FileMaker Pro 12: Beginner Tutorials
Introduction / New FileMaker 12 Features Overview
Subtitles of the Movie (FileMaker Pro 12: Beginner / Introduction / New FileMaker 12 Features Overview)
If you're already familiar with FileMaker, you're probably chomping at the bit to explore the new features, so here's a quick overview so you can see all the features in one place. We're going to go over each one of these features or at least most of them in various areas of the tutorials. We're not going to cover them all in one spot because it doesn't really make sense out of context of building a solution in my opinion. Some of them will be covered right up front so you can get a really good introduction to them but a lot of them, you're really going to have to look at how we use the program differently throughout the tutorials to get an idea how these new features actually work. So we'll start up here at the top, the first one is Persistent or Temporary Sort. A while back FileMaker changed the sorting so there was Persistent. In other words if you edited or added a record it would automatically sort that found set for you, just re-sort it on the fly. Before that you would have to sort it again, well some people don't like that so now there's an option, if you go to the Records Menu and choose Sort Records, you'll see the checkbox there to either check or uncheck to either do Persistent or Temporary Sort. There's also the same choice inside of the script stuff for sorting. Show Custom Dialog has also been improved or enhanced; it allows some options at the bottom to determine which button is the one that allows you to commit the value that's been typed into a field that's been attached to that custom dialog. So we're not going to go over that right now, we will later and you'll see how it works, it's a great feature, long time overdue. The Quick Table View which I don't really use a lot but some people like it has been enhanced and we'll try to go over those in, in the beginner tutorial. The Web Viewer has a small little encoding checkbox, the default is for it to be on and, and when it was not there that checkbox, encoding was always on but now you have the chance to take encoding off and for what that's worth, we won't really cover that. You can do that yourself if you want and try that out. Windows Style is a really big feature, now you can determine when you create a new window, what style it is. It can be the style where it's a dialog or a floating palette or a regular window and we'll do definitely do examples of that right quickly, right after this in the next section as well as throughout the tutorials. Some Contextual Menu Commands have been changed, whether you're right-clicking or control clicking to bring that up, those have changed. They're not that different but it's worth a mention, you can sort records by a field and I think the best use of this is really when you have your cursor in a field, you can click a button and it'll use that field that your cursor's in to sort by. So that's kind of nifty to make some dynamic scripts. One of the biggest features, the most impressive feature in Enhanced Container Fields and I can't really sum this up very well, it's a great feature, there's so many aspects to it, you're just going to have to watch other sections to see how this works but this is really a big feature. There are some additional Script Triggers, the biggest ones being the Script Triggers on Tabs when you switch tabs, those are great and there's some additional Calculation Functions. Most of them are for the Script Triggers to determine what's been done during the Script Trigger running as well as some that are specifically for FileMaker Go for location and things like that. We'll try to cover those but really not that important as far as the overall scheme of things, we'll probably cover the Script Trigger Functions more. Another one, a long awaited feature, the ability to Customize the Insert File Script Step, so when you bring up that dialog and say locate a file, you can change all kinds of things about it, really been waiting for this one for a long time. Also in Layout Mode, now you have gradients, image fields and a lot of other features we'll talk about. You also have if you remember, in previous versions, you have the features for putting in let's say two At Signs which would be doing the record number and two Pound Signs which would do the page number. Now you have a ton, a plethora of different variable symbols you can put in there, so you don't have to create calculations. There are a ton of new script steps that we're not really going to cover in detail here, there's too many to, to suggest but a lot of them are very simple, they just correspond to the new features and aren't really that deep. So I won't cover them here but we'll see them as we go through. You now have Guides and Dynamic Guides, Guides are kind of like your, your feature that used the T Squares before but much better and Dynamic Guides, well I can't even describe that, you had, you just have to see it, they're very cool. You have new Selection Knobs and Highlights, very cool, you'll see how this all works when we go into Layout Mode. You have some significant charting improvements, not only adding new chart capabilities but improving how you interface with it, it is much, much better, much easier to use in my opinion. You have Object States, whether you're hovering over an object or clicking down on an object. You have different states of that object, you can have it do different things, very, very cool. You have multiple layout undo's, you had multiple undo's in Browse Mode but now you have it in Layout Mode and they removed all of your patterns but and so in order to get/and dot lines they had to add that feature. So patterns have been removed,/and dot lines have been added which is really all people used patterns for anyhow so. Explicit Layout Width, well I can't really describe that one, you'll have to see it but it's really a very welcome feature so you don't have to put this little invisible line over on the right side. Enough said, it's a developer feature and if you're not familiar with putting that invisible locked line over on the right side you'll have to wait to see what we're talking about. This is a developer feature specifically for developers, developing plug-ins, so I'm not going to really go over this but it makes it easier for them to do the things they want to do. A big feature is Layout Themes, this is much more than it sounds, it's not just themes, it's the themes were implemented and you're really going to have to see this happen to really see what's going on. Screen Stencils are great, you can put a little outline of what an iPad or an iPhone would look in Portrait or Landscape Mode or any size stencil you want so it just outlines. So you can design on a gigantic 30 inch screen with the high resolution for people who have only 1024 by 768, very, very - I used to use a separate program for this, I love this feature. Accessibility is a set of features that help people with disabilities, specifically people who can't see very well, it'll read things for you, makes it easier for you to do that. There's a whole new set of Starter Solutions. You have some Enhanced Tab Control and other things and it's really kind of minor so it's, I'm not going to really go over it too much. As we've mentioned before, there's a new file format fmp12. There are new badges, these are great, this little badge in the lower right-hand corner that shows if there's a Layout Script Trigger, you never saw that. There's a new badge for what a button looks like, it's really great and you can also now open URL for FileMaker Files. So you can open a FileMaker File through the Open URL Script Step, really great. And there's not many features in FileMaker Advanced but let's go over them. One of the big ones the developers wanted was to Globally Enable or Disable Script Triggers through the Script Debugger and as we go through that, we'll, you know, the Script Debugger, we'll cover how that works. There has been Custom Menu improvements, they're really kind of minor. Default Custom Menus are no longer created; Blank Menu Items are replaced Boolean to support iOS devices. This is kind of a cool one and we'll get into this and if it doesn't make sense yet, you'll find out what this means later on when we actually work on Custom Menus. The DDR has obviously been enhanced to support the new features, that's the Database Design Report. The Runtime now supports the Close Window Button and the Launch PHP Assistant has been removed from the Tools Menu because it's no longer supported by FileMaker Server. So not a lot in FileMaker Advanced but in a lot in FileMaker Pro 12 which is also in Advance.
Tutorial Information
| Course: | FileMaker Pro 12: Beginner |
| Author: | John Mark Osborne |
| SKU: | 34323 |
| ISBN: | 978-1-61866-046-6 |
| Release Date: | 2012-06-08 |
| Duration: | 16 hrs / 169 lessons |
| Work Files: |
Yes |
| Captions: | No |
| Compatibility: |
Vista/XP/2000, OS X, Linux QuickTime 7, Flash 8 |
VTC Sign up & Benefits
- Unlimited Access
- 81,350 Video Tutorials (14,200 free)
- Video Available as Flash or QuickTime
- Over 715 Courses
- $30 for One Month Access
- Multi-User Discounts Available
