

Export Records[No dialog; "$path"] //Note: here you need to add field Event_Global and ClientID

Go to Layout[History]

Import Records[No dialog;"$path";Add;Mac Roman]

Go to Layout[Original Layout]

And that's all.

So first we set the global field, then generate a path using Get(TemporaryPath) and save it to the $path variable.

Then we export the fields, go to the History layout and import it into the history fields.

Note: You need to be sure to set up both the export and import orders correctly!

Note2: Do not store sensitive data in temporary files, or if you have to make sure you delete it immediately after the script has finished!

Please visit our site, http://crm.fm which has our main FileMaker product, and support us by buying it. Thanks!

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 post. Consequential and incidental damages are expressly excluded. FileMaker Pro is the registered trademark of FileMaker Inc.

FileMaker Flot Chart (offline charts without plugins)

When it comes to FileMaker charting, developers usually start thinking about plugins, or online web viewer (for example: Google Chart API) solutions.

In the following example I show you how you can create an offline chart in FileMaker which looks great.

I came across Flot when I was looking for javascript graph solutions, and I really liked it.

Though I will use this. You can download the source of it, which has great example files as well.

The FileMaker integration is quite simple. We'll need a field, which holds the Javascript files. (I copied the jquery.flot.min.js, jquery.min.js and the excanvas.min.js script after each other into a field (in the example file attached it's called chartsource.

Then using this, and the field data, I created a web viewer which will display those fields to me.

The example file only shows the basics of creating an offline graph, it's up to you to look at Flot documentation and create different kind of graphs.

The demo file can be downloaded from here .

Please also visit our site, http://crm.fm which has our main FileMaker product, and support us by buying it. Thanks!

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 post. Consequential and incidental damages are expressly excluded. FileMaker Pro is the registered trademark of FileMaker Inc.

FileMaker Multiple word(part) portal filter

This technique might be known by some, but I'm pretty sure that it isn't know by many.

What we want to create is a multiple word (or wordpart) portal filter.

Many single word FileMaker portal filter demonstrations can be found on the net, but currently I needed one that can filter by multiple words.

Here's how I did it.

First we need a searchfield on the layout. I called this SearchField_Display.

Then we need a custom function that can create the variations of our fields.

I chose AllTextCombination by Peter Gort (it can be seen here, at Brian Dunning's custom function library).

With this function we create an AllVariation field based on our fields:

AllTextCombinations ( FirstName ) &"¶" & AllTextCombinations ( LastName ) & "¶" & AllTextC

ombinations ( City ) & "¶_ALL_"

The "¶_ALL_" at the end will be important later. That's used to show all the records is the searchfield is empty.

If we have this, we need three additional fields, which will help us to create a 3 word search ability. (note: if you want four words, then you'll need four, but I think 3 must be enough).

I call them SearchField1, SearchField2 and SearchField3, and they are unstored text calculations:

SearchField1:

Let ( s = Substitute ( SearchField_Display ; "-" ; " " ) ;If ( IsEmpty(s) or IsEmpty(MiddleWords(s;1;1)) ;"_ALL_";MiddleWords(s;1;1) ))

SearchField2:

Let ( s = Substitute ( SearchField_Display ; "-" ; " " ) ;If ( IsEmpty(s) or IsEmpty(MiddleWords(s;2;1)) ;"_ALL_";MiddleWords(s;2;1) ))

SearchField3:

Let ( s = Substitute ( SearchField_Display ; "-" ; " " ) ;If ( IsEmpty(s) or IsEmpty(MiddleWords(s;3;1)) ;"_ALL_";MiddleWords(s;3;1) ))

As you may notice the only difference is the word which we get from them.

I also used a Substitute ("-" to a Space char) as my data contained many "-" chars, and I wanted them as different words).

By these we can create a relation to AllVariation:

As you can see we'll have 3 criterias. (If you want 4 word you'll need 4).

After this, if we use the portal filter we'll be able to search for things like: "we la c", or "an li v" or "Bil bar abi" so basically any part of our fields.

I attached a demo file which you can download from here . (right click- save as).

Note1:The demo uses Brian Dunning's sample data database which I downloaded from here.

Note2: I used many fields in the AllVariation field which makes the index huge. You shouldn't need to do that!

Please also visit our site, http://crm.fm which has our main FileMaker product, and support us by buying it. Thanks!

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 post. Consequential and incidental damages are expressly excluded. FileMaker Pro is the registered trademark of FileMaker Inc.

FileMaker Snake game - a FM 10 Demonstration

When I first started looking at FM10's new functions (Trigger, timer, etc), I wanted to create a demo, in which I can implement almost all of these new features.

I was currently also looking at my old floppy disks, and found my snake game I wrote in Turbo Pascal when I was a small kid, and thought why not recreate it in FileMaker?

It could demonstrate layout triggers (OnLayoutKeyStroke), Timers (speed of the game)

.

Heres is what I came up with:

The main layout is a repeating field container (300 repetitions actually), arranged.

The repeating field uses a global variable and conditional formatting to show the snake and the treasure (which is set by a custom function based on it's current repetition number).

Two colors are used, Green and White:

The Snake and Treasure positions are stored in global variables as a list (eg.: 10,12 11,12, etc), and are processed by the script.

The script names of the demo file shows what they do exactly, you could easily figure them out.

The layout has a script trigger, which is to check for keyboard input, so we can move the snake.

This is a FM10 demo, which you can download from here . (right click- save as)

Note1: I did't spend too much time on optimizing this, making it prettier, etc, it's up to you. This is just a demo file, to demonstrate some of FileMaker 10's new features.

Note2: Please also visit our site, http://crm.fm which has our main FileMaker product, and support us by buying it. Thanks!

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 post. Consequential and incidental damages are expressly excluded. FileMaker Pro is the registered trademark of FileMaker Inc.

Filemaker MineSweeper clone

Though about creating a board game in FileMaker to demonstrate the capabilities of FileMaker Pro.
Started it, finished in about 2 hours.

So here it is, actually it's pretty straight forward and fully unlocked so you can check it.

The main fields of the database are the Display, and the Game Repeating field.
The Display shows the board, while the Game contains the yet unrevealed fields, mines.

The Init method initializes the board, sets the random mines, counts the neighbor cells (how many one mine has), etc.
The ClickHandler method takes care of the clicks, by using hidden clickable layout elements behind the repeating fields.
(Actually these clickable elements weren't created by me one by one, setting up different script paramters 300 times, instead I created a script to generate the appropriate XML for me, and then pasted it on the layout using Clip Manager 3 by MyFmButler. (Maybe I will show this technique in a separate article later if you're interested).

The rest of the methods are a bit harder to understand, but if you check them I'm pretty sure you will see how they're working.

This is a FM8+ demo, which you can download from here . (right click- save as)

Note1: I did't spend too much time on optimizing this. I'm pretty sure scripts could be more optimized, etc. This is just a demo file, to see how much you can do with Filemaker

Note2: Please also visit our site, http://crm.fm which has our main FileMaker product, and support us by buying it. Thanks!

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 post. Consequential and incidental damages are expressly excluded. FileMaker Pro is the registered trademark of FileMaker Inc.

Filemaker - Using Growl without plugins

In this article I will show you how to create a simple Growl notification in FileMaker without additional plugins.

I have a FileMaker ToDo list, which can be filled by some people.

I wanted some kind of notification of new tasks they fill in it, without having to look at it all the time checking for new entries.

I already had Growl installed, so I thought why not use it as a notification? It has a sticky option which allows notifications to stay on the screen until I click on them. That was exactly what I needed.

That is where the following sample came from.

I didn't want to look for plugins (I am pretty sure there must be one for this), as I like to do things without plugins.

I started looking around for AppleScript samples how to use Growl, and found some on the Growl website. I modified those to run from FileMaker.

The Growl notification is a simple calculated Perform AppleScript command:

----

"tell application \"System Events\"¶

set isRunning to count of (every process whose name is \"GrowlHelperApp\") > 0¶

end tell¶

¶

if isRunning then¶

tell application \"GrowlHelperApp\"¶

register as application \"GrowlSampleApp\" all notifications {"& Quote ("TestNotify") & "} default notifications {"& Quote ("TestNotify") & "} icon of application \"FileMaker Pro" & Case ( PatternCount ( Get ( ApplicationVersion ) ; "Advanced" ) ; " Advanced\"" ; "\"" ) & "¶

notify with name "& Quote ("TestNotify") & " title " & Quote (GrowlSample::Title) & " description " & Quote(GrowlSample::GrowlText) & " application name \"GrowlSampleApp\""& " sticky "& Quote (GrowlSample::Sticky) &"¶

end tell¶

end if¶"

----

The first part checks if Growl is up and running. The second part registers the application, and notifies with the set parameters.

The icon it shows is the Icon of FileMaker, but it can be changed to anything you wish.

We also have to check for Get(LastError) -609 to be sure.

I attached the sample file which you can download from here. (right click- save as!)

UPDATE: A commenter (doug says:) Here is a custom function that does a similar thing:http://www.briandunning.com/cf/1064

Based on ideas and code from Michael Gaslowitz http://www.gaslowitz.net/filemaker/blog/2008/07/video-growl-integration/

Thanks for that!

Note by Adam: However that custom function needs to be modified a little bit, as it doesn't checks for the GrowlHelper app running, be sure to change that!

Please also visit our site, http://crm.fm which has our main FileMaker product. Thanks!

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 post. Consequential and incidental damages are expressly excluded. FileMaker Pro is the registered trademark of FileMaker Inc.

Filemaker - Applescript Printer list / faxing a file

In the following artice I will show you two methods that I have created in my solutions.

If you want a list of your installed printers in FileMaker you can use a simple applescript.

I show you two methods. Each of them requires a PrinterList_Global field in your database and on the layout where you execute the script. The script is a simple Perform Applescript command.

The first method uses the print setup utility to get the printer list. You need to have a PrinterList_Global field in your database and on the layout where you execute the script:

----

tell application "Printer Setup Utility"

set allprinters to every printer

set printernames to name of every printer

end tell

set backvalue to ""

repeat with printername in printernames

set backvalue to backvalue & printername & (ASCII Character(13))

end repeat

set cell "PrinterList_Global" of current record to backvalue

---

This can be used to set the default printer on OSX.

2)

The second option uses the lpstat OSX command to get the printer names. This will give you a different list. But the printer names this one gives can be used for the "lp" OSX command. This will be important later when we get to fax sending.

---

set oldDelims to AppleScript's text item delimiters

set PrinterStatusList to {}

try

set cmd to "lpstat -p | grep ^printer"

set PrinterStatus to do shell script cmd as text

set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {" "}

repeat with i from 1 to count of paragraphs of PrinterStatus

set s to paragraph i of PrinterStatus

set p to text item 2 of s as list

copy p to end of PrinterStatusList

end repeat

on error

set PrinterStatus to ""

end try

set AppleScript's text item delimiters to oldDelims

set backvalue to ""

repeat with printername in PrinterStatusList

set backvalue to backvalue & printername & (ASCII Character(13))

end repeat

set cell "PrinterList_Global" of current record to backvalue

--

Okay, now you have the printer list. You can easily create a value list based on this, and let the user choose from it.

What about faxing??

This is where the lp command comes in.

With lp you can send a file (pdf), to a number.

The syntax is the following:

lp -d PrinterNameHere -o phone=PhoneNumberHere filepathandnameHere

You can call this from FileMaker using a do shell script AppleScript Command.

I attached a sample file for printer listing, the faxing is up to you, but based on this, you can easily create it.

You can download the demo file here. (right click - save as).

Be sure to check out: http://crm.fm as well :) Thanx!

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 post. Consequential and incidental damages are expressly excluded. FileMaker Pro is the registered trademark of FileMaker Inc.

Highlight Active Portal record with Conditional Formatting

Here's a demonstration file I created for highlighting active portal record using conditional formatting.

The attached example is a picture browser with a simple navigation system, and a preview portal. (I know it's ugly but it's just a technique demonstration ;)

I could have used a container field to highlight the active portal element, but conditional formatting makes our life simpler :)

I created a an empty (well, actually it has a space char in it) text element, resized it to th

e portal element size, then applied the following conditional formatting to it:

(Set Formulat to: If the related ID equals to the Current id, then apply a Fill color)

After this I put this text under the portal picture field, and send it backward.

I attached the demo file which you can download to analyze the technique.

You can download it here. (right click, save as)

Be sure to check out: http://crm.fm as well :)

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 post. Consequential and incidental damages are expressly excluded. FileMaker Pro is the registered trademark of FileMaker Inc.