Attention FileMaker friends and DevCon attendees: MightyData will host a contest at this year’s conference called FileMaker Feud.

Two teams, each consisting of one FileMaker coach from MightyData and four DevCon attendees, will test their FileMaker knowledge at 2 p.m., August 3. The team that picks the most popular answer to questions on common FileMaker topics including layouts, calculations, and scripts will earn the title of FileMaker Feud Champion as well as have the opportunity to win cool prizes, such as coaching from MightyData, an iPad 2, an iPod touch, and iTunes gift cards.

This is the chance to have some fun with the MightyData team. To register, visit the MightyData site and fill out the audition form.

Since The Feud is all about surveying the audience, MightyData also needs your help in coming up with the most popular answers to 25 FileMaker development questions. Simply visit http://www.mightydata.com/fmfeud/survey.php , fill out the form, and answer the questions. Once completed, you’ll be entered to win a free admission to MightySummit, a three-day full filemaker immersion experience in Las Vegas taking place March 21-23, 2012. Follow MightyData on Twitter (@MightyData) for future announcements.

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One of the core productivity aspects of FileMaker Pro is custom functions.

This post is for:

• FileMaker: Absolute beginners.
• Covering: Downloading, installing & using custom functions
• Resources: Brian Dunning, FM Custom Functions
• FM Version: FM Pro Advanced

We’ve talked about certain aspects of FileMaker development previously, using one of two approaches:

1. Things to do from day one
2. Things to explore and do later

Custom functions are a day one thing. But, sensibly you should just try to use them in their simplest form from day one, for creating shorthand calculations (as in the above screencast), and similar, this way you will become accustomed to the method of how they work before trying to write your first “Large Hadron Collider” function

Custom functions can be as simple or complex as you like, they make you significantly more productive and organised. In this article we’ll be looking at how to acquire a custom function (via free downloads) and how to install and begin using it.

Getting Your Head Around Custom Functions

So, what are custom functions?

Well, put simply, they are calculations that can be reused.

But what does that mean exactly?

It means that a custom function is a calculation that you create yourself, saved to a predefined place in your FileMaker Database Application, that you employ whenever you need to perform the calculation that you have saved in the custom function.

Manage all custom functions from the Manage menu

Where do I save them?

You create and save custom functions in the File » Manage » Custom Functions menu location, as shown here.

How does a custom function work?

It works in the exact same manner that any other calculation in FileMaker works. The only difference is that a custom function uses your calculation formula, hence ‘custom’.
(n.b. There is some functionality can only be achieved by using custom functions, such as recursion, but for now we will ignore that.)

Why are they called ‘functions’?

Functions are a common term in software, almost all programming languages have functions, sometimes a language has classes, which are essentially functions, for ease of understanding. Functions contain calculations. Functions are a calculation group consisting of one, or more, sub-calculations. Functions end with a result. That result is either shown to the user, or it is used for another calculation, rather like chaining functions together.

Anything that has a function is referring to a location where some work is performed in order to pass the result of that work to the next process.

Imagine it’s like pass-the-parcel – when the music stops, the person holding the parcel gets to open it to see what’s inside. In this analogy, the music is the chain of functions (one or more), when there is no more music (no more calculations to perform) the user (the parcel holder) sees what’s inside the parcel (see’s the result of all the calculations).

Acquiring Your First Custom Function

By far the easiest way to get started with custom functions is to download them. You can use either of the sites noted at the top of this article, both have excellent resources and the custom functions that you see on those sites can be downloaded and used free.

Word of Caution: Please, please, please always test any custom function that you download and install. DO NOT PRESUME THAT THEY ARE 100% TESTED – do your own tests.

For our example we will use Brian Dunning’s site. We are going to choose a simple custom function, you can choose any custom function from the site that you like.

If you would like somewhere to store your custom functions, here is a free solution download
for housing your custom functions.

On Brian Dunning’s site I chose: DaysDifference( Date1 ; Date2 ) custom function. This is a very easy to understand custom function which simply calculates the number of days between two dates.

A nice easy function to calculate the number of days between two dates

Click the image to enlarge it. Very handily the site shows you what the parameters for the function are, which we’ll go into in minute, and also shows you the expected inputs and outputs for/from using the function.

About parameters: The easiest way to understand what parameters are and what they do is to watch this quick screencast. The parameters are where the information needed for the calculations is stored, and is the vehicle for passing that information into the custom function so that the work can be performed. It’s how the function gets its data from you.

Here is the code:

//Custom Function Name/Params:
DaysDifference( Date1 ; Date2 )
 
//Calculation:
GetAsNumber ( Date2 ) - GetAsNumber ( Date1 )

The Process Of Installing the Custom Function

• Tip: If the function name and parameters have not been provided in the main code window, simply copy it from the title at the top and paste it into the window, as shown below in Fig.1
• Select all of the code and copy it from the main window, including what you have just pasted yourself.
• Go to FileMaker custom functions menu in your FileMaker solution
• Click “New” from the bottom menu, as shown Fig.2 and Fig.3
• Paste the clipboard contents into the main window, as shown below Fig.4
• Cut the function name from the main window you just pasted, and paste it into the Function Name field, as shown Fig.5
• One at a time, cut and paste the parameters from the main window into the parameters field, pressing “+” or Enter after each one, as shown in Fig.6
• Finally, if there is not a lot of documentation given with the custom function then write some notes in the main window so that you will know what the custom function is for, and what the syntax is, as shown in Fig.9, Placing your comments within a comment block, like so: /* notes here */
• After you click OK, your custom function will be registered in the manage custom functions dialogue window (Fig.7). Your custom function will also now be available for use in the calculation dialogue box for any field in your database (Fig.8)
• You can now start to test your custom function before using it in a production database.

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Fig. 3

Fig. 4

Fig. 5

Fig. 6

Fig. 7

Fig. 8

This Is What You Should End Up With

Fig.9 Custom Function fully entered, but not yet tested

When you have finished entering all of the information into your custom function you should be left with something that resembles this image. I can’t stress the importance of documenting the custom function.

If you write one of your own or download one, it makes no difference, always document and document thoroughly.

Now You Are Ready To Test Your Custom Function

Clearly, this example custom function is a very simple one. Therefore the testing will be minimal, in a more complex custom function the testing can get quite involved, not to mention difficult to debug. In the future I will go into more detail about complex custom functions.

So, you can now pull up the dataviewer, or use three test fields in a test database to check the custom function, Date1, Date2, DaysDiff (using your custom function as the calculation).

I’m going to use the dataviewer here, which also means that I need to specify that the free text I’m going to enter is a date, as the dataviewer would have no clue that my text is a date otherwise, if you use date fields in your test database you don’t need to use the GetAsDate() function like I am here.

Fig.10 Test the custom function before you use it in a live database.

Insert the function into the calculation dialogue box, enter the required parameters, and click “Evaluate Now” (as in the image Fig.10)

As you can see, the result is correct, therefore for this simple custom function we can assume that it is working correctly.

Always check different connotations of data, for instance, make sure that by reversing the dates, by making Date1 the greater date, that the function still works. I’m not going to do that here – but you should if you are following this tutorial.

I’ll be doing a series of these custom function implementation articles. The first few, like this one, will be aimed at the absolute beginner. Gradually we will be working up through more and more complex custom functions, learning how to take them apart so that we can understand how they work, learn how to debug them during testing, and finally, extend and combine them.

As you get more skilled with custom functions you will often find yourself tweaking a readily available custom function to suit your needs, we will cover all of that in future articles.

If you followed this tutorial, let me know how you got on with your custom function implementation. Did it work as expected? Did you do something really daring and try to write your own custom function?

Let me know in the comments.

About the Author: Darren Lunn is on a mission to help new FileMaker Pro developers to become competent FileMaker Pro Developers. You can connect with Darren on Twitter

Related posts:

1. Introduction to FileMaker Pro Custom Functions
2. Keep Your FileMaker Pro Custom Functions Organised
3. FileMaker Pro – Getting Started, Fresh After the Install

When you first start out with FileMaker Pro you will normally hard code everything into your navigation.
This is quite normal, not least because it is natural and easy to do. But, there are several techniques that you can use for navigation.

Some are semi-dynamic, by which I mean they can be context relative, if that sounds a bit technical don’t worry, I’ll go into that a little more in a while.

This is a two part series in which we will look at the navigation technique itself to start with, then in the second part we will look at techniques for making the process more intuitive for users.

About Objects

Early in your use of FileMaker Pro you will either avoid objects because they look really ‘tekky’ or maybe you will stick to what feels more natural, and unwittingly ignore that fact that they even exist.

However, using objects can be very powerful and simplify lots of things within your solution. For a beginner, that statement might sound counter-intuitive, and in all honesty that’s exactly how I felt when objects were first introduced into FileMaker way-back-when..

The truth is that objects are simply stuff-with-a-name. If you have a button or a tab on your layout and you give it a name via the Inspector, or the Info window prior to FileMaker Pro 11, then that ‘thing’ that was nameless just a few moments ago has now become an object. That’s it, in the simplest of terms, something with a name is an object.

In FMP11 this is how you name something to make it into an object, in this example we are naming an object as: nav.List

Use the Inspector to name objects

Prior to FMP11 you use the Info Viewer Window in layout mode, from the View menu.

Using Objects For Navigation

Other ways can be more dynamic, you can use calculations in combination with value lists to present a drop down list of layouts, if you further combine this with a naming convention you can also filter your layout list to exclude certain layouts. Since that’s a more technical approach, in my opinion, I’ll cover that in more detail in a future post and screencast.

I’ve been using layout objects for navigation for a while now. I combine this with custom functions to determine where an object should send me to upon clicking it.

Extending the Technique, by using Merge Variables

Until FileMaker Pro 11 it was a process of manually adding named objects to an object list on the layout, which worked very well. Since the advent of Merge Variables in FileMaker Pro 11 it is possible to use portable/reusable scripting with merge variables to make this whole process more dynamic. An example of this is in the demo file, using the Return object. There is more information on this in the PDF help file, and in the demo you can see the technique in action. Just to be clear, it is an example and not a production version, and you could adapt it for production use.

This tutorial is intended to get you thinking about ways in which you can use layout objects for all kinds of things. I focus on navigation here, but there are lots of ways in which you can use objects to simplify your development process. Whilst it may not appear that this is a simple technique to begin with, you will certainly get it quite quickly, and then apply it.

We’re not talking about a major shift in your thinking, but you may need to think a little differently to uncover the full potential of objects. That’s a journey I’ll leave to you in the most part, I’m just kick starting that process.

Demo File

In the demo file there are some alternative techniques that you can explore, such as window positioning and print set-up. You can modify these to be more efficient or extend them, it’s up to you. You can also find more information in the PDF file that is in the download folder, simply unzip it and start your surgical process of investigation

NOTE: You will need to have the ScriptMaster Plugin from 360Works installed to make this demo work correctly. You can download it here: ScriptMaster by 360Works

Download the demo file here: SOON Demo File

Before jumping into the file, please take a quick look at the PDF Help file in the download. (11 pages in total but you only need the first 6 pages).

Pro’s & Con’s

There are some pros and cons of this technique.

Namely, that it prevents window auto resizing from working properly on at least one side (right, left, top, bottom) due to the presence of the objects there. There may be a work around for this, if you find one – be sure to let me know.

Screencast

Play Screencast

About the Author: Darren Lunn is on a mission to help new FileMaker Pro developers to become competent FileMaker Pro Developers. You can connect with Darren on Twitter

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Documentation As A Basic User Need

Apply the Tesco rule; Every little helps!

In the last twelve months one of the improvement points I decided to make in my own development was the documentation aspect. I’m not talking about user manuals or instruction books, I’m talking about documentation at the point of use.

In fields, scripts, custom functions, comment boxes, commenting within fields – essentially just about anywhere that a client would look when they are either dabbling (read: creating future work) or when a client is extending their solution themselves. What! let clients mess about with the solution – I hear some of you say…

Sometimes a client expressly asks us to develop a solution, or extend their current solution on this premise, that they will do some of the work themselves. I think it’s important to be able to know exactly what elements are for, or what they do – and even more so with critical functionality. It’s also a good thing for me as the developer, because often when you haven’t touched a solution for a few months – you sometimes forget what some of the stuff you wrote yourself does.

Documentation As A Developer Tool

Another aspect of documentation is when I pick up an existing file from a client, and I need to dissect it to find out what’s doing what and where, so leaving a documentation trail always helps there too. Things like commenting in field by using comment blocks or a double forward slash (//write a comment..). Using the comment field associated with a field in the database management window, and just about everywhere else. I’ve often had good feedback about this particular aspect, and even more so recently since I upped the ante with my point of use documentation.

The crux of this post is really to get beginners to think about leaving that documentation trail throughout the solution so that anybody picking up the file can orient themselves with it quickly. Start making a habit of good documentation, especially if you like your spangly tricks – you know, the ones that take an eternity to figure out what it does – be courteous and leave the notes and guidance that you would want yourself.

Documentation As A Witness Of Your Problem Solving Thinking

Another good reason why you should leave documentation everywhere, especially as a beginner, is that it enables me to see what you were trying to achieve, and more importantly – how you were trying to achieve it. This allows me to gain insight into how you were thinking about the problem, and therefore helps me train you to solve the problem correctly.

Here’s a selection documentation, I’m not saying what I do is best practice, nor that it’s better than anyone else’s, I’m just showing what I do – and if anybody has better or more structured way of doing things – I’m all ears.

Script documentation

Documenting scripts is probably the most commonly overlooked aspect of point-of-use documentation. Even some seasoned, highly commendable developers don’t do it, or at least not nearly enough. Matt Petrowsky, if you’ve ever watched his videos, you will see a top rate documentation process that he uses. I don’t go quite that far, but I always make sure that the basic and critical aspects are clearly documented.

document both the functionality, and critical steps (click to enlarge)

As you will see from the above image, just a couple of lines of commenting can make a big difference to a stranger picking up the file. One thing you should think of is the other person, you don’t know who they will be, so try to write in plain English and wherever possible – jargon free. Oh, and please don’t make up your own words, if you don’t know what the correct terminology is, write it out long.

documenting the key steps help visualise critical functionality

But, that’s not the only method for documenting scripts. I also document key steps using commenting within the script steps themselves. You will see in the above image that the set variable script steps are clearly documented to show the dabbler what is happening.

Warn of consequences - no documentation means no warning, but means big consequence!

You can also add warnings to your scripts too! (obviously, this one is a joke, but you get the message..)

The upshot is, no matter how much documentation that you insert, there is always room for a dabbler to fire off a script or use a portable script in the wrong way somehow, hopefully you try to error catch within your scripts, but there’s often the unforeseen, the one that got away, the loose canon – you know. (Execute Plan B!)

But, great documentation gives you a platform from which you can instantly re-train someone – you open up the file and say “look at the instructions, here, next time – read ‘em” (..or else Plan B..)

Custom Functions documentation

This is perhaps an area where I could still improve, although when you dowload some custom functions you will see for yourself that many developers – well, they like to code, writing instructions – huh! who needs those, it’ll work just fine – just use it, man….. Err, no, don’t just use it, man. Even if the guru of guru’s gives you a custom function – you check it yourself, you strip it down, you document it (inside the function) and then you use it.

This is a typical example of what I do. If you want to see some really good examples, take a look at some of the functions that Fabrice Nordman has written on FMCustomFunctions.com – like Petrowsky, he’s got it down to a fine art.

Clearly define what the function does, and what critical steps do

Since I believe that my documenation is sufficient for most dabblers, I don’t often do more than this. Feedback is welcomed.

Also notice that apart from the commented block, which has the bulk of intructions, that I also comment some of the key aspects of the function itself. You will develop your own style as you go, the important thing is to start now. Deployment of some things with FileMaker you should  wait until you have a firm grasp of, like naming conventions, but others just need you to do it from day one. This is a day one thing.

Field documentation

Fields are the things that you and anyone that touches your solution will touch the most. Ctrl+Shift+D (I can hit that in my sleep). And, you should always document fields, moreso fields that could be misconstrued. Obviously, a field called: Date, when there is only one date in the table doesn’t need much explanation, but if there’s a whole series of dates, and you’ve got one of those wonky naming conventions then you better start typing out the documentation – remember, no made up words.

Documentation of fields at the table level

Document fields clearly, they are the most touched aspect of any database

Documentation within the fields itself

Document within fields also wherever anything is critical, or is not intuitive by itself

The examples above show some of the documentation that I use in fields. I’m particularly fond of the comment box that is attached to a field. You can even access this in FileMaker, which I ocassionally do to pull a tooltip, or something like that.

Using the built in functionality can often provide a double benefit

Using the Field Comment for tooltips

Not always useful, but ocassionally very useful.

Value Lists documentation

This one is quite simple, and I pick and choose where I use this based on the client’s level of intuition/knowledge. Below is a simple demonstration of how you can break up the value list listing window to group value lists together. I’m sure there other developers that have better/different ways of doing this. I’d be glad to hear about those.

Depending on the level of capability of users, i.e. to not adjust the wrong value list

Relationship Graph documentation

I have seen some pretty dramatic documentation on the relationship graph over the years, from the sublime to the ridiculuous. I have a relatively laid back approach to the relationship graph. If there is one place that you really don’t want people messing around, yep, it’s in yer TOG’s.

Hence, I lightly pepper the RG with notes, I mean, nothing’s going to stop a militant dabbler, fortunately there aren’t too many of them – and when there are, make sure the backups are freely flowing.

Militant dabblers, plan B ‘em all the way to the parking lot, then plan B ‘em some more, I say

I hope you gain something from this post, I certainly hope it makes you think about the level of documentation that you are currently employing.

Stay tuned, and leave me a comment below, now.

About the Author: Darren Lunn used to be a documentation no-do-gooder, but in recent times has dramatically improved. An is righting en arf improved You can connect with Darren on Twitter

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We’re in busy period at Datasplash and therefore I thought it would be both courteous and good for communication if I posted a brief outline of what is in the blog pipeline and some general news about the site.

Extending Our Service Line-up – Web Services (WordPress)

Datasplash will soon be extending our line-up of services to include web development, specifically using WordPress and predominantly using the Thesis Theme, although we are happy to work with any premium theme our clients would like. We use the Thesis Theme on this website, we love its flexibility and extendibility, pretty much the same reasons that we love FileMaker Pro.

We have recently completed a first custom site for our first web design client, even though we are still going through some polishing – which will take several weeks – you can see our client’s site here: Lean QCD – Lean Consulting Experts

They are more than happy for you to contact them if you would like to ask them about the service, the responsiveness or any other aspect of working with us. I believe that this is a better approach than simply posting a testimonial, which we will also be doing, but for prospective clients I feel direct testimony from an existing client is by far the best type of feedback you can get, that’s certainly how I personally like to recruit services and products for Datasplash.

Who our web design services are aimed at:

• Companies getting their first web presence.
• Companies wanting to move to a WordPress/CMS style web site.
• Individuals looking to start a blog.
• Entry level sites for companies and individuals wanting to get a high quality, initial entry into web presence.

Datasplash Site Redesign

Partly due to our extended services and partly because, well umm.., it needs it. Our current site was originally put together quite quickly, and we haven’t really done much with it since in all honesty.

So we are starting a redesign of the site, however it will more than likely be close to the end of the year before it goes live. We will be posting some snippets of the design and look/feel of the site as and when we have something that we want to show you, or more importantly, for you to give us some feedback on. We really hope that you will engage us in this process and give us the feedback, good, bad or indifferent.

Apart from the look and feel of the site we hope to also be structuring the content a little better also. We want to have a clear flow to the site so that newcomers can start in an appropriate place for them and work through a body of content that will hopefully answer questions or issues that they are having. I still want to primarily focus the blog help at total beginners with FileMaker Pro, this is an important aspect to me due to my own experience when starting out with FileMaker Pro.

If you would like to make any requests or recommendations for the site then please feel totally free to do so in the comments, below. You can suggest anything that you like, a topic, a series, a focus on a particular problem area – it’s your choice, just write it out-loud in the comments, below.

FileMaker Pro Cheat Sheets

Over time I have developed a ton of “cheat-snippets” for FileMaker Pro. I have found some very good stuff out there in the FileMaker world, however, we’re talking about comprehensive cheat-sheets here – I’d like to get your input into these too. I’d like to go through an iterative process with these once they are going, with your help I’m sure we can get something that is helpful for everyone.

I’m thinking of doing just one at a time, in the areas of calculations/functions, script steps, menus, and so on, you get the idea.

If I’m honest I’m middle-of-the-road at putting things like this together, so I’ll definitely be asking for some input.

Products

Education sector

For a while now I’ve been working on products of my own. Like a lot of developers, I guess, we get an idea and then scope it out, work feverishly on it for a week – and then we have another idea which cuts the last one dead, and it goes on the back-burner.

Well just occasionally the opposite happens, I work on something and think “mmm.. that’ll be worth doing something with one day..” and then someone comes to you (on that one day, except it’s a few hundred days later..) and says can FileMaker do this? and you say: do you mean like this? As you pull out your dusty old file prototype. Well, you know how the rest goes..

So, this led to our developing a product for the education sector, in collaboration with the education sector, and we hope it’s going to be a hit. I perhaps shouldn’t try and jinx it beforehand by talking about it too much – so I’ll shut up for now, but lots more to come later.

Business Management

We’re also working on another product offering using FileMaker for a modern business management system. It’s not a CRM or invoicing system, god knows there’s enough of those in the market. With my background in senior management and many years in business management and administration, we are compiling a metrics and goal cascade system for established companies that have, or want, a globally recognised standards based management cascade system.

Linking all the subordinate goals within an organisation to top level goals, ensuring that the correct measures are in place. Measures are crucial for practical and progressive management teams, but get the measures wrong and you get your results wrong. Measures are a behavioural tool if nothing else, the saying: tell me how I’m measured and I’ll tell you how I’ll behave is testament to that.

Including tools to help with the management of those core goals and performance metrics. It’s more a core management tool for management, rather than an administration tool, although there are elements of administration within it. This will be a good product for businesses with a developing management process or an established management process, and will help with goal alignment across the entire business.

This is another collaborative effort, working with some highly experienced and very senior level leaders from the business world. If you’ve ever heard of the EFQM, Excellence programs such as Advantage West Midlands or similar, along with companion methodologies such as Lean practice, Six Sigma and TQM – these are all profoundly tested and respected tools within the business leadership world, and we have taken the essence of all of these tools to embed within this solution. It is still very early days with this particular project and we will be releasing extracts of it as the development process gets under way. We should have some interesting articles to publish on the back of this development process also, so keep your eyes on the blog here.

The Blog

I will be continuing with blog, even as we start to test and launch the new site. What I will say is that the frequency will not increase (or decrease) in the short term. I still aim to put out 1-2 good articles per week, or more with time permitting.

Plus I also plan to start blogging about other aspects of life/business life as well as FileMaker, although FileMaker will always be the main point of focus for the site. It’s nice to mix it up a bit. As an ex-colleague of mine pointed out recently, I have a wealth of general business knowledge, experience and other tools apart from database stuff, why not share that? So I will start to share some other aspects too. And, please give me feedback too, if you don’t like something/topic let me know, conversely if there’s something you’d like me to touch on then let me know what. I’m often good at requests

About the Author: Darren Lunn is expanding his horizons, but needs to get out of the development chair before his waistline expands at the same rate. You can connect with Darren on Twitter

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Here is a selection of tutorials from Datasplash and also a good selection of articles from the rest of the FileMaker world.

There are some real gems in here. As always I’m sure that the FileMaker DevCon causes a splurge of information around this time of the year.

Roundup of Datasplash Articles

This has been a busy month for Datasplash outside of the blog, so our activity has been less than we would have liked, but with that said I think we have done ok, we certainly noticed a good increase in engagement in the site. We’re still learning, we hope you are too.

• FileMaker Pro Naming Convention Basics, For Beginners
• The FileMaker world doesn’t have fixed conventions for naming. Therefore, many beginners try to invent their own, which can often result in a pickle. This post’s message was essentially saying: experiment experiment experiment, research review and learn, and only then – deploy your own naming convention system.
• Keep Your FileMaker Pro Custom Functions Organised
• A free download of a file I’ve shown a couple of times in screencasts. It’s a very simple file, but very useful none-the-less. I hope you find it useful.
• FileMaker Pro On PC Went, After FileMaker GO Came
• A soul baring post. The message: Don’t get stuck in your own paradigm. When you read signals from the marketplace, challenge your own mindset – I did, and I missed this one at first glance. Now I have a fresh outlook and it has already changed the direction of my own FileMaker Development.
• Auto Colour Swatches using FileMaker Pro & Scriptmaster Plugin
• A technique that I’ve implemented a couple of times that allows users and administrators to dynamically choose colours for status/types aspects in their interface. Also shows a couple of examples of extending the UI aspect for use with the webviewer. It is a basic level technique, and you should consider making custom functions from the technique to make it more user friendly and globally convenient in your solutions.

Roundup of articles I found interesting from other FileMaker Developers

These are some of the articles that I found very useful. Some of these articles were released during the period and some were articles written earlier, but that I discovered during the period.

• FileMaker GO is a whole new platform
• Todd Geist nudged my senses into life with this post about his vision on where FileMakerGO will take the FileMaker development industry in the coming years. It’s an interesting insight and I agree with his thought-train. In true Maven fashion Todd jumped in and acquired the WorldCloud hosting company.
• FileMaker Custom Functions, explained.
• I found this via Dwayne Wright’s blog. Very good YouTube article series on making custom functions, by Russ Kohn. I don’t envy Russ having to explain tail recursion to a group of people, it’s a difficult topic at the best of times.
• FMLayoutMode – Taming a Wild Layout
• Anybody following the “Clown Puke” from Paul Spafford will be able to see the finished product on Taming a Wild Layout. Very good article series for beginners this was, very good and clear tutorials also.
• Server Side Scripting an informative article by Agi Riley at Zero Blue Technologies.
• This article is a good companion to those of us thinking about FileMaker GO and changes in our development approach, amongst other reasons too. I certainly look forward to this article being extended as promised…

Plugin Releases of Interest

• Scriptmaster from 360Works
• Updated and now has a pro offering which allows you to make your own plugins. Very interesting concept, and possibly a new model for plugins. The plugin is much faster than the previous version, certainly in my own tests. I have had a couple of issues when using the plugin whilst recording screencasts using screenr – but I think this is due to a clash between them both fighting for the Java resources. After a couple of reboots it was fine. I love this plugin, for its massive range of built in functions and its extendibility.
• Scribe Plugin from 360Works
• This plugin looks amazing for its interaction with MS Office documents and PDF’s. There is too much to list here so head over to the site and check out the demos and feature list. 360Works have just released a single license version, and I will certainly be taking them up on one.
• Webservices Plugin from Beezwax
• This plugin looks absolutely amazing. You can connect to any SOAP service via WSDL, including interaction with RESTful API’s. This one is on my shopping list. I am really looking forward to trying this one out.
• SimpleDialogue by 24uSoftware
• 24U Software released their new SimpleDialogue plugin. It looks very interesting and a good addition to the dated custom dialogues that FileMaker serves up natively. Including progress bars and dynamic updating of dialogues on the fly, it is well worth heading over to the page (linked above) and checking out the full roll call for this plugin.
• Seedcode Calendar by Seedcode
• The latest in the line up of calendar products from Seedcode. Check out the video that accompanies the latest release. Simply breathtaking. Enough said.

It has been a healthy month in terms of plugin releases, there have been many more, but these are the ones that caught my eye. I hear that the Fusion Reactor plugin is in the final stages of testing for a new release. That one will certainly be on my buy immediately list. I’ve had this plugin since the first release and it is superb.

That’s just about it for this roundup. I plan on doing these roundups reasonably frequently, perhaps monthly – as long as there is enough to write about. No doubt there will be next month after DevCon.

Thanks, and stay tuned.

About the Author: Darren Lunn is on a mission to help new FileMaker Pro developers to become competent FileMaker Pro Developers. You can connect with Darren on Twitter

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The recent release of version 4 of the ScriptMaster plugin from 360 Works prompted me to share a technique that I have used several times in solutions.

Whilst there are a number of ways to achieve the result I’m about to show you, I think that a key part of this post is the use of plugins in general, as well as the result we will end up with here.

Plugins and Beginners

Plugins for a lot of beginners are a moot point. It sometimes impresses me the lengths that people will go to in a bid to avoid installing, learning and applying a plugin to their solution. Effectively trebling the time it would have taken to achieve a far better result by simply rolling up ones sleeves and attempting some learning.

There is no shortcut to learning

FileMaker Pro, like any software or development environment, is never going to reveal itself to you willingly. You have to peel back the layers, being instrumental in understanding what each layer, element and attribute does – and why it does it.

There are no shortcuts. Ultimately, shortcuts turn into rework at some point down the line when we carelessly add stuff (like plugins) without knowing the meaning and technology behind them. So whilst I will be showing you how to achieve just one particular task using a plugin, I urge you to find out more on your own, and understand how this is possible – I’ll leave that for you.

Colour tags, swatches and styles

Ok, so sometimes we need to assign colour tags, or swatches, or just generally select colours for styling objects within our solutions. Depending on your personal preference, you may do this frequently or not so frequently. But, I assure you that you will need to do this at some point in your solution.

We can of course hard code these colours into our solutions, there are a number of ways to achieve that. We will cover those in a later post. The reason I want to show this method first is that I would always urge you to think about doing anything in FileMaker as dynamically as possible first up, and hard-coded a last option, when all other avenues lead nowhere. This applies to every aspect of FileMaker Pro, not just plugins and styling, but scripting, calculations, value lists and so on.

Think dynamically by instinct

The foremost reason that you should go the dynamic route (or as dynamic as is achievable) is that it is so much more portable and transplantable across solutions, easily making your solutions quickly come to life in an almost modular way. You will eventually start to think instinctively dynamic, by this I mean that your first thought will be: How can I build this so that no code modification is required and yet make “it” infinitely selectable/extendible/operable? Whatever “it” is.

Make sure you have the 360Works ScriptMaster Plugin installed before you attempt this, naturally it wouldn’t be possible without it anyway, but load it before you start up FileMaker Pro so you won’t have to quit after you’ve started. Simply download the plugin, which is free, and install it into your FileMaker Pro Extensions folder wherever FileMaker Pro is installed on your machine.

Sample File

When you do this in your own solution you will need to write a short script, or copy across the script from the sample file:

NOTE: AFTER YOU INSTALL THE SCRIPTMASTER PLUGIN YOU MUST FIRST RESTART FILEMAKER BEFORE OPENING THE DEMO FILE

This Open Script loads the required modules into the plugin. This is one of the things you can explore more later on.

Basically, the script uses the gradient image drawing module in the plugin. Except, we are making an image where both colours are the same to get a solid colour. If you wanted to make yours a gradient image, you could extend the script to calculate a companion colour for the second colour (here is a great article on colours) or simply ask the user to select two colours by duplicating the colour selection part of the script. For today, we are not going to do that – and I personally don’t do that ever anyway.

Adding & Changing Colours

In the file you can click on the pencil icon to edit the colour for any row in the swatches portal, or create a new portal record and add a colour. Try changing a couple of the colours and then watch the various objects and records on the layout update to the new colour that you have chosen.

I have included a variety of examples in the layout, maybe you will only use one or two of them in reality. There is the portal method using the container field which holds the automatically created image swatch. There is a couple of examples of field highlighting and warnings – just purely as examples. There is also an example of using a webviewer as a tab mask which will then display a status colour. You could extend this to display any colour based on any status or calculation within your FileMaker solution.

There is also a webviewer using the colours to style the status field background, this is done by calculating the rgb colours, and also the hex colours. Browsers these days work equally well with the rgb, and the rgba colour pallette, but I guess I’m just old fashioned and I like Hex colours for most things web (although I think with HTML5 I might change my mind).

Like most sample files, you will need to figure out how to apply this to your own solution and how you want to deploy it, feel free to ask any questions in the comments.

So there you have it. It’s a nice little technique and if you have a solution where a lot of colours are required then it does make life easier than hard-coding everything, and I also prefer this to conditional formatting in some instances, although not all.

Enjoy, and leave a comment below.

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I’ve been an ardent fan and user of Windows/PC for many many years. I think any developer that has been following a path of development for a long time really has a huge struggle to change direction when everything in their business, and their life to a certain extent, is focussed in one direction.

The vast majority of clients, and non-clients to that end too, that we work for have always be predominantly Windows/PC users. No surprise then that our set-up, equipment, machines and support software et al, are all Win/PC based.

However, in the last few months I noticed a real shift towards mobile and mac based equipment. That’s not breaking news, it seems that half the World is doing the same thing, iPhones (me too!), iPad’s (me Wish!), and MacBook Pro’s, iMac’s etc etc.

Up until now there hasn’t been a strong enough argument to hit that “Is a change of direction required now?” argument head-on. I must be the only person that didn’t see the Angels descending from above when FileMaker Go first released. Sure, I thought that’s nice, might be a good addition, and so on..

But, then I thought about the strategic side of things, and coupled that with conversations I’ve been having very recently – almost every conversation contains some “mobile” aspect … “Could I do this on iPad” … “Could I get this data on my iPhone” … and so on and so forth.

When people like Todd Geist are base-jumping into the hosting market on the back of releases like FileMaker Go, one sometimes needs to step back and think “I’m missing something here”. And, I think the crux of it is: In the Win/PC world I don’t think I’ve been viewing the iPad and similar products as a new direction, I’ve been thinking of them as an added expense – for which some clients might be interested at some point in the future.

WRONG!

Paradigms are not a Developer’s best friend (…or anybody else’s)

Strategically, one should be thinking a little more analytically than that. But often the constraints of our little paradigm aren’t apparent. Almost the “what box?” response, “I’m not in a box?” – WRONG AGAIN!

What’s a developer to do in future when there are already a mass of products out in the market? Or worse, there are a mass of developers out there in the market with a track record of delivering this technology – even more difficult to compete against than a product.

Break the Paradigm

So, with a little fresh insight and a reformed strategic vision of what FileMaker GO will do to our development world: We no longer will be able to develop for desktop/client only. Never. How could we? That would be amateurish, like doing half a job.

Sure, if you are very close to a client and they rely on you wholesale for every IT decision they make then you could get advanced notice that they might be going in that direction – but even then it’s probably too late – you’d be reactive, not proactive.

So I think this will reconfigure my whole project approach, starting now. Everything must be incorporated into the project as “standard” NOT “a nice to have” that could be done later on. Because, nobody wants that phone call that starts “I just downloaded FileMaker GO and my FileMaker solution you wrote looks like crap on it..” – Not a great start to a conversation is it!

I would much prefer a call that started off like “WOW, I just loaded our solution onto iPad and it works perfect right out of the box”
- Really? So let’s talk about giving you some specific functionality to make your life even easier now that you’ve made the leap..

I wholesale admit that I am behind the game with iPad, and if a lot of developers that already own one are honest, you’d admit it was that “I’ve got to have one of those things” that drove the purchase and not your FileMaker Strategy. (…with the exception of those that were already developing with FMTouch.)

Takeaway Lessons

• Take note when there is a market shift, as opposed to a “Fad”
• Always challenge your own assertions and beliefs
• Never ignore the fact that you might be wrong, and seek feedback from everywhere
• Ask yourself the right questions:

Prime question:

1. Is this technology/product disruptive to the marketplace?

If it is then we need to ask some other questions too, like:

1. Does this change my approach?
2. Does this change my business model?
3. Does this change any aspect of my business strategy?
4. Please free to add to this list with your own insight in the comments below…

Time for some action. Watch out!

Share your own insights, and leave a comment below.

About the Author: Darren Lunn develops custom applications for people desperately in need of custom applications. And, when his wife offered to buy him an iPad for his birthday he stupidly turned it down – idiot!

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Working in any kind of development environment is challenging enough, but when you allow yourself to become untidy or disorganised it becomes hell on wheels.

As developers we often fall into the trap of not practising what we preach, we spend 101% of our lives organising other people’s data and often forget to organise our own.

Alex Babkov, one of the FileMaker Developers that I admire, said in an article not so long ago that FileMaker developers rarely make solutions for themselves that come anywhere close to the quality of the solutions we make for clients. I think that’s true, certainly in my own case in the past, and in many instances I have witnessed with other developers I’ve worked with and around.

However, some solutions that we write for ourselves don’t actually need to be prime quality like the solutions that we make for clients. Perhaps that’s because the clients are never going to see them. It’s no different to a lot of web developers that I know that make unbelievably good front end web sites, but, if you saw the backend admin areas you’d think they’d never coded a line in their life.

We are “make-doers” with our own stuff, because we know how to “fiddle” it, bend it, and force it. And, if none of that works – there’s always the Dataviewer

So, one particular area we need to keep tabs on is stuff like custom functions amongst other similar things. A few years ago now I spent just a couple of hours building a ridiculously simple solution for housing my custom functions. It was shown briefly in my earlier screencast post an introduction to custom functions.

So I thought I would share that file for the benefit of beginners and starters with FileMaker Pro, just so you don’t fall into that dirty untidy trap called chaos.

You can download the file here: Custom Functions Library

There is a catch though, I’ve taken out the custom functions that I use and just given you a file with a single simple custom function in it just to show you how the file should be built up. Afterall, I wouldn’t want to kill-joy all of those hours you’ll spend downloading or writing custom functions in the future. (you’ll thank me for it )

Just to be clear, you won’t learn an awful lot from the file itself, it is very basic in its construct, but it’s very useful in its function as a custom function store, or it certainly has been for me. I store a copy in my Dropbox so that I can access it wherever I go.

No doubt the FileMaker Pro 11 users amongst you will be aware that you can now import custom functions from one file to another. That’s all well and good, but you should have a central repository for your functions. At some point you’ll have dozens upon dozens of them and you won’t want to be storing/importing all of those across every solution that you make.

And that’s not to mention adjusting and updating your master copy, if all of your functions are in all of your files – then which ones are the masters?

Enjoy, see you soon and leave a comment below.

About the Author: Darren Lunn is on a mission to help new FileMaker Pro developers to become competent FileMaker Pro Developers. You can connect with Darren on Twitter

Related posts:

1. Introduction to FileMaker Pro Custom Functions
2. How To Download & Install A FileMaker Pro Custom Function

Naming conventions are a method for describing your information, fields, objects, tables, table occurrences, scripts and any other aspects of your FileMaker Pro solutions.

In this short (..ish) screencast I delve into the very basics of what naming conventions are, and more specifically, how you – as a beginner – should not worry about adopting a naming convention until you have evolved your development technique and style a little.

When you start out with your development it is often a case of what you should not do, rather than what you should do. Naming conventions falls into this category. If you only develop for yourself then this is less of an issue, but when you start to collaborate or do development work for others you need to bear in mind that others may not understand your naming logic.

Who’s This Article For?

This article is not for experienced developers, this really is for beginners.

The message I am conveying in this article and screencast is that new developers really should not worry about using naming conventions in the beginning. Naming conventions, to use a simile, are like when you first design your signature as a teenager. You change it and evolve it over a number of months until you end up with a signature that you want to keep.

Developing your naming convention is a little bit like this. You are better to settle on a naming convention/system before deploying it, then you’ll save an awful lot of backtracking to standardise all of those older files.

It’s a problem I’ve faced myself many times, and don’t care to do again any time soon. So better to develop your method first, but not deploy it until you feel comfortable with it and it logically makes sense. Bounce your method off your co-workers to see if they think it makes sense, or even other developers.

I’m not saying that you won’t continue to evolve your naming convention over a period of years, you will, but it won’t be wholesale changes – just minor adaptations here and there, and you can normally live with those without going back over old files until you do a meaningful update.

Write your method down, make a cheat-sheet or something similar with your convention on it so that others can learn it or follow it. Do I have a cheat-sheet? No, but I really should.

What Are The Naming Convention Rules for FileMaker Pro?

There are no rules, just apply common sense (you know, that thing which isn’t common at all..). You can take a look around many FileMaker Pro Developer websites, quite a few give instruction on naming conventions.

This is because it is always easier when they have to pick up your files. It just makes the orientation process shorter, of getting into the logic of your solution, this means less time and less cost, for you.

But, apart from the cost savings when using outside developers, which is only a part of the reason for using a naming convention, you should use one for the benefit of everyone in your own company. It doesn’t have to be elaborate, but it can be if you want to. Personally, I have seen some excellent ones around different sites. You have to weigh up what will work for you, and your group.

Don’t get too hung up on making sure you jump straight into using a naming convention just because a file you saw happened to use one. Make sure every change you make is for the betterment of your solution and your development style, not just for change’s sake.

I will be making some further tutorials on naming conventions shortly. Those tutorials will contain, mostly, the naming conventions from other developers that I admire and their conventions that I believe will help you logically construct better solutions.

Essentially, my advice is to use plain long descriptions to start with, then whittle back from there as you refine your own naming convention and then start to apply it in your development. If you plan to use web publishing via FileMaker IWP or CWP, then you would also be advised to avoid using spaces within your field names. As a matter of course, I remove all spaces from all titles/descriptions within FileMaker, fields, scripts, table occurrences – everything.

This screencast covers only fields and table naming conventions, but equally, your convention should include all of the other aspects such as table occurrences, scripts etc.

Naming Conventions With Scripts

For instance, with scripts, I use portable scripting wherever I possibly can. This is a topic that I will cover later. When I create a script that is portable I append the word “Anywhere” to the end of the script. I always know that the script is portable and that it can be re-used over and over within the solution and across other solutions. Here’s what it looks like:

Again, I always omit spaces from everywhere in file names, table names, field names – everywhere. You don’t have to do this, but if you ever want to start web publishing, it can be a problem. Different developers use different conventions, there are few topics that rouse a good squabble like naming conventions can.

Naming Conventions with Table Occurrences

Naming table occurrences is another area where you need to experiment with the best method to suit you. There are several ways in which to construct relationships. Ray Cologon of NightWing wrote an article about the different ways to structure FileMaker relationships, you should check out his site, which is simply brilliant.

Personally, I use a simple method of combining where the data is coming from, and what it is being related to. Such as the following example.

The above example shows a simple self-join relationship, on the left side, and a one-to-many relationship on the right, using native tables (root tables) to relate one to the other. Here I just use the base table, sometimes I see developers using TO’s for this – you do what suits you. (TO’s = Table Occurrences)

When I use a one-to-many, or a series of one-to-many relationships, such as in the image above, The first part of the TO name is the base table, and the second part is what it is being used for. Again, there are a number of ways to accomplish this, in larger solutions you might want to use something a little more flexible and less onerus on the part of naming conventions to get you through. But, in smaller solutions it is absolutely fine to use the method above, and it is a more natural method for developers early in their journey.

Screencast

Enjoy the screencast. All comments are welcome.

Play Screencast

About the Author: Darren Lunn is on a mission to help FileMaker beginners become competent FileMaker Pro developers. You can connect with Darren on Twitter

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This is an introduction to FileMaker Pro Custom Functions.

I was petrified of getting into Custom Functions when I began my FileMaker Pro Development journey. I wasted many months avoiding them, but once I started getting into the logic a little bit, I found a new world and a host of ways to speed up the development process.

Custom functions can give you a streamlined, more efficient, way of working. You don’t need to construct complex calculations time and time again.

It might seem like custom functions are a bit of black-hole in your FileMaker armoury at the moment, but there’s only one way to fix that, which is to jump in and start learning.

In this screencast I go into the rudimentary aspects of starting your custom function writing journey. Starting with one very basic and very useful technique for understanding custom functions, by using them to make shorthand versions of the standard functions within FileMaker. Some of the standard function names are just a pain in the ass to type out time and time again, this technique solves that.

In the future we will build a real custom function together, perhaps something still basic, but useful, and one that is easy to follow. If you have a suggestion for a custom function you would like, then add it to the comments below and I may use the most popular asks for that screencast – it must be a simple one that beginners could follow..

In the screencast there are pointers to a couple of excellent sites where beginners can download pre-written custom functions. 9/10 times you’ll find the one that you wanted anyway, but that doesn’t mean that you should just go ahead and use it without understanding how it works.

These are the links to those custom function sites:

• FM Custom Functions
• Brian Dunning

Of course there are many more, Google will provide those easily.

There is no shortcut to understanding custom functions, you need to study them before their logic jumps out and hits you. I promise you that if you start with more basic custom functions that it won’t be long before you are writing your own tail recursion versions, but don’t worry about those for some time yet.

Look out for the follow-up screencasts coming shortly, in the meantime enjoy this introductory screencast and, as usual, any comments or feedback are welcome in the comments below.

Screencast

Word of warning, my mobile rings at about 9 minutes 20 seconds into the screencast, so you can have a bit of a laugh at that – god bless wives eh!

Play Screencast

About the Author: Darren Lunn is on a mission to help new FileMaker Pro developers to become competent FileMaker Pro Developers. You can connect with Darren on Twitter

Related posts:

1. Keep Your FileMaker Pro Custom Functions Organised
2. How To Download & Install A FileMaker Pro Custom Function

Today will go down in the annuls of broadcasting, as possibly the worst narration of a maiden screencast in living memory.. However, I really don’t give a damn (even though I hate the sound of my own voice) as long as I convince one or two of you to try out something new.

This screencast is the first in what will eventually turn into a series of help for beginners that are just starting out with FileMaker.

Up front, I can tell you that some of the future content will be paid, but I don’t think we’ll be getting to that point for little while yet.

FileMaker Pro Basics: The Purpose of these Screencasts

The format of these introductory screencasts is purely just to show you basic techniques with FileMaker Pro that can either save you time, or help you organise your solution. This might mean some help on layouts, UI, relationships and so on..

I will not be covering how to make these techniques optimally productive, or even secure. I’m simply starting you off on a journey, and you’ll learn those other things along the way.

If you are already developing in FileMaker, even at a basic level, these early screencasts may not progress you too much, other than maybe the odd hidden tip with the video.

Developers take note: Some of the scripting in these early demo’s is not shown according to what we would call best practice. I know it, you know it, but the people not “in-the-know” don’t know it. So don’t spoil future demo’s, where I will be covering such aspects, by flashing your tail-feathers at me in the comments.

Multifunctional FileMaker Buttons

So what do I mean by multifunctional buttons? Simply, they are layout buttons you use for more than one purpose. A multi-tasking button, if you will.

Depending on keyboard actions and things like depressing the Shift Key you can make FileMaker layout buttons behave in different ways, or execute different scripts. I don’t want to expand on that description any further at this stage, so that I don’t confuse you.

There are many ways to execute a script in FileMaker Pro. Buttons are a nice clean way to give users this functionality. The problem for new FileMaker Pro developers is often that your layouts end up plastered with buttons. This makes for a busy and noisy layout, not good.

A simple technique is to use a process called a ‘switch’. This simply means that an object, such as a button, can be made to do different things depending on the action your user takes. More about switching techniques in a future screencast..

That’s all the explanation I need to go into for now. You can play the screencast below.

Play Screencast

If those beginners that watch this video want to ask questions, or give me some feedback on how it could be improved, then by all means leave me a comment below.

About the Author: Darren Lunn is on a mission to help FileMaker beginners become competent FileMaker Pro developers. You can connect with Darren on Twitter

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If you are one of those people who have purchased FileMaker Pro because everyone told you that you need a database. And, so you now find yourself sitting in front of your PC having just installed the CD or download.

You have no idea of where to begin, you might not even know what a database is..

Don’t worry, I’ve written a small article that will hopefully shed some light onto where to go first, what to learn first, and just as importantly, what to ignore first.

Dowload Article: FileMaker For Beginners – Getting Started, Fresh After the Install
(Right-click and “Save As” or “Save Link As”)

The download is a very top-level simple guide to get you started, a “which tree to look at first in the forest”.

The download will not necessarily teach you how to do any of the steps, I’m relying on you to sink or swim – all I am providing here is the rubber ring to cling to.

Watch out for some FileMaker Pro teaching tutorials, for absolute beginners, coming in the near future.

If you find the article useful, please tell me, if you think it could be improved, let me know where.. now get on with it.

About the Author: Darren Lunn is a self-taught FileMaker Pro Developer, who loves to work, rest and play with FileMaker.. Did I mention he likes FileMaker too?

Related posts:

1. How To Download & Install A FileMaker Pro Custom Function

A question that has popped up during several client and prospect discussions over the past few months is:

What do you mean by scalability?

This is always an interesting conversation, and to say there is a stock answer would be misleading of me. So, to me, scalability and the answer about what it is, is different for different clients.

Listen, Actively

I do think that as developers we have an innate gift for rapidly digesting a client’s situation and mentally developing a solution on the fly. Of course, we elaborate on this later, often too much, but we are a breed of prognosticators and problem solvers.

I always cultivate clients discussions based on their environment. After all, that must the job of any developer, if you can’t empathise with your client’s business and their business’ needs then how the hell you gonna develop software that helps them at all?

A mantra of mine is:

Understand your customer on their terms, do business on yours.

It’s always better to lead someone to a conclusion than to tell them what the answer is. This empowers the other person, it gets them to tell you what the solution is, even though you already know the answer.

Don’t just listen to your clients, but actively listen. This means doing more than just waiting for your client to stop speaking so that you can have your turn.

Clients, and in particular – new clients – are itching to tell you what their problem is and will also give signals about the level of financial commitment that they can make towards solving that problem. When you actively listen, you hear those signals, when you only wait for the gaps in conversation – you don’t.

So you might ask what’s this got to do with scalability? It would be a good question if you didn’t interrupt me and kept reading, see you are not actively listening or reading now .

Constraints of Scalability

Software scalability at its lowest level is: The ability to grow at the rate of requirement, or faster.

You could also throw in some suffixes to that statement, such as, “without great upheaval” or “without major rework” and so on..

There will also come a point in the development of some FileMaker Pro applications where the client will outgrow it. This may only happen to one in every one-hundred applications that you develop, but during your career you will be party to this.

Don’t worry about it. In fact, make the client aware of it early on if you feel that there is a good chance that your client may be affected by it. This gives you more credibility, not less, and allows the client to plan and make business decisions around a known set of facts. If you think that hiding this fact might protect you, then you are just kidding yourself, the conversation when the client ultimately realises it will be a very tense conversation and probably the end of your business relationship.

Around four years ago I had a particularly bizarre instance of this, where my client went from literally not even understanding they had a dire need for a custom application, at all – to outgrowing one within 18 months. They then moved onto a more appropriate web-based application which I helped them to develop with another company, and I still do business with that client on a regular basis today.

Apart from hard scale limits, which are just limits of capability if nothing else, there are many other reasons that we need to make software scalable, perhaps because there is no current need or there is no current finances available. You can’t, and shouldn’t, make your customer go from a Hang-glider to a Learjet in one step. You should give them a Biplane to start with, then a range of Fokker’s before giving them something of real potency. This process is scalability.

Quote of the day»

I know it’s difficult to stop yourself giving a client every trick in the book in their first application. This is particularly true of clients that don’t have deep I.T. awareness or knowledge of how databases work, and you are eager to impress all your knowledge in one fell swoop, upon them. This is a mistake.

The Tsunami Effect

Not least because every feature needs explanation and training, you can easily maroon your client and their staff on an island of confusion. You will make them feel that they’re surrounded by a sea-of-change, without a raft to paddle. Don’t forget that the switch to a database is in itself a learning curve, without the added features of your application.

Like a Tsunami, the change can wash over them leaving carnage everywhere. This makes everyone feel demoralised, dejected, and anti “your” application. Note that I call it your application. If you have reached the implementation stage of a new application, and your client still views the application as your application, you have already failed before the first boot-up.

Stop Thinking of Scalability as an Option/Aspect

Scalability should drive the entire development process. To me the whole development process is one of scalability. Through this process your client can see the possibilities, even though they may not need all of them for a number of years. Guiding your client by active listening, letting them tell you the answers will make your client own the application. It will become their application and you will simply be working on their application. A much better scenario.

Changes, modifications and reworks now all become client driven, subtle changes in conversation appear, such as your client asking “how much would it cost to change [item1] to [item2]?” Much better than telling your client that they need [x] and it will cost [y] – there’s inbuilt tension within the statement itself.

Scalability for me is the art of strategic thinking, the ability to see where your client’s business could be in x-Years time. Scalability is not a linear decision, it’s radial. It’s your job as a developer to draw that concept out, mentally and physically, and make judgements from it, those judgements become the scalable factors – and some will never see the light of day.

Of course the other benefit of drawing the scalability map for your client is that you are creating a wish-list for them too. Once they see what is possible, it is not too far a leap to trigger those wish-list items when a certain business event occurs or milestone is reached. And, those smart enough to include their client’s milestones on their scalability map will naturally trigger the enquiry process. “When you reach milestone [X] a module [Y] could handle that, at today’s rate – that would cost [Z].”

Double Dutch Doesn’t Mean You Get Twice As Much

I like to use metaphors a lot, I like to use pictures even more. But, when I can’t use either of those I just make lists. As much as there is a need to make monumental sized reports for pitches and specifications, and sometimes bids, there is also a permanent need for common sense. For me, common sense is just a phrase that means: how to convey logic in the least number of compelling words..

Clarity, it’s a concept that many people never really grasp. In a bid to achieve clarity, they stumble, cough and splutter and keep adding to documents and emails and communications – without ever editing out the crap.

Invariably this leads to communication paralysis, your client hasn’t yet grasped the initial proposal you made, and you’ve now come back with a hefty list of additions – you’ve also just booked them a ticket for that one-way journey to maroon island.

Clarity and scalability go hand-in-hand. You have to achieve clarity to be able to compel and convince your client, use scalability as a way to give your client economy whilst at the same time laying the foundation for future revenue for yourself. Of course, your application has to solve the initial problem, but it doesn’t need to do it to death upon hatching.

Chicken Nuggets – Chicken – Egg

Yes, the order of those is screwed up, but in very basic terms, the order of the day is:

Client lays egg » you rear Chicken » you leave Chicken Nuggets behind with client as a taste of the future.

I told you I like metaphors..

About the Author: Darren Lunn develops custom applications for people desperately in need of custom applications. He also helps them understand the future without the use of a time machine.

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Today marked the beginning of the normalisation of spending in the UK. George Osbourne and David Laws have outlined in reasonably explicit, top level, fashion where the money will start to be cut from budgets across government departments.

The question that pops up first in my mind is, how can FileMaker Pro be used to help deliver some of these savings. FileMaker’s uniqueness in being super-fast to develop, extend and scale-up gives Developers and FileMaker businesses in the UK a distinct advantage here.

The way that I see it, there is ocean of opportunity that has been created by this morning’s announcements.

How many:

• Public sector jobs will need to be combined (how about the systems those jobs utilise).
• Cost reduction projects specifying, tracking and reporting – at all levels of government
• Proof of delivery of cost savings reports will need to be in place
• Management data solutions could be combined to aggregate savings tracking
• Cascading projects of savings will now need to be brought together for data clarity
• Unfilled roles will need to have their responisbilities passed onto existing roles – think about performance enhancement
• KPI and performance management measures will now be critical in delivering services within smaller budgets

For sure, the need to do more work with less resources is now paramount to the continued provision of all government services. The only way, in my mind, that this can be done effectively is to employ greater use of technology and smaller more efficient systems that have a single or multiple purpose, but, that can be agile and change with the landscape within the affected departments.

FileMaker Pro, and the Developers community itself, is strongly placed to help achieve this goal. No other software and database platform is quite so agile as FileMaker. Its extendibility, speed of deployment and flexibility for change puts it firmly, and rightly, as a front-runner in helping departments achieve this.

I’ve been involved in several fairly high profile business turnaround projects. This current raft of actions is no different in concept to business turnaround, it’s just bigger and more widespread. You could think of it as a business turnaround project of UK PLC. Is it not just that in reality?

As departments swap and change roles, move job responsibilities around from person to person, or department to department, just think how effective it would be to move, aggregate, separate or extend the systems that those people and roles utilise. I can’t think of a better opportunity for our community in the last decade.

Massive I.T. systems have their place, though often, they are not the silver bullet that big government thought that they would be. FileMaker can be a silver bullet, albeit just smaller calibre, but no less effective. Helping departments find that magic formula of where best to reshuffle resources to, in order to find the most productive result, could be the FileMaker community’s own silver bullet to accessing local government in a more ubiquitous fashion.

There are people, managers and departments out there that need what you do. Do they know you exist? Do they know what you are capable of?

This morning I guarantee that there are several hundred, if not several thousand, decision makers and budget holders in a state of semi-despair wondering how on Earth they are going to deliver these savings. Well you should just go and tell them.

Just go and make  it happen. This will be a private sector recovery – if you are a FileMaker Developer – aren’t you in the private sector?

Just thinking….

About the Author: Darren Lunn goes around filling half-full glasses and prodding black-clouds to see if loose change falls out.

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