Why FileMaker?
Naming New Windows
As developers, we often need to have multiple windows open at the same time but FileMaker simply creates the new window and adds a number to it so you have to remember which is which. This very simple technique allows you to name each new window so you can go the...
Normalizing Your Data
People who are new to the database world and/or those who come from platforms, i.e., spreadsheets, that don't support normalized data, often get themselves confused as to what normalization is and why it is needed. In this short video we answer those questions and...
If we only knew …
No matter how much we know or how expert we are, there are always things that we don't know or have forgotten which might be useful to remember.
Formatting Percentage Fields
Many users don't know that percentages should be entered as a decimal, i.e., for 10%, you would enter .1; for 15%, you enter .15. Instead they enter it as a whole number which then has to be formatted to display the % correctly. This incredibly simple tip will prevent...
If or Case
Both If and Case are calculation functions that have been around for a long time but what is the difference between them and why has IF fallen into disuse.
Displaying All related records
When you want to display all records from a table in a portal, there are two ways to create the relationship; one of them is absolutely the wrong way to do it, The right way is to use a cartesian join and the wrong way, because it's considerably slower, is to use a...
Go to Related Record
Go to related record or GTRR as it is more commonly known is a function that all FileMaker developers use all of the time because it is incredibly fast and efficient but what is FileMaker doing behind the scenes?
Eliminating Flashing Windows
Windows flash (which is really annoying) happens when you are running a script that is constantly opening and closing windows but this simple trick will show you how to eliminate them. All you have to do is open the new window off-screen leaving nothing to flash
Trapping for Related Records
If you're going to a set of related records in order to perform an action on those records, i.e., delete, them, you MUST first trap to see if there are actually related records to go to. If you don't do this, the action that you were going to take will be performed on...