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FileMaker Pro 10: Intermediate Tutorials

Interface Design / Finishing Touches pt. 1

Subtitles of the Movie

Let's put some finishing touches on this interface by adding a title or housekeeping fields, some more buttons and our calculations. So we're going to show our status toolbar, edit layout and we're going to come down to the bottom here and right next to this we're going to put the age. So we're going to do this with our Text Tool. We're going to insert a merge field and we're going to choose Age. Simple as that. Make sure that's the right size. I think 12 point makes more sense because it's data in here and you can line these things up. If you haven't seen this before, you see that little line that comes out of it? I can line that up directly with that perfectly like that and I'll move it over a little bit and we could even put the word Age in here. Looks pretty good to me. And our next thing we're going to do is put our title. So we'll go back up to the top, get our Text Tool again and again, we're not calling this contacts anymore, we're calling it customers. So that works better with our overall invoicing solution. And we'll make this 36 point. Once we have that, we'll move it right in here and I'm going to line it up I think, well, it depends on what you want to line it up with. If you want to line it up with this edge or with this edge and I think, well, maybe it makes sense with this edge right here. And that looks like the anchor points line up here pretty good so I'm pretty happy with that. I'm going to get it centered here. I want to get it just perfect, maybe even make this a little bit bigger because we're going to duplicate this layout and we may have longer titles here. So I'm going to make this accommodate for that. And once you've got it just right, we'll duplicate it; 12345, not 6, 5. 12345. So it's offset by one pixel to the right and one pixel down and we'll change this to a gray color. So we'll come here and choose this one and then we'll say Arrange, Send Backward. So what we've done is we've made a nice-looking 3D look. We could have used color, but you don't want to overuse color and I think this gives it a little bit of flavor and it attracts you there. I'm going to actually take a look at it and see what it looks like without the bolding on. Oh, and it looks like we didn't have bolding on. It's just a very bold font. Let's make sure we're on; see, that's the difference. We're not on Verdana anymore so I'm going to actually do a Select All and then make sure every font in here is done in Verdana. So we'll come over here, scroll all the way down. It'll take a while to get down there. I always wish Verdana started with an A so it was at the top. And that's a little bit better. Now we need to reposition this. Move that up a little bit and I think that looks pretty good. I'm pretty happy with that and you can see how our titles here have changed. So all we have to do is select each one. It's an easy fix; 123. That looks about good and we might even be able to go smaller now; 10 point. You can see how it's much easier to read that 10-point size there. And I'm pretty happy with that. So we'll stick with that and now we can go ahead and put on our Time Stamp and Account Create, along with our Time Stamp Modify and Account Modify. I'm going to put it down here in this area because it's really not important to see on a day-to-day basis but when you do need it, it'll be down there. We're just going to make it very subtle and down in the corner here. Plus there's really nothing being used here. So first thing we need to do is make sure we're going back down to a reasonable size and I'm going to try 10 point for starters. And I'm going to say Created colon space and then we'll insert our merge field. And we'll put Time Stamp and all the way down here Time Stamp Create and then we're going to type in the word By colon space and then insert our next one. And that will be our account, which is all the way back up at the top; Account Create. Then to separate them, I'm going to type a space and the a pipe character and then another space and put Modified colon space insert our merge field. Come down to Time Stamp Mod, type a space, By and then we'll insert the last one. And there's the merge field. Go up to the top, Account Mod. We'll click out of that, make that text block smaller, make it a little bit wider just in case, stick it down there in the corner. I want it to line up pretty much with that right there and that looks pretty good. Maybe one pixel over and then I'm going to change the text color. I really don't want it to stand out that much so I'm going to come over here and change the text color to this one and that's really going to make it readable but really blend into the background so it doesn't really draw your attention away from the rest of the interface. So I think that looks pretty good. Let's check it out in Browse Mode and we can see down there and I'm pretty happy with that so we'll stick with that.

Tutorial Information

Course: FileMaker Pro 10: Intermediate
Author: John Mark Osborne
SKU: 33926
ISBN: 1-935320-19-X
Release Date: 2009-01-05
Duration: 15 hrs / 177 lessons
Work Files: Yes
Captions: Available on CD and Online University
Compatibility: Vista/XP/2000, OS X, Linux
QuickTime 7, Flash 8

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