Subtitles of the Movie

Beginning with FileMaker 8 and FileMaker 8 Advanced, FileMaker Incorporated has introduced lots of new features to make it easy to move structure from one file to another, or within the same file. So, structure or schema includes Fields, Tables, Scripts and other things as we'll see. So we actually did do some importing of schema, or structure, before and I'll remind you we went and, if we go into Manage Database and we look at our Tables, we actually imported this zips file, or this zips table, from another file because we wanted to have a one-file solution. So that was done through Import Records if you remember and we simply went in there and chose file and then when we chose the target we chose New Table. Now that can be done in FileMaker 8 regular or later, or FileMaker Advanced if you want, also. But the rest of the features I'm going to show you are only with FileMaker Advanced - FileMaker 8 Advanced, 9 Advanced, 10 Advanced and 11 Advanced. So, I'm going to recommend you get the Advanced version if you like these features. So, let's go back into Manage Database and we'll take a look at some of the features here. We can actually go ahead and copy. In fact, what we're going to do is we're going to go ahead and look at our zips file. Let's go ahead and open up the zips and you can get that out of our Work Files. Go into Manage Database for it, we'll copy, go back to here, go to Manage Database and then we can paste and you can see it goes right in there. This is actually the zips from the zips file, it's called zips 2 now because there was a conflict with the name. So that's pretty cool. Or, you could import it. That way, if you're in the file already you could go ahead and say, OK, I'm going to go and find that zips file. It's going to list me all the tables. I'm going to check the one that I want. Click OK. It's going to tell me I had a conflict, it'll call it zips 3 and there you go. Or, I can even Copy and Paste inside the same table. So, you've got a lot of capability here as far as moving data around. Remember you have to have the Advanced version to do this. So we're going to go ahead and cancel this and discard all the changes because we really don't want all those changes in there. And now what we're going to do is show you how to work with Fields. Let's go into Manage Database again, go to the Fields section and we'll go over to, let's say, Address 1. I can copy that and then come over to zips and paste it if I want. Or, I can copy several fields, I can either hold down the Shift key to select multiple, or I can go ahead and hold down the Command key to do discontiguous and on the Windows it'd be Ctrl and copy those and then go to another table and paste them. Simple as that. You can see they've gone right in there. If we view them by creation where it's a little bit easier to see that they both went in there. You can see they're now in there. So, City 2 and Zip 1 in there. So we've got a lot of capability as far as this stuff. We're going to go ahead again and cancel this because we don't want these changes. One of the things I like about the Field Copy and Paste is think about our housekeeping fields. There are a lot of options on there and if we can Copy and Paste them there's less chance of making a mistake. Not only making it faster, but less chance of making a mistake and I've done that before where I've missed an option or chosen the wrong option and thought I did it right. If you Copy and Paste from something that works it's going to work in the new version. Another place you can go ahead and work with schema is inside ScriptMaker, or Manage Scripts. So you can go ahead and select a single script, Shift-click to select multiple, you can go ahead and hold down the Command key and select discontiguous, or hold down the Ctrl key on Windows and then you can go ahead and copy it. Now there's no Copy button down here. You can either go on the Macintosh, the Edit Menu and choose Copy, or use a keyboard command on Windows and then you simply paste and those go in there. That's how easy it is to do. Now you can do that from file to file or within the same file, it doesn't really matter, it's up to you. We can go ahead and also import. So you hold over this and you'll see it says Import, click it, asks you for what file, we'll choose Contacts Copy. It's going to be the same Scripts but it's from another file. You choose which ones you want. I want that one and that one. Click OK. It'll give you an idea of what issues occurred because they might not have the same fields and things like that and you have to go back and correct some of the scripts, but it gets everything in there. So, we'll delete those as well. So, Scripts are a great way - you'll often do - this is probably one of the most common things to do. Get a Script for only I did that before and I'm going to go and get it from that file. Now, one other place you have it is in Custom Functions. Now we haven't covered Custom Functions but in FileMaker 11 Advanced, not FileMaker 10 Advanced, not FileMaker 9 Advanced, only in FileMaker 11 Advanced you now have the ability to Copy and Paste Custom Functions and import them. So if you've used them before you'll be jumping up for joy right now. But we'll show those when we come to Custom Functions because we haven't really showed them yet. So, remember, FileMaker Advanced is worth the extra money if you're a serious FileMaker developer. Just the ability to move schema around can really save you a ton of time.