New in FMP 10 - comp.databases.filemaker

Hi all, what's an actual improvement within the new FMP 10? The ad here claims a completely new and intuitive user interface. This means it's perfectly different than before? Did they change the file format once again? According to the version count it's overdue. However, several of the recent releases would not be considered as real new verions by me, but bugfixes only. Download just started. I'll have a look... - Martin

On 2009-01-05 08:21:23 -0800, Martin Trautmann <t-use@gmx.net> said: > what's an actual improvement within the new FMP 10? > > The ad here claims a completely new and intuitive user interface. This > means it's perfectly different than before? > > Did they change the file format once again? According to the version > count it's overdue. However, several of the recent releases would not be > considered as real new verions by me, but bugfixes only. > > Download just started. I'll have a look... No new file format, it's still .fp7. Dramatic changes including but not limited to... SCRIPT TRIGGERS!!! Yes, such lovely events as OnEnter and OnLayoutLoad now trigger scripts!! Be careful. With great power comes great responsibility. Subsummary reports in Browse mode. You can now view and EDIT info for subsummary reports in browse mode. Watch out for the trickiness of resorting when adding new info, it's very clever. An updated, modernised interface. Status bar now on top and customizeable by the end user. Pluses and minuses here. Trust me, FMI heard in depth about the minuses. Decimal tab order!! You can enter a decimal to insert a field in the middle of a tab order without redoing the whole friggin thing. Layout managment tools. Check em out. Recovery now, finally, is supposed to RECOVER (in the sense of repair) the file. Output of reports is much more detailed on what is found during the action. I'm reserving judgement on this. Saved finds. This is great for end users, will have to be managed carefully by developers. SET FIELD BY CALCULATION! At last!!! As always the first source for this kind of info should be Filemaker.com. http://www.filemaker.com/products/fmp/all_features.html Be patient. Their server seems a bit...slow. ;) And I don't want to hear *anybody* whining about "my feature X isn't there, again!!" or "I don't know how they can call it a database if it doesn't have Y" Get over yourself. If you only knew what it took to get this release out the door!! -- Lynn Allen -- www.semiotics.com Member Filemaker Business Alliance Long Beach, CA

Martin Trautmann <t-use@gmx.net> writes: > Hi all, > > what's an actual improvement within the new FMP 10? script triggers > The ad here claims a completely new and intuitive user interface. This > means it's perfectly different than before? Status area is redesigned. No longer at the left side but now at the top of window. Can be customized. > Did they change the file format once again? According to the version > count it's overdue. No. Jens -- Free PlugIn for Regular Expressions with FileMaker: http://jensteich.de/regex-plugin/

On Mon, 5 Jan 2009 08:45:06 -0800, Lynn Allen wrote: > SET FIELD BY CALCULATION! At last!!! Ah, the first major improvement, considering the flawy Get commands which worked inconsistent. > Get over yourself. If you only knew what it took to get this release > out the door!! I guess lots of stuff which I do NOT want ;-P Thanks, Martin

clk@tele2.ch (Christoph Kaufmann) writes: >> SET FIELD BY CALCULATION! At last!!! > > What do you mean by that? OLD (and still possible): Set Field( one_distinct_field ; calculation ) NEW Set Field by Name( calculation_which_result_is_fieldname ; calculation ) Jens -- Free PlugIn for Regular Expressions with FileMaker: http://jensteich.de/regex-plugin/

The new Status area is pretty irrelevant to most developers since they usually make their own New, Delete, etc. buttons to control what users do, so this will end up being hidden anyway. One new feature not mentioned here yet is the inclusion of SMTP abilities within FileMaker itself. That means those needing to send emails no longer have to worry about flakey email applications not working properly with FileMaker's commands - the emails will be sent directly from FileMaker alone. Helpful Harry

"Martin Trautmann" <t-use@gmx.net> wrote in message news:slrngm4cs9.kda.t-use@ID-685.user.individual.de... > Hi all, > > what's an actual improvement within the new FMP 10? > > The ad here claims a completely new and intuitive user interface. This > means it's perfectly different than before? > > Did they change the file format once again? According to the version > count it's overdue. However, several of the recent releases would not be > considered as real new verions by me, but bugfixes only. > > Download just started. I'll have a look... > > - Martin I am not upgrading from 8.5 Adv until they include a full blown user-friendly charting module!!! Al Lawrance

Philippe Manet <manet@invivo.edu> wrote: > Lynn Allen <lynn@NOT-semiotics.com> wrote: > > > Dramatic changes including but not limited to... > > and no spreadsheet mode ? appleworks had it... The only important improvement seem to be script triggers - such triggers I already know from Oracle. I had hoped for the same improvements known from Bento: the ability to directly work with the Apple Address Book and Apple iCal data. Bento is a FileMaker� product too. -- Per Erik R�nne http://www.RQNNE.dk

Per R�nne <per@RQNNE.invalid> wrote: > I had hoped for the same improvements known from Bento: the ability to > directly work with the Apple Address Book and Apple iCal data. Bento is > a FileMaker� product too. surely, but FMP is now a Windows application... as you can see with this ridiculous icon bar doubling the menu bar, with special icons for saving, printing, opening, copy cut paste... argh... "bazard" ergonomy...

Philippe Manet <manet@invivo.edu> wrote: > Per R�nne <per@RQNNE.invalid> wrote: > > > I had hoped for the same improvements known from Bento: the ability to > > directly work with the Apple Address Book and Apple iCal data. Bento is > > a FileMaker� product too. > > surely, but FMP is now a Windows application... as you can see with this > ridiculous icon bar doubling the menu bar, with special icons for > saving, printing, opening, copy cut paste... argh... > > "bazard" ergonomy... Yes, it is much simpler to use cmd-S, cmd-P, cmd-O, cmd-C and cmd-C. Even in Windows it is much simpler to use ^S, ^P, ^O, ^C and ^V. But you find the same icons in Office-applications like Word 2008. What a waste of space. -- Per Erik R�nne http://www.RQNNE.dk

"Per R�nne" <per@RQNNE.invalid> wrote in message news:1it9kof.2fzg6t1gomsrmN%per@RQNNE.invalid... > Philippe Manet <manet@invivo.edu> wrote: > > > Per R�nne <per@RQNNE.invalid> wrote: > > > > > I had hoped for the same improvements known from Bento: the ability to > > > directly work with the Apple Address Book and Apple iCal data. Bento is > > > a FileMaker� product too. > > > > surely, but FMP is now a Windows application... as you can see with this > > ridiculous icon bar doubling the menu bar, with special icons for > > saving, printing, opening, copy cut paste... argh... > > > > "bazard" ergonomy... > > Yes, it is much simpler to use cmd-S, cmd-P, cmd-O, cmd-C and cmd-C. > > Even in Windows it is much simpler to use ^S, ^P, ^O, ^C and ^V. > > But you find the same icons in Office-applications like Word 2008. What > a waste of space. Many users (Windows and Mac) don't even know menus exist and solely use those buttons on the toolbars. Of course, if you know the keyboard shortcuts, then even having the menus for those options is "a waste of space". The point really is that different people like doing things in different ways, and the modern operating systems and programs give them a variety of choices. You can always customise or hide the toolbars. Helpful Harry

On Jan 7, 3:47=A0pm, ma...@invivo.edu (Philippe Manet) wrote: > Lynn Allen <l...@NOT-semiotics.com> wrote: > > Dramatic changes including but not limited to... > > and no spreadsheet mode ? appleworks had it... 1) Excel has it too. So what does Appleworks have to do with it?!? FileMaker is not Appleworks, nor is it Excel. 2) How about the Table View that has been in FileMaker for years?

On Fri, 9 Jan 2009 15:54:30 -0800 (PST), fmprosolutions@gmail.com wrote: > On Jan 7, 3:47 pm, ma...@invivo.edu (Philippe Manet) wrote: > > Lynn Allen <l...@NOT-semiotics.com> wrote: > > > Dramatic changes including but not limited to... > > > > and no spreadsheet mode ? appleworks had it... > > 1) Excel has it too. So what does Appleworks have to do with it?!? > FileMaker is not Appleworks, nor is it Excel. FMP offers a table view > 2) How about the Table View that has been in FileMaker for years? Ah, you knew this :-) Personally, one of my major requests is spreadsheet-like operation forp copy/paste or drag'n'drop. FileMakers sorting by columns is just much more perfect than Excel's "Sort Data" - not to speak of the much worse implementation in OOo Calc. But editing tables is a PITA. I do NOT want spreadsheet-like operations such as =RC(-2)*R(-1)C(-2). Relations are just perfect for my needs. But selecting multiple cells for copy/paste would be a major improvement for me. Maybe FMP10 does add some improvements here when I may define custom functions such as "addprev" if(setfield(get(currentfieldname))="", prev::setfield(get(currentfieldname)), setfield(get(currentfieldname)) .... and "prev" is a relation from my current record to the previous one, usually done by a serial number field "zs" (autoenter serial number), a number field "zs–1" (autoenter "zs - 1", replace current values) and a relation "prev" from zs–1 to zs. How would this function be done in FMP 10 (Advanced)? It would not need any parameters at all, since the field would be recognized from the current field. - Martin

On Jan 10, 1:03=A0am, Martin Trautmann <t-...@gmx.net> wrote: > How would this function be done inFMP10(Advanced)? It would not need any > parameters at all, since the field would be recognized from the current > field. One thing you can do to better simulate a spreadsheet (not at all answering your question, sorry) is to set up the keystroke trigger to recognize arrows or the enter key or whatever key you'd like to go from record to record, essentially going down the column in table mode like you would a spreadsheet. Likewise for left/right and up arrows. One other thing that many people (including myself until this week) didn't realize about table mode is that you can not only sort on a column by clicking that column header (which you probably knew), and you can click again on the column header to sort in reverse order (which you might have known), but you can also CTRL-click on another column's header to sort secondarily on that column (this is what you probably did not know).

On Sat, 10 Jan 2009 10:32:26 -0800 (PST), fmprosolutions@gmail.com wrote: > but you can also CTRL-click on another > column's header to sort secondarily on that column (this is what you > probably did not know). Thanks, I knew - and your answer unfortunately is wrong. I'd like if FMP would sort next by the next ctrl-clicked field. On Macs it's the apple button (cmd) instead of ctrl. However, it does add each column to the sort order where you did a ctrl-click. But the sort order is from left to right always. Thus a click on column header 4 and a next ctrl-click on column header 2 will result in a sort by 2 first, 4 next. Personally, I'd prefer sort by 4, then sort by 2. This can be done by yet another ctrl-s in order to open the sort order dialog and re-order the fields for the sort order. Or you can reorder columns to move the fourth column in front of the second before sorting. BTW: on Macs you may use shift as well. Click on column header 4, shift click on column header 2 will select colums 2, 3 and 4 and will sort by 2, 3, 4. You knew that another click on any of the selected column headers will revert its sort order? CU, Martin

Martin Trautmann <t-use@gmx.net> wrote: > Personally, one of my major requests is spreadsheet-like operation forp > copy/paste or drag'n'drop. that was my subject when I started that point. Other databases, some very old like Appleworks or Access, can do copy / paste to and from a view table, and that's a very useful feature. FMP 10 can't, and it's a pity.

On Sun, 11 Jan 2009 01:11:17 +0100, Philippe Manet wrote: > Martin Trautmann <t-use@gmx.net> wrote: > > > Personally, one of my major requests is spreadsheet-like operation forp > > copy/paste or drag'n'drop. > > that was my subject when I started that point. This was one possible guess what you might expect from spreadsheet like operation, but not the only one. > Other databases, some very old like Appleworks or Access, can do copy / > paste to and from a view table, and that's a very useful feature. FMP 10 > can't, and it's a pity. Yes, many programs support copy/paste from html tables very reasonable. FMP does not even support an HTML import. - Martin