SavvyData | Making Data Make Sense

The Evolution of (FileMaker) Charting, Part 1b

Lee Lukehart — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 17:05:41 +0000

Haven’t seen Part 1a yet? Read it here. Our Charting Legacy To help us plot our trendline trajectory into the future, please accompany me on a short stroll down memory lane. Reaching back almost twenty years, I’ve been able to collect a few stories about those early days. The first makers of charts in FileMaker Pro truly [...]

The Evolution of (FileMaker) Charting, Part 1a

Lee Lukehart — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 16:26:50 +0000

For this article I have taken a different approach, and offer up my current perspective on events in the history of data visualization and the FileMaker platform. Naturally, our viewpoints are formed by our direct experiences, but the passage of time also affects our interpretation. The other things that happen leading up to and following [...]

Advisory about upgrading to Mac OS X Lion

Lee Lukehart — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 20:31:53 +0000

The next Mac operating system, OS X 10.7 “Lion”, is scheduled to be released this month. “When should I upgrade?” is the hot question for users of FileMaker Pro and FileMaker Server. The short answer: We strongly recommend waiting to upgrade to Lion. There are known issues and potential problem points, regardless of your current version [...]

Message to Snopes.com: “About Your Rating Symbols”

Lee Lukehart — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 19:03:52 +0000

[Note: This is the text of a message I sent to the Snopes.com owners, seconding a valid user request per the blog post at waxy.org which itself was a critique on a Netflix chart. These are but two examples of reducing efficacy through poor display choices.] “David and Barbara, thank you so much for your efforts [...]

Serving the .fp7 MIME type

Lee Lukehart — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 17:09:42 +0000

The Problem: Clicking an .fp7 file download link on a web page results in a page full of garbage characters. How do you go about sharing your FileMaker Pro files on the web with others? I’m not referring to hosting files on FileMaker Server — I mean giving someone the entire file to use on their computer [...]

Charting in FileMaker Go for iPad — what’s new in v2

Lee Lukehart — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 01:20:34 +0000

Web technologies have added functionality to FileMaker solutions since the Web Viewer layout object was introduced in version 8.5. The web viewer has proven especially useful for displaying Flash-generated charts from FusionCharts, Maani, AnyChart, and others. FileMaker Pro v11 introduced a built-in chart layout object with 5 basic chart types. Charts suddenly became much easier to [...]

Autoscaling Behaviors of the FileMaker Pro Chart Object

Lee Lukehart — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 03:12:37 +0000

Ever have a FileMaker Pro chart “mysteriously” change its scale setting on you? Ever wonder how the FileMaker Pro chart object decides to set the y-axis scale? The FileMaker Pro documentation doesn’t provide that level of detail, so following are the behavior “rules” I’ve deduced through experimentation: Scaling Behavior “Rules”… (The following assume the y-scale min-max has [...]

Fun with FileMaker Pro 11 Charts, v1.5

Lee Lukehart — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 21:00:43 +0000

Knowing how to represent data visually often draws upon quite varied skills. A data visualist ideally possesses some of the traits of information architect, graphic designer, mathematician, statistician, web designer, teacher, user interface designer, cognitive psychologist, and storyteller. One could argue that these skills are essential to thriving in our future information-rich society. Until the [...]

A Startup Subscript: Checking version/platform/device

Lee Lukehart — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 20:52:29 +0000

Funny how a new platform (FileMaker Go for iPad, in this case) helps you tighten your code design. While putting together the Charting on the iPad demo file (updated), naturally I rewrote the subscript that checks versions at file start to include mobile devices. For each variation it can specify minimum version and whether to [...]

FileMaker Go (Charting?!) on the iPad

Lee Lukehart — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 01:23:21 +0000

[ Update Note: As of Oct 7, 2010 the demo file links return an updated v2 file that was released at DevCon in August. This was discussed in a subsequent blog post, Charting in FileMaker Go for iPad — what’s new in v2 (ChartingWithWebTech.fp7). ] Web technologies have added functionality to FileMaker solutions since the Web [...]