FileMaker has always included starter solutions, simple databases with basic structure that allow anyone to use as a starting point. Through the years and various versions of FileMaker, the solutions have become more advanced and complex to show the new features of FileMaker.
Is Portage Bay a software development company that does project management?, or a project management company that happens to do custom FileMaker and 4th Dimension work? Interesting question. I often feel that our success as developers has as much to do with our skills in communications and project management than in the nitty gritty of writing code.
A few years back, we released a demo to discuss/review the cURL functionality introduced into the “Insert from URL” script step in FileMaker 16. While the cURL implementation introduced some data transfer standards into the FileMaker framework, the real magic happens in the “Insert from URL” script step.In this new version of the cURL demo, we took the same demo from the cURL blog post and gave it some updates, applied a new theme, and added the feature to send HTML emails using the SMTP(S) protocol introduced in FileMaker 18. We’re also using a navigation module we’ve built that utilizes the JavaScript functionality introduced in FileMaker 19.
With the advent of Claris FileMaker 19, we are starting to see some new FileMaker add-ons, a brand new feature that is still technically “coming soon” according to Claris. One of the first products available for FileMaker using the new add-on architecture is the newly revised DayBack calendar product from Seedcode. We have been integrating the DayBack calendar for many years now and have seen the product evolve over time. This latest edition is taking advantage of many of the new FileMaker 19 capabilities, and has some really great new features. I’d like to go over some of the similarities and differences between “DayBack Classic” and DayBack 19 as well as benefits to upgrading.
Back when I was learning about the FileMaker Data API, I had trouble finding any information on how container data was handled. Oddly, the upload information in the Help documentation seemed far more complete than the download information, especially considering the download information isn’t even it’s own section. It’s a note in the URL And Data Format notes section. In essence, the note is: You will get a URL referencing the location of the container data, which is somewhere on the internet. You’re welcome. I ended up utilizing the Base64 Encode And Decode functions in a way that I’ll forever keep as a tool in my developer’s toolbox. If you’re not familiar with these functions, they easily convert images into text and vice versa.
FM BetterForms is not just a web front end for your FileMaker Pro solutions. It’s very much the front end that FileMaker has been needing for some time. What I mean is that while the rest of the world moved on to HTML/CSS and JavaScript for their UIs, FileMaker did not. In fact, it’s only in the upcoming release of FileMaker Pro 19 that JavaScript is being incorporated into the UI. FM BetterForms has taken it upon itself to go ahead and modernize the UI for the web.
