IntroductionWelcome| 00:04 | Hi, I'm Cris Ippolite and welcome
to Up and Running with FileMaker Go.
| | 00:08 | FileMaker Go allows you to run FileMaker
Databases on iOS Devices like iPads or iPhones.
| | 00:14 | In this course, I'll show you how
to get your FileMaker Databases on to
| | 00:17 | your devices or to even connect to databases
that are being hosted by FileMaker Server.
| | 00:22 | I'll get you familiar with the FileMaker
Go interface and how you can get around
| | 00:26 | in your databases when you're on the devices.
| | 00:27 | I'll also show you how to optimize your
FileMaker Layouts so they look clean and
| | 00:32 | slick on the different devices.
| | 00:34 | I'll even show you a cool way to have
your FileMaker Databases communicate
| | 00:37 | with other iOS apps.
| | 00:39 | Now let's fire up those devices and get
Up and Running with FileMaker Go.
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| What you should know| 00:00 | Up and Running with FileMaker Go
assumes that you've already built your
| | 00:03 | FileMaker databases.
| | 00:05 | I cover how you can work with
those databases on your iOS devices.
| | 00:09 | If you're not comfortable with the
concepts behind building the databases,
| | 00:12 | please take a moment and go back and
watch the FileMaker 12 Essential Training,
| | 00:15 | FileMaker Pro In Depth or even
Relational Design with FileMaker Pro.
| | 00:21 | I've also include a couple of movies
that showcase cool techniques that
| | 00:24 | I've never shown before.
| | 00:25 | So make sure to take the time and
visit each section as you browse through
| | 00:28 | this course.
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| Exercise files| 00:00 | If you're a premium member of the lynda.
com online training library, you'll have
| | 00:04 | access to the exercise files
used throughout this course.
| | 00:07 | The way that the exercise files are laid
out is that they all come in one folder
| | 00:11 | and then within that folder you see
there's a subfolder for every chapter.
| | 00:15 | Within the chapter, there are folders for
each one of the movies that has an exercise file.
| | 00:20 | So that way, you can go directly to
any one of the chapters or any one of the
| | 00:23 | movies and open up the
exercise file that pertains to it.
| | 00:27 | In some cases, I've also included
some additional files like links to
| | 00:30 | downloadable PDFs or even barcodes for
you to scan in some of the exercises.
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1. Understanding FileMaker GoWhat is FileMaker Go?| 00:00 | So you've heard about this product
FileMaker Go and you're wondering what is it?
| | 00:03 | Well, let's look at it this way.
| | 00:05 | Based on Apple's latest earnings, the
company is selling 250,000 iPads everyday
| | 00:10 | and 500,000 iPhones everyday.
| | 00:13 | It's a staggering and
almost incomprehensible number.
| | 00:17 | Now a large number of those device
users also need custom database solutions,
| | 00:21 | and business owners are already
buying the devices and trying to make a
| | 00:25 | business case for them.
| | 00:26 | So imagine if you could pitch those
same business owners and decision makers on
| | 00:30 | a platform that not only provides a
low cost app development environment for
| | 00:34 | iOS, but that those same applications
could then be networked to an expansive
| | 00:39 | back-end system that could be shared
with hundreds of users simultaneously.
| | 00:42 | Well, that exist and it's a
product called FileMaker Go.
| | 00:46 | In this course, I'm going to
introduce you to the FileMaker Go
| | 00:49 | application environment.
| | 00:50 | So FileMaker Go is a true FileMaker Pro
client extended to the iPhone, iPad and
| | 00:55 | iPod Touch as an iOS application.
| | 00:58 | The application is free of charge and
can be downloaded from the iTunes store
| | 01:02 | to any iOS 6 device.
| | 01:04 | So when you're planning your databases
and determining which user groups you'll
| | 01:08 | have, it's now very important that
you include users that are outside your
| | 01:12 | network that have access to possibly
an iPhone, an iPad or an iPod Touch.
| | 01:17 | So if you use your imagination, this
can open up the door for things like
| | 01:21 | creating sales quotes for industrial
machinery, creating walking portfolios
| | 01:26 | of digital creative samples, managing
car rental agreements and deliveries on
| | 01:30 | the road, tracking multiple printing
projects on the shop floor, conducting
| | 01:35 | neighborhood surveys door-to-door, clothing
inventory to assist customers while shopping.
| | 01:39 | The list goes on and on and on and
these are all examples of things that people
| | 01:43 | are already doing with FileMaker Go.
| | 01:46 | With over one-half million downloads
and counting, users are already finding
| | 01:49 | interesting ways to use
FileMaker Go on iOS devices.
| | 01:53 | Now you can extend your existing
database to users anywhere in the world or
| | 01:57 | even create your own single-user iOS app.
| | 02:01 | FileMaker Go allows users to view and
manipulate FileMaker Pro databases that
| | 02:05 | are either hosted or copied
onto a user's mobile device.
| | 02:08 | In the same way that Mobile Safari
allows iOS users to work with websites
| | 02:12 | designed for the desktop, FileMaker
Go lets users access layouts that were
| | 02:16 | created in FileMaker Pro with no
additional modification required.
| | 02:22 | Of course, developers can opt to tailor
their layouts to serve the screen size
| | 02:25 | and the fingers of the iPhone and iPad users.
| | 02:30 | Actually, you'll notice that in our
exercise files for this course that we
| | 02:34 | already have a series of layouts that
are created for the different iOS devices.
| | 02:37 | You'll notice that they're organized
into either iPad or iPhone versions.
| | 02:43 | The exercise files also already have
what we call an Open Script that detect
| | 02:48 | which device and then take the
users to those appropriate layouts.
| | 02:52 | FileMaker Pro does a fantastic job of
preserving fidelity across all platforms.
| | 02:58 | So what works in FileMaker Pro,
works in FileMaker Go, albeit with some
| | 03:02 | important exceptions that are going
to be covered later in this course.
| | 03:05 | FileMaker Go is a client that's
intended for working with your existing
| | 03:09 | FileMaker 12 databases.
| | 03:11 | Now recognize as a developer, you're
not going to have access to any of the
| | 03:15 | authoring capabilities when you're on the device.
| | 03:17 | For example, if you're in FileMaker Go,
there's no Layout mode or Manage
| | 03:21 | Database dialog, but you'll still
continue to do all of the development work
| | 03:25 | on the desktop and then view all
the results on the mobile device.
| | 03:28 | In this course, I'll show you how to
work with your databases inside of the Go
| | 03:32 | app and discuss some considerations
when creating databases for use on Go.
| | 03:36 | One important note, FileMaker Go 12
only works with FileMaker Pro 12 files.
| | 03:41 | All of the exercises in this course are .fmp12 files,
so those can work on FileMaker Go 12.
| | 03:49 | FileMaker Go is a true FileMaker Pro
client that dramatically extends the
| | 03:53 | reach and convenience of FileMaker Pro databases
to the iPhone and iPad as an iOS application.
| | 03:59 | So join over the one-half million users
and counting and enjoy playing around
| | 04:04 | with your current databases as iOS
apps as you get more familiar with
| | 04:08 | FileMaker Go.
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| Exploring some FileMaker Go apps| 00:00 | Before we get started with this course,
I just wanted to direct you to something
| | 00:04 | that you'll file on the filemaker.com
website, which is a showcase of various
| | 00:08 | different FileMaker Go applications.
| | 00:10 | If you go to the site and check it out,
this will really help you wrap your
| | 00:13 | head around, what you can do with FileMaker Pro
on either the iPad or iPhone or iPod Touch.
| | 00:19 | You go to the website, as you see here
on screen, you can click around and see
| | 00:23 | all the different applications that
people have built; really some really neat
| | 00:27 | stuff since FileMaker Go has
been around for a couple years now.
| | 00:30 | Hopefully, clicking through this will
give you an idea of what's possible with
| | 00:34 | FileMaker Go and then when you're your
curiosity is piqued, you can come back
| | 00:37 | and take a look at the rest of this course.
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2. Getting Started with FileMaker GoGetting files on the device| 00:00 | Your first step when working with
databases in FileMaker Go is to either
| | 00:03 | transfer your databases to the device
or to connect to a hosted database.
| | 00:08 | There are several ways to transfer files
to FileMaker Go in order to use them
| | 00:12 | locally on your device.
| | 00:13 | The first option is through iTunes.
You can connect your device directly to your
| | 00:17 | computer and then open up iTunes and
then you'll click on the device here and
| | 00:22 | you'll navigate over to Apps.
| | 00:25 | Now if you scroll down below the fold,
and it's kind of easy to miss, you'll
| | 00:29 | notice that there's a series of
different apps listed under File Sharing.
| | 00:32 | And if you click on the FileMaker Go 12 App,
you're going to see all of the
| | 00:36 | different documents that are currently on your device.
| | 00:39 | You may not see any documents on your device
or maybe just some of the documents
| | 00:42 | that shipped with FileMaker Go.
| | 00:44 | But if you want to add a new one,
you'll notice that there's a button called Add
| | 00:47 | here in the bottom right-hand corner.
| | 00:50 | Select Add, navigate to the file that
you want to add to the device, and hit Open.
| | 00:57 | You'll immediately see it in your list
of FileMaker Go Documents.
| | 01:03 | You won't have to sync in iTunes
in order for that file to show up on your device either.
| | 01:07 | You'll automatically see it in the File Browser.
| | 01:10 | You can also select an existing file
and by simply hitting the Delete key on
| | 01:14 | your keyboard, you can remove it from your device.
| | 01:18 | Also if you want to transfer a document
from the device on to your local
| | 01:22 | machine, you can just select the document
and then hit the Save To option and
| | 01:28 | pick the location for where you want to save it.
| | 01:31 | Another very easy way to get a file onto
your device is to email the file as an
| | 01:36 | attachment to an email address
that you can access on your device.
| | 01:40 | So you see here, we've attached a
database to our email and emailed it to an
| | 01:45 | address that we can check on the device.
| | 01:48 | Now when you're on the device, you can
select your email and you'll notice that
| | 01:52 | the attachment still has a download.
| | 01:54 | So if you click on it, it will take a minute to download.
| | 01:58 | Once it's downloaded, you'll notice the
FileMaker icon and you can then click on
| | 02:02 | the attachment and you get some options for opening it up.
| | 02:05 | Here we're going to select FileMaker Go for iPad
and it will automatically open it up in your device.
| | 02:13 | You can also use your device's Safari application
to access a file hosted on a web server.
| | 02:19 | So for example, if you receive a link
via email, you can either click on the
| | 02:23 | link and download it directly or for example here,
you'll notice that Safari
| | 02:27 | recognizes it as a file and allows us
to pick the application that we want to open it up with.
| | 02:32 | So here, I can say, Open Up in and
I'll pick FileMaker Go for iPad.
| | 02:36 | And once again, the file opens up inside FileMaker Go.
| | 02:40 | If the file already exists on your
device when it's transferred using mail or
| | 02:44 | the web, the file is added to the
files on device list with a serial number
| | 02:49 | appended to the files name.
| | 02:51 | You can see here for example, Invoices 02_01
is represented three different times.
| | 02:55 | So if you'd like, you can easily remove the duplicates
by sliding and hitting the Delete button.
| | 03:00 | So FileMaker Go has many different ways that
you can transfer your databases to your device.
| | 03:06 | Once you get your devices loaded,
you can then open it up and start to play with it in Go.
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| Opening files via the File Browser| 00:00 | When you first open FileMaker Go, you're
presented with what's called the Home Screen.
| | 00:05 | The Home Screen makes it easy to access
all the files on your device or connect
| | 00:08 | to remotely hosted devices.
| | 00:10 | But before we get to those, you will
also notice in the upper right-hand corner,
| | 00:14 | if you click on this little wrench icon
you'll be presented with the settings.
| | 00:18 | And it's not a bad idea to go on here
to change things like Usernames or if you
| | 00:23 | want to show your Status Bar or turn on
and off Auto-Correction and the rest of
| | 00:26 | it is just information about the
device and about the FileMaker app.
| | 00:29 | So now we can close the Settings
window and we'll see the File Browser.
| | 00:35 | Once you've transferred your databases
to your device or if you have a database
| | 00:39 | hosted on the server, you will be
able to open them up and start using it
| | 00:43 | through this File Browser Interface.
| | 00:44 | FileMaker Go provides the File Browser
to manage local files and any servers
| | 00:49 | that you may want to connect to.
| | 00:50 | For example, all the files you see on
the left-hand side are files that are
| | 00:54 | stored locally on the device.
| | 00:56 | You can't share this unless you send it to someone else.
| | 01:00 | These are not hosted or networked.
| | 01:01 | They're single-user files.
| | 01:03 | But you'll notice over on the right-hand side
that you have access to Remote
| | 01:07 | Files and Hosts and even recently opened files.
| | 01:11 | Under Remote Files and Hosts, if you
select the icon with the server and
| | 01:14 | the magnifying glass, FileMaker
will open up the dialog for searching
| | 01:18 | Local Network Hosts.
| | 01:20 | Now if your device is logged on to
the wireless network as your FileMaker
| | 01:24 | server, this is where you will see
the FileMaker server name listed and
| | 01:28 | potentially multiple different FileMaker servers
if you have multiple servers on the same network.
| | 01:33 | Once you select that FileMaker server
name, you will then be able to choose from
| | 01:38 | the different files that are hosted on that network.
| | 01:40 | In this case, we don't have any Local
Networks, so I'll dismiss this dialog.
| | 01:44 | Opening a hosted file establishes a
live connection to your database exactly as
| | 01:49 | FileMaker Pro does while working
with it across a Network connection.
| | 01:52 | It relies on that connection throughout your session.
| | 01:55 | So keep in mind, if your network access drops,
so too will your connection to any hosted databases.
| | 01:59 | You're going to access hosted databases
if they're available over WiFi or even
| | 02:04 | cellular 3G or 4G networks, albeit with
slower performance in the latter case.
| | 02:10 | In order to access your hosted database,
you'll need to enable the FMP app
| | 02:14 | extended privilege on at least one active account.
| | 02:18 | So you'll see here, we have the Admin account,
which is connected to the Full Access Privilege Set.
| | 02:22 | And the Full Access Privilege Set has the FMP app,
FileMaker Network app enabled.
| | 02:29 | This will make the database visible when
we select the server that it's hosted on.
| | 02:33 | One important note that if for some reason
you can't see your FileMaker server
| | 02:38 | or the hosted file, make sure that your
port 5003 is opened to allow for access
| | 02:43 | outside your network or potentially even inside
the network if your server has a Port Firewall.
| | 02:49 | Once you have your FileMaker database
hosted on the server, you can then set up
| | 02:53 | that server on your device.
| | 02:55 | You'll notice that we have the server icon
with the plus sign, which allows us to
| | 02:59 | add a host address and even name that host.
| | 03:02 | Here's where we will type in the IP address
of the server and we can even name
| | 03:07 | the server for future reference.
| | 03:10 | Then we'll hit Save and now we see that
Server listed under our Favorite Hosts.
| | 03:14 | Now if I tap on the host name,
you'll see a window appear and this window
| | 03:19 | allows us to select from any of the files
that are hosted on that server.
| | 03:23 | So as we see, we've got two databases
set up on the server that have the FM app
| | 03:28 | Extended Privilege enabled.
| | 03:29 | So when I select one of those files,
the file opens in FileMaker Go.
| | 03:35 | You'll also notice in the Title Bar
across the top of the screen that in
| | 03:38 | parenthesis, it tells us that it's
being hosted on a FileMaker server called
| | 03:42 | FileMaker Server 12.
| | 03:44 | That's how you can tell the difference
between your files that you're connected
| | 03:48 | to on a server versus the files that
you're opening locally on your device.
| | 03:51 | Now once your file is open in Go,
you can interact with the database just like
| | 03:55 | any other user on the network.
| | 03:57 | You can run scripts within your own session,
create your own found sets and see
| | 04:00 | the changes that others are making reflected immediately.
| | 04:04 | And any changes that you make will also be
seen immediately by other users on the network.
| | 04:09 | Keep in mind you don't necessarily need a
WiFi connection to access your hosted databases.
| | 04:13 | Your device's connection on the either
3G or 4G LTE can also be used.
| | 04:18 | But just keep in mind that your latency,
if any, is driven by the size of the
| | 04:22 | database and the types of data that you're sharing.
| | 04:24 | FileMaker Go allows you to not only
access files stored on your device, but
| | 04:28 | also to interact with hosted files
as if you were another user on the network,
| | 04:32 | thus extending the usability of your databases
beyond just your Local Network's range.
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3. Touring the InterfaceUsing the window picker| 00:00 | Once you transfer your databases to
your device or host them so that they can
| | 00:04 | be accessed on a device, you can do
virtually everything you can in FileMaker
| | 00:07 | Pro on the desktop.
| | 00:09 | First, you'll need to get familiar
with some of the differences in the
| | 00:12 | FileMaker Go Interface.
| | 00:13 | FileMaker Go supports Browse mode
and Find mode but it does not support
| | 00:16 | Layout mode or Preview mode, so you're
going to want to keep that in mind as
| | 00:20 | we go through this tour.
| | 00:22 | And while many of the same FileMaker Pro
menu commands are available in
| | 00:25 | FileMaker Go, you will find that they
are in different locations and we're going
| | 00:28 | to go through those throughout this chapter.
| | 00:29 | As I mentioned previously, you're
not going to find any of the database
| | 00:32 | development tools in FileMaker Go, so
references to those menu items are not
| | 00:36 | going to be present.
| | 00:37 | Now once a database is open, you're
going to have access to different menus and
| | 00:40 | different parts of the screen.
| | 00:42 | menus are going to be in the same place on
both the iPhone and iPad versions of FileMaker Go.
| | 00:46 | The first thing I wanted to show you is the Window Picker.
| | 00:48 | This presents users with an interface
similar to Mobile Safari that allows a
| | 00:52 | user to open additional windows or
select from any of the open windows.
| | 00:56 | You can also close windows, open
additional files or close them all.
| | 01:00 | Like in Mobile Safari, if you click on the number,
that indicates that you have
| | 01:04 | more than one file opened at a time.
| | 01:07 | Sometimes you can even have more than
one window within the same file open and
| | 01:11 | you can simply slide through each one
of those and preview them and select the
| | 01:15 | one that you want to view.
| | 01:16 | You'll also notice that when you're in
the Window Picker, you can open a new
| | 01:20 | window by hitting the green plus sign
on the bottom right-hand corner; and that
| | 01:24 | will open a new window in that file.
So you see we are in the tasks file.
| | 01:28 | I hit the green plus button.
| | 01:30 | It opened a new window in the tasks file.
| | 01:33 | And just like on FileMaker Pro on the desktop,
when you open a new window, the
| | 01:36 | new window will inherit the layout,
found set and sort order of the window that
| | 01:41 | was open when you hit the green plus sign.
| | 01:43 | I can also hit the Window Picker again
and choose the red X to close out certain windows.
| | 01:49 | When you close the last opened window of a file,
that file is then officially closed.
| | 01:55 | If you do not see a number reflected
in the upper-left hand corner, that means
| | 01:58 | that you only have a single window open.
| | 02:01 | If you see a number, that means you
have multiple windows open, and you can
| | 02:04 | always choose the Close All button in the
upper-left hand corner to close all open windows.
| | 02:09 | Keep in mind though, when you're in
the Window Picker interface, not only can
| | 02:12 | you work with windows, but you can also
click on the Files tab in the top-middle
| | 02:15 | of the screen, which brings you back to
your file browser allowing you to choose
| | 02:19 | either files that are already on the device
or recent opened files or files that
| | 02:23 | are hosted on a server.
| | 02:25 | This way you can select one of these files
and now that window is going to be
| | 02:30 | added to the open windows on the device.
| | 02:33 | And once you're done viewing all
these windows, you can close them all by
| | 02:35 | hitting the Close All button.
| | 02:38 | One quick note, the FileMaker Go for
iPhone version of the Window Picker is
| | 02:41 | slightly different than the version
of the Window Picker for the iPad.
| | 02:45 | So just be aware when you're working
with FileMaker Go on the different devices
| | 02:48 | that they might have some slight
differences in the user interface.
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| Navigating the title bar and Tools menu| 00:01 | When you open up a database in FileMaker Go,
you'll notice that across the top
| | 00:05 | of the screen, you have a blue bar,
which is called the Title Bar.
| | 00:08 | The Title Bar not only contains the name
of the file that you have opened, but
| | 00:11 | if you opened up a hosted file, you'll
see the name of the server that hosting
| | 00:15 | it parentheses next to the name.
| | 00:17 | In the upper-left hand corner of the
Title Bar, you'll also notice you have your
| | 00:20 | window picker icon. But in the upper
right-hand corner, you'll find the tools
| | 00:24 | menu, which is this wheel icon.
The tools menu combines together various
| | 00:28 | different options that you'll find on
menus in the desktop version, all combined
| | 00:32 | together into this one tools menu.
| | 00:34 | For example on the Desktop version,
you'll remember that you have a dropdown of
| | 00:38 | all the different layouts helping you
navigate from layout-to-layout, which you
| | 00:42 | can access either in Layout mode or
Browse mode. And in FileMaker Go,
| | 00:46 | you'll see that that Layout dropdown
is here in the tools menu.
| | 00:48 | So when I just click on Layout,
I'll see all the different layouts and
| | 00:52 | you'll also notice that they're organized
in the same manner as you had it
| | 00:55 | on your desktop version.
| | 00:56 | For example these first three are
separated with a separator in my Manage
| | 01:01 | Layouts window so they show up this way in Go.
| | 01:03 | You'll also notice that I've created
folders that contain different layouts and
| | 01:08 | this is how the folders look
when you access them on Go.
| | 01:11 | This allows you to navigate between layouts
just like you would on the desktop version.
| | 01:15 | Also, by default, any layout that you
create on the Desktop version can be
| | 01:19 | viewed either in Form, List or Table view.
If you don't go into the Layout
| | 01:23 | Settings and turn off one of these
different views, you can still move from
| | 01:27 | Form, List or Table using this
option here in the tools menu.
| | 01:31 | For example, I just change to Form,
then I'll change it back to List.
| | 01:37 | You also have the ability to turn on or off
Show Toolbar as you see the toolbar
| | 01:42 | across the bottom disappears, but you
can also do that via scripts when you
| | 01:46 | design the database on the Desktop version.
| | 01:48 | If you have a portal or some sort of
related value that needs to require a
| | 01:51 | refresh window, that option is also found here.
| | 01:54 | Now you also have a Scripts menu on the
Desktop version. If you have certain
| | 01:58 | scripts on your database that you want
to have visible in that scripts menu,
| | 02:02 | you'll check a little blue check box
next to that in the Manage Scripts window.
| | 02:06 | Now when you are in Go, and you hit
Performs Script here in the tool menu,
| | 02:10 | you'll see those same scripts showing up.
| | 02:13 | Now as you see here, we don't have any
scripts that have that checkbox checked.
| | 02:17 | So just like on the desktop version,
we don't see any scripts listed here.
| | 02:20 | So the tools menu combines together
various different menus that you find on
| | 02:24 | the desktop version allowing you to
perform those same functions here in
| | 02:27 | FileMaker Go.
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| Printing and exporting in Go| 00:00 | FileMaker Go supports printing to
iOS compatible printers and offers
| | 00:05 | functionality very similar to that
provided by the Desktop version, although
| | 00:09 | there are some minor differences due to
the specific print options supported by iOS.
| | 00:13 | If you want to print a layout while
you're in a database in FileMaker Go, you'll
| | 00:18 | go up to the icon in the upper right-hand
corner of your tittle bar and you'll
| | 00:22 | notice that you have an option for Print.
| | 00:23 | When you select that option, you'll
see some familiar options here like being
| | 00:27 | able to choose the record range,
either the current record or found set, and
| | 00:30 | these are things that you'll see in
the desktop version in your print driver.
| | 00:34 | You also still have the option to be
able to print a Blank Record as you do on
| | 00:37 | the Desktop version.
| | 00:39 | You can also pick numbers from a Range
| | 00:44 | and choose your Paper Size, Orientation and Scale.
| | 00:47 | Once you've chosen the options for printing,
you hit the blue Print button in
| | 00:51 | the upper right-hand corner, select
your wireless or iOS compatible printer,
| | 00:55 | choose how many copies and
then choose the blue Print button.
| | 00:58 | FileMaker Go has a lot of similarities
to printing on the desktop.
| | 01:02 | For example, whatever layout you're on,
when you select the Print command as
| | 01:05 | well as the found set of records that
you're looking at when you select the
| | 01:08 | Print command will be the ones that
get printed. However, keep in mind that
| | 01:11 | there are some subtle differences with the Desktop version.
| | 01:14 | The following features are supported
for printing using FileMaker Go, but must
| | 01:18 | be first set up using FileMaker Pro or
Pro Advanced on the Desktop first.
| | 01:22 | Things like shrinking and sliding of layout
objects, shrinking of layout parts and
| | 01:26 | hiding different layout objects all
need to be developed on the desktop first.
| | 01:30 | Using multiple columns or fix page
margins and then doing things like printing
| | 01:35 | Record Ranges, Page Number, Paper Size,
all the things that we looked at here in
| | 01:38 | this view can all be saved or
restored into a print script on the desktop.
| | 01:43 | Now you'll also notice that you have an option for PDF.
| | 01:46 | Printing to PDF is very similar to
saving to PDF on the Desktop version.
| | 01:51 | It'll create a PDF version of whatever
it is you're looking at on screen, the
| | 01:54 | layout and the found set.
| | 01:56 | On the Go device, you'll notice that you
can view a PDF by hitting the View button.
| | 02:01 | We'll open up this PDF in your preview.
And if we dismiss that and go back to
| | 02:07 | the PDF option, again found under
Print and then PDF, you'll notice that you
| | 02:12 | can also choose to email a PDF and you'll see
that that PDF is an attachment in your mail message.
| | 02:25 | Finally, you can choose to save this PDF.
| | 02:29 | Now when you hit save, the PDF gets saved
to a special section in your file browser.
| | 02:37 | You'll notice that there is now a
section called PDF and you have the PDF
| | 02:40 | that you just created.
| | 02:41 | FileMaker can only save or export files into its own
Files on Device section of the File Browser.
| | 02:53 | Back under the tools menu, you'll notice
underneath the Print option, you also
| | 02:56 | have the option for exporting.
| | 02:58 | FileMaker Go supports exporting data
out of your FileMaker Database into a file
| | 03:03 | format that will also appear in
special section in your file browser.
| | 03:08 | If you want to create an export, what
you can do is navigate to the layout that
| | 03:13 | has the data you want to export, go to
your tools menu, select the Export option
| | 03:19 | and then name the export file
and then choose the file format.
| | 03:26 | You can see here currently, these are
the file formats that are compatible with
| | 03:30 | FileMaker Go; either CSV, DBF, the
Excell Workbook, only the Excel XLSX option,
| | 03:37 | HTM, Merge files and Tab-separated.
| | 03:40 | Here we'll select CSV.
| | 03:41 | Now it's important for us to be able to choose
the fields that we actually want to export.
| | 03:45 | So when we hit the Selected Fields option,
you see that we've got all the fields
| | 03:49 | that are found on this current layout.
I can reorder them by clicking and
| | 03:54 | holding down the icon on the right-hand side
or removing the checkbox and
| | 03:59 | excluding it from the export.
| | 04:01 | Once I'm done selecting the different
fields that I do want to export, I hit the
| | 04:06 | Done button and now I can choose the
option for Use Layout Formatting or leave
| | 04:10 | it off as it is. I can choose to
email this export which of course will bring
| | 04:14 | up a new email in my mail program or I
can choose to save it, which I'll do here
| | 04:18 | by hitting the Save button.
| | 04:20 | You get a message that says that your file,
whatever you named it and whatever
| | 04:23 | the format is, has been saved to FileMaker Go
file browser. I can view it in
| | 04:28 | preview or if I go back to the file browser,
I can see that not only do I have a
| | 04:39 | PDF section, but now I have a
comma separated text section as well.
| | 04:42 | If I were to export files as CSV, they
would all show up in that same section.
| | 04:51 | Finally, also under the tool menu, you
have the option for saving and sending.
| | 04:55 | Just like you do on the desktop, you
have the ability to save a copy of the
| | 04:59 | database to your file browser or
send a copy of the database via email.
| | 05:05 | If you want to a share database that's
stored only locally on FileMaker Go, you
| | 05:08 | can email it by using this option,
but you can't email databases that you're
| | 05:12 | logged into that are on a host.
| | 05:20 | You also see that you have the option
to Save or Send a Snapshot Link.
| | 05:24 | So in the case where you're logged in
to a hosted database, you can choose
| | 05:28 | Snapshot Link, it'll pop up your mail program
and then send a .FMPSL file to the recipient.
| | 05:37 | If the recipient has FileMaker Go, or
if they access this on their Desktop and
| | 05:42 | they have FileMaker Pro, all they need
to do is click on that snapshot link;
| | 05:45 | they'll be logged in to the hosted file,
they'll be taken to the same layout
| | 05:49 | with the same found set that you had
when you created the snapshot link.
| | 05:52 | So you can see that you have a lot of
different options for getting data and
| | 05:56 | databases or files off of the FileMaker Go
application and be able to share
| | 06:01 | those with other users of FileMaker.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the status toolbar| 00:00 | When you have a database open in
FileMaker Go, you'll notice across the bottom
| | 00:04 | of the screen you've got a blue bar and
actually if you don't have the blue bar
| | 00:08 | there, that's because you might
have your toolbar turned off.
| | 00:12 | The blue bar is called the toolbar and
if you notice that the OFF button is set
| | 00:15 | here when you open up your tools menu,
that's because either the developer has
| | 00:20 | scripted to turn off or hide the toolbar
or it's been turned off manually.
| | 00:28 | But when the status toolbar is shown,
you can see it across the bottom at the
| | 00:31 | screen. It allows access to the
Layout menu, which is also available in the
| | 00:35 | upper right-hand corner on the toolbar.
| | 00:36 | But if you notice the icon on the
bottom-left, it tells you what the name of
| | 00:40 | the layout is that you're currently on.
If you hit the button, you'll again
| | 00:44 | see another way that you can navigate
to different layouts in your database.
| | 00:48 | You can also navigate with in the layout that
you're already on between the different views;
| | 00:53 | Form, List and Table as you see across the top.
| | 00:56 | All of your separators and the folders
that you created on the Desktop version
| | 01:00 | in your Manage Layouts are all supported here.
| | 01:04 | You'll notice in the middle of the
status toolbar is a slider that allows you to
| | 01:08 | navigate from record to record.
| | 01:10 | Here we have a very large found set
of 1535 records; tells us that they're
| | 01:15 | sorted and I can slide between them or use
the arrow to navigate to different records.
| | 01:22 | And as I hit the arrow you can see the
black bar on the very left-hand side of
| | 01:27 | each record indicating which of those records is active.
| | 01:31 | On the bottom-right hand corner of
the Status toolbar are the menus that
| | 01:34 | allow you to work with the different records
like add, duplicate, delete and delete found set.
| | 01:39 | And also the different functions
involving finding or searching with records.
| | 01:43 | We're going to cover those options later in this chapter.
| | 01:45 | But just keep in mind that if you do
decide to hide the toolbar, even though
| | 01:49 | that's a common practice on the Desktop,
if you do that on FileMaker Go, your
| | 01:53 | users are not going to have the ability
to add records or work with records or
| | 01:57 | navigate between them or navigate to different layouts.
| | 01:59 | So it's up to you, the developer, to provide them
with buttons that will support
| | 02:03 | those same functionality when they're on the device.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Performing finds and sorting found sets| 00:00 | When in FileMaker Go on a device, users
can search using Find mode in much the
| | 00:05 | same ways they can using FileMaker Pro on the Desktop.
| | 00:08 | To enter Find mode you use the Find menu
located in the status toolbar, that's
| | 00:12 | the very furthest right icon on the bottom
right-hand corner of your screen.
| | 00:17 | Now keep in mind, if you've chosen to
hide or suppress the status toolbar in the
| | 00:22 | programming of the database,
your users aren't going to have access to these
| | 00:26 | options and you'll have to create buttons
with scripted actions assigned to them
| | 00:29 | to perform the same tasks.
| | 00:31 | So if we look at the Find menu,
you'll see that we not only have options for
| | 00:35 | searching through the database,
but we also have options for working with
| | 00:38 | records that are already in the database,
like sorting which we'll get to in a
| | 00:42 | moment or omitting records
and showing the omitted records.
| | 00:44 | But what we want to do here is enter Find mode
and now sometimes you'll get this
| | 00:49 | message on screen that says Find mode
and it asks you if you want to clear out
| | 00:54 | your existing find request.
| | 00:55 | All that this indicates is that you've performed
a search in this database
| | 00:58 | already and it means that it's restoring
your find requests and asking you if
| | 01:01 | you want to keep those.
| | 01:02 | Now quite frankly, this is a little odd
as far as user interface is concern
| | 01:07 | because if you work with FileMaker Pro
in the Desktop, certainly FileMaker does
| | 01:10 | restore your previous found set, but
it doesn't ask you if you want to use it
| | 01:14 | every single time you try to perform a find.
| | 01:17 | So you're going to find yourself
dismissing this quite often.
| | 01:19 | So you just say Yes to clear it out and
this gives you a whole clean slate for
| | 01:23 | entering find criteria.
| | 01:24 | So just like you would in FileMaker,
you want to enter in find criteria into the
| | 01:28 | appropriate field; so here I've clicked
inside Company and I can then either add
| | 01:33 | more information into other fields or
if I'd like to -- and you'll notice by the
| | 01:37 | way that the Status toolbar moves up
a bit when your keyboard is showing --
| | 01:40 | I could add additional requests,
duplicate a request, revert a find request and I
| | 01:46 | could include the matching which is of
course by default or I can choose the
| | 01:50 | omit option, same kind of options that
you have available to you on the Desktop.
| | 01:54 | Here, I could constrain my existing
found set based on these criteria or extend it
| | 01:59 | or do a traditional perform find.
| | 02:02 | Here we'll pick Perform Find and
you'll notice another message that comes up
| | 02:05 | on screen when you're finding records and
that tells you how many records are found.
| | 02:09 | You can dismiss this by hitting OK.
You'll notice that that found set is
| | 02:13 | reflected on the bottom of your screen
where it says Record 1 of 3 and then the slash.
| | 02:18 | So this tells me that we've got a found set
of three records out of the total of 1534.
| | 02:23 | We can navigate through those three
records and found sets work in the same
| | 02:26 | manner as they do when you're
working with them on the Desktop version.
| | 02:30 | If you went to print or export or save
as a PDF right now, it will only print,
| | 02:34 | export or save as PDF these
three records in the found set.
| | 02:36 | Unless of course I went into my Find
menu again and said Show All Records.
| | 02:41 | Now you see in the bottom of the screen
I've kept the active record, but I'm now
| | 02:45 | showing all records in the 1534 record found set.
| | 02:49 | There is another option available to you
if you want to do some searching.
| | 02:52 | If you look in the Find menu you'll notice,
two options up from the bottom is
| | 02:56 | the Quick Find option.
| | 02:57 | Now when you select the Quick Find option,
instead of the Quick Find being in
| | 03:00 | the upper right-hand corner of the toolbar
as it is on the Desktop version, it
| | 03:04 | comes along in the bottom of the screen
and you'll see it here right above the
| | 03:08 | keyboard and I can search inside here
for some criteria and then when I'm done I
| | 03:14 | can hit the search button on the keyboard.
| | 03:17 | FileMaker will then search all of the
different fields that I have left to
| | 03:21 | include in the Quick Find, and of
course I can manage that in Layout mode using
| | 03:25 | my inspector on the Desktop version only.
| | 03:27 | But it searches all of the different
fields and it tells me here that I've
| | 03:31 | got five records found.
| | 03:32 | And much like Quick Find operates on
the Desktop, you'll see that here I've
| | 03:36 | found a match in the First name, here
it appears I've found a match in the
| | 03:41 | Company name and even the Email for
that matter and here you see in Address 1
| | 03:47 | there is a B-o-o and so on.
| | 03:51 | So Quick Find operates in the same manner
as it does on the Desktop and if you
| | 03:54 | want to limit the fields that are being
searched in the layouts that you have,
| | 03:57 | in FileMaker Go, then just go and select them
in Layout mode when you're using
| | 04:01 | the desktop and exclude them from Quick Find.
| | 04:04 | When you have a found set, either a
smaller found set or if you've shown all
| | 04:08 | records, you also have the ability to
manipulate the order of this by sorting.
| | 04:13 | You'll notice in the bottom right-hand corner,
I have an option for sorting records.
| | 04:17 | Now the Sort dialog window looks a little bit
different on Go than it might on the Desktop.
| | 04:22 | You'll notice that the fields that are selected
for sorting are all in this top section here.
| | 04:27 | So you see Keep records and sorted order,
right below that you see that
| | 04:30 | the Initial field and the Company field are
currently the ones that are set for sorting.
| | 04:35 | So I can select each one of them and
have it search either by Ascending,
| | 04:38 | Descending or By Value List or I can even
reorder by some summary value if I want to.
| | 04:43 | And if I don't want it to be in the
sort order anymore I just hit the Remove
| | 04:46 | from Sort Order button and it will
remove those values and then I can pick the
| | 04:51 | value that I want to sort by.
| | 04:53 | So let's say we want to sort by Last name
and see we see it appear on the top.
| | 04:59 | I can pick ascending or descending order
and if I want to choose another field
| | 05:04 | like company, let's say I want to have
the company sort order above it, I'll
| | 05:08 | just slide it up using the icons of the far
right-hand side and it will drag the
| | 05:13 | fields into the appropriate order.
| | 05:15 | Now I can hit Apply or if decided to un-sort
my found set, I would do that in
| | 05:20 | this dialog in the bottom left-hand
corner, but here I'll chose Apply in the
| | 05:23 | bottom right-hand corner and
it's now sorted my records.
| | 05:26 | It leaves me on the same active record,
but you'll see if I scroll all the
| | 05:30 | way to the first record, you'll notice now
they're sorted in the order that I indicated.
| | 05:34 | If you're looking at your data in Table View,
you should be aware that you can
| | 05:38 | still tap the column header to sort
in either ascending or descending order, but
| | 05:44 | the FileMaker technique of holding the
Command key while clicking the column
| | 05:47 | headers for a multiple field sorts
is not possible in FileMaker Go.
| | 05:51 | The first tap will sort ascending;
| | 05:52 | the second top will sort descending.
| | 05:55 | The third top un-sorts the records.
| | 05:58 | So once you get familiar with some of
these differences in the interface in the
| | 06:02 | menus and their locations, you'll find
that you can do virtually everything you
| | 06:05 | can in FileMaker Go as you can
in FileMaker Pro on the Desktop.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Working with data in FileMaker Go| 00:01 | There are some differences in the way
you work with data in FileMaker Go,
| | 00:05 | as well as some subtle changes to the
way that data is displayed to the user.
| | 00:08 | So in this movie I'm going to go
through those differences just to get you
| | 00:11 | familiar with it so when you're working
with your database in FileMaker Go you
| | 00:15 | can get the same level of familiarity
as you might have on the Desktop.
| | 00:18 | So first of all, when you're working with
records, all of your record options are
| | 00:21 | available to you in the bottom
right-hand corner of the screen,
| | 00:23 | the second button over where the plus and minus sign are.
| | 00:26 | When you select that, you'll see that
you get the same kind of options that you
| | 00:29 | get on the Desktop version when
you go under the Records menu.
| | 00:32 | You got the ability to add a new
record, duplicate an existing one;
| | 00:35 | delete an existing record or
even all the records in a found set.
| | 00:38 | And of course remember, if you decide
that you're going to hide the toolbar from
| | 00:41 | your users on FileMaker Go, you're
going to have to create buttons that emulate
| | 00:45 | the same actions with script actions assigned to them.
| | 00:48 | So for example, in the upper right-hand
corner you can see that we have a plus
| | 00:50 | button which will add a new record.
Same kind of thing with committing; I've
| | 00:58 | just committed that record. Now if I
want to delete it, I can either use the
| | 01:01 | Status toolbar, then choose Delete
Record or use the scripted button with the
| | 01:05 | Delete Record option assigned to it.
| | 01:08 | When you choose Delete Record, you're
asked to confirm whether or not you want
| | 01:11 | to permanently delete the entire record.
| | 01:13 | Here we can say Yes and we'll see that
the record has been deleted and we're
| | 01:17 | taken to the last record in our found set.
| | 01:20 | And you'll notice that when you're
making changes to a record or even adding a
| | 01:23 | new record, you'll see that you still
have the options available to you in the
| | 01:27 | Status toolbar, they're just
getting moved above the keyboard.
| | 01:30 | And when you're making a change to a
field instead of having to click outside
| | 01:33 | the field to commit it, you'll notice
that when you press the plus or minus
| | 01:36 | button, you can either exit the record
or if you want to continue moving through
| | 01:40 | the tab order of the fields, you'll
notice on the left-hand side of the toolbar,
| | 01:44 | I've got either the previous button,
which takes me back one step in the tab
| | 01:48 | order or the next button, which takes
me to the next field in the tab order.
| | 01:52 | This is a little bit different in the
Desktop version because you don't have the
| | 01:55 | ability to tab backwards like you
do here with the previous button.
| | 01:59 | Working with text inside of your records,
it's very similar to working with text
| | 02:02 | to other applications.
| | 02:03 | A single tap in the field will show
some of the familiar text handling options
| | 02:08 | that you see in other iOS applications.
| | 02:10 | Here I can select or select all by
just simply hitting the button and then
| | 02:14 | you see that I have some of my Edit
Options Available to me just like in
| | 02:17 | other iOS applications.
| | 02:19 | So this is where you can see the
standard options like Select, Select All,
| | 02:23 | Cut, Paste and even Suggest if you find a word
that you might want to change using spellcheck.
| | 02:28 | Here in our case, a Tap, a Select and Suggest
gives us some options and we can
| | 02:36 | just dismiss them by clicking outside the field.
| | 02:39 | FileMaker Go allows approximately 64,000
characters of text to be entered into a text field.
| | 02:45 | If the user tries entering more than 64,000
characters of text, the iOS text
| | 02:49 | control will try to gracefully truncate the text at a word break.
| | 02:53 | Although it's highly and likely that
you'll be dealing with one field that has
| | 02:57 | over 64,000 characters in it.
| | 02:59 | Most rich text stored on your FileMaker
database will de displayed properly if
| | 03:03 | it has been entered via FileMaker Pro on the Desktop.
| | 03:06 | However, not all formats are supported by the iOS.
| | 03:10 | The table on screen shows the supported
rich text formats and then unsupported
| | 03:14 | formats on the right.
| | 03:15 | Note that in all cases, rich text
and other text attributes are displayed
| | 03:19 | only in FileMaker Go.
| | 03:21 | Creating mixed paragraph styles with a
single block of text, entering tabs stops
| | 03:25 | or setting line spacing are not supported.
| | 03:28 | Likewise, there is no way to apply the
rich text attributes that are listed here;
| | 03:32 | they'll just be display only.
| | 03:34 | Furthermore, modifying data in any way
with FileMaker Go will strip any rich
| | 03:38 | text attributes from the text that was already in the field.
| | 03:41 | If a user changes any data in a field
where rich text was applied, FileMaker Go
| | 03:45 | will replace all the supported text
and unsupported styles with the default
| | 03:49 | attributes that you used when
you setup the field in Layout mode.
| | 03:53 | Also, if you set up a field for auto
complete, you should know that auto
| | 03:57 | complete is not supported in FileMaker Go.
Text fields with the option for
| | 04:00 | auto complete using existing values will
behave as though the setting were turned off.
| | 04:04 | Likewise when you're entering data,
users cannot insert text from an index like
| | 04:08 | you can on FileMaker Pro for the Desktop.
| | 04:11 | Now if we talk about number fields in
FileMaker Pro, if a number of fields has
| | 04:15 | more character then can be displayed
by the field, you might see a question
| | 04:19 | mark, meaning that the field needs
to be resized in order to fit that.
| | 04:22 | However, if that same field is displayed
in FileMaker Go, then users will see
| | 04:27 | the data truncated as managed
by the iOS truncate mechanism.
| | 04:31 | So this might be a little confusing to
your users if for example you enter in a
| | 04:35 | five digit number, all they'll see is
the first digit of that number with three
| | 04:39 | ellipses or a dot, dot, dot following it.
| | 04:41 | So you might want to train your
users if they ever see a dot, dot, dot
| | 04:45 | following a number, that they should
probably click inside that or that perhaps
| | 04:48 | may be you should make some design changes to
the layout so that you can see the full number.
| | 04:52 | Also date fields perform a little
bit differently in FileMaker Go.
| | 04:56 | For example if we look at the Invoices
layout and select an invoice, you'll see
| | 05:04 | that we have a date and when you select
the date field, you'll see the familiar
| | 05:08 | date wheel that you see in other iOS applications.
| | 05:11 | Date, Time and Timestamp fields work in
the same way as they do in FileMaker Pro
| | 05:16 | on the Desktop, except they use iOS controls for data entry.
| | 05:20 | You may already be familiar with the iOS controls
if you've worked with other applications.
| | 05:25 | Of course date fields don't automatically
show this unless you have the calendar
| | 05:29 | popup assigned in Layout mode on
the FileMaker Go for the Desktop.
| | 05:33 | As a result to this data entry mechanism,
the following behaviors might be slightly different on Go.
| | 05:39 | Seconds or fractions of seconds are
not available on the time timestamp
| | 05:42 | picker in FileMaker Go;
| | 05:44 | You can however type seconds into
the field after using the picker.
| | 05:48 | On the iPad, the keyboard remains active
while the date picker is active as you
| | 05:52 | can see here on screen.
| | 05:54 | Additionally, there is no way to
insert the current date, time or timestamp
| | 05:57 | by means of keyboards shortcuts or menu items
that are supported in FileMaker for the Desktop.
| | 06:02 | If you want these features available in
your database, you're going to need to
| | 06:06 | create scripted button on your layout.
| | 06:08 | And a couple of quick notes,
although quick charts are not supported by
| | 06:11 | FileMaker Go, the Chart Object and all
chart types are supported in FileMaker
| | 06:15 | Pro and also on FileMaker Go.
| | 06:18 | Charts are displayed in FileMaker Go
and they are live and will update when the
| | 06:21 | data used to define them is modified.
| | 06:24 | Also when it comes to record blocking,
just like in FileMaker Pro on the
| | 06:27 | Desktop, if a user tries to edit a
record that is locked or in use by a
| | 06:32 | different user, the FileMaker Go user
will be notified and have the option to
| | 06:35 | send a message to the user who is editing the record.
| | 06:38 | So as you can see, working with data
in FileMaker Go utilizes the standard
| | 06:42 | iOS functions to allow you to do the
same things that you can on FileMaker
| | 06:45 | Pro on the Desktop.
| | 06:46 | And in some cases even provides you
with additional features that are not found
| | 06:50 | in the Desktop version.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding containers| 00:01 | Container fields have some very
interesting behavior in FileMaker Go and
| | 00:05 | actually have a lot more functionality
on the devices using FileMaker Go than
| | 00:09 | they do on the Desktop using FileMaker Pro.
| | 00:12 | You'll see that on the layout for
product details, I've got a container field
| | 00:16 | here in the upper right-hand corner
and you'll notice when you click into any
| | 00:19 | container field that natively
FileMaker Go will represent you with an Import
| | 00:23 | dialog and there are some pretty cool options on here.
| | 00:26 | First of all you can select the Camera option
and take a photo and that photo
| | 00:31 | can then be inserted into the container.
| | 00:34 | In addition to camera, you've got the ability to record audio.
| | 00:37 | You'll notice that when you select the Audio option,
you hit Start and it will start recording your voice.
| | 00:43 | Once you're done recording the audio,
you can see the icon and the name of it
| | 00:50 | and it get saved in a format that's .m4a.
| | 00:54 | You can replace or delete that object
or choose something else to import into
| | 00:58 | the container field.
| | 00:59 | One of my favorite features in the
container is something that's only available
| | 01:04 | on the FileMaker Go and that's
the Signature Capture option.
| | 01:07 | You can have a user write with their finger
on the line and hit Accept and then
| | 01:12 | FileMaker creates a PNG file, stores
it inside your container and now you've
| | 01:17 | been able to accept a signature.
| | 01:21 | Also you can choose from Photos that
are currently already on your device and
| | 01:29 | you can replace photos with other objects.
| | 01:33 | You can choose from Music, from your
iTunes library or any other type of audio
| | 01:39 | and finally you can choose Files.
| | 01:41 | When you select files, you're going
to see the Files on Device options from
| | 01:45 | your file browser and you'll notice on
the very bottom of the screen that if
| | 01:49 | you have other non-FileMaker files on the device,
they show up in their respective columns.
| | 01:55 | So here I can choose my product CSV file
and insert that into the container.
| | 02:00 | All this functionality comes from simply
adding a container field to your layout
| | 02:03 | when you create the database.
| | 02:05 | FileMaker Go and does the rest of the work.
| | 02:08 | If the container field has data,
users may choose to view using Preview
| | 02:15 | or export the contents and you can choose
to either save to your file browser or an
| | 02:20 | Email, or as we saw before, delete
or replace it with another option.
| | 02:26 | So with very low overhead from a
development standpoint, you just simply add a
| | 02:30 | container field to the layout and then
you can play around with this a little bit
| | 02:34 | and add this functionality to
your databases once the database in the
| | 02:37 | container are visible in FileMaker Go.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
4. Building for FileMaker GoDesign considerations in FileMaker Go| 00:00 | When designing and developing layouts
for any platform, there is always some
| | 00:04 | considerations take into account.
| | 00:05 | For example, our exercise file has layouts
specially made for instant web publishing.
| | 00:10 | You'll also notice that there are
layouts that are specially made for iPad
| | 00:13 | and iPhone as well.
| | 00:15 | While it's possible to open any
FileMaker database within FileMaker Go,
| | 00:19 | it can be challenging to navigate layouts that
are not designed for such small screens,
| | 00:23 | especially in the case of an iPhone.
| | 00:26 | In addition to the screen size,
it can also be difficult to enter fields,
| | 00:29 | tap buttons and perform a variety of other
necessary functions when the layout was
| | 00:33 | not designed with FileMaker Go in mind.
| | 00:35 | Now there is an entire science
behind designing applications for use on
| | 00:38 | smaller screen devices. Apple has
even released what they call the iOS Human
| | 00:43 | Interface Guideline document and I've included
a link to this document in the Exercise folder.
| | 00:48 | This is an excellent document and it
covers all sorts of aspects of interface
| | 00:52 | designed specifically for devices.
There are a couple of things that I find
| | 00:57 | that are relevant to designing layouts in FileMaker.
| | 00:59 | So for example on page 11, you'll notice
a very important rule of thumb or we
| | 01:05 | could call it rule of index and that is
that in the document it states that
| | 01:10 | 44 x 44 points is the comfortable
minimum size of a tappable UI element.
| | 01:14 | And these same rules can and should be
applied to layout designs in FileMaker.
| | 01:19 | For example if you look at our exercise file,
you'll see that we've got layouts
| | 01:23 | design for Desktop and IWP, but also for iPad.
| | 01:26 | If we look at the Customer Details for
iPad for example, you'll notice that the
| | 01:30 | fields are much larger, buttons are
much larger and in some cases, very large
| | 01:35 | depending on whether or not they have
scripts or actions assigned to them.
| | 01:38 | When FileMaker Go displays a layout,
especially one that was not necessarily
| | 01:42 | designed for mobile use, some scaling will occur.
| | 01:45 | The scaling process can lead to misalignment
of objects and layout parts may
| | 01:49 | not lineup as cleanly as they do when they
are displayed to 100% zoom level on the Desktop.
| | 01:53 | So therefore if you want to stay
within those guidelines and not cause any
| | 01:56 | zooming or scrolling for that matter,
you can use the stencils that are provided in layout mode.
| | 02:01 | If you look in Layout mode
and then your toolbar, you'll notice this new
| | 02:05 | option in FileMaker 12 has the ability to select
iPad Portrait for example and iPad Landscape.
| | 02:15 | You'll notice that some orange outlines appear on your layout.
| | 02:20 | So I would recommend doing all of your
design within this area of the layout.
| | 02:24 | Also you can have some control from a
resizing or a sliding standpoint over
| | 02:29 | which side of the layout these objects are anchored.
| | 02:31 | So for example all these buttons on
the right-hand side of the layout are
| | 02:34 | anchored to the upper-left
and right side of the layout.
| | 02:38 | My advice is to design all of your iPad
layouts within the intersection of the
| | 02:42 | portrait and landscape stencils.
| | 02:44 | When you design for those layout areas,
you're also going to want to use layout resizing.
| | 02:48 | So for example, you might want to have
the notes stretched down to the bottom
| | 02:53 | when you're looking at this in portrait view
because you have all these extra
| | 02:57 | area of the layout that will be available on screen.
| | 03:00 | So here I can stretch my notes field
and you'll notice that's some of the fields
| | 03:05 | that I have here can also stretch
all the way across the screen for when I look
| | 03:09 | at this in Landscape mode.
| | 03:10 | Also, some of the buttons for example,
or even some of these layout objects that
| | 03:14 | are on the right-hand side of the screen
can be anchored to the upper-left and
| | 03:18 | right-side of the layout.
| | 03:19 | That way, again if I move from portrait
to landscape on my iPad, everything will
| | 03:24 | just slide over and use that space that became available.
| | 03:27 | It's important when you're designing
your layouts that you stay within the
| | 03:30 | boundaries and you can see that FileMaker
has done a god job of showing you
| | 03:35 | exactly what those boundaries are.
| | 03:37 | FileMaker Go screens have very specific
dimensions and the chart that you're
| | 03:41 | seeing on screen shows you all those dimensions.
| | 03:43 | What I think yo might find interesting
is that this chart takes into account the
| | 03:47 | existence of the toolbar or if the toolbar is not there.
| | 03:50 | I mentioned that because you can see
that you have different dimensions if
| | 03:53 | the toolbar isn't present and the FileMaker
stencils assume that the toolbar is present.
| | 03:59 | So for iPad, you'll see 768 x 929 as your stencil.
| | 04:03 | If you're deciding to hide the toolbar
when user is accessing these layouts via
| | 04:07 | FileMaker Go, you'll notice that you
have almost 50 extra pixels to work with.
| | 04:11 | The same is true on iPhone, where
you'll see that the Portrait stencil for
| | 04:15 | example is 320 x 385 inside Layout mode.
| | 04:19 | But if you don't have the toolbar, it's 320 x 429.
| | 04:21 | So if you still want to use the stencil
when you're in Layout mode, but you'd
| | 04:27 | want to take into account that you're
not showing the toolbar, one strategy is
| | 04:30 | to create a custom stencil.
| | 04:31 | You see in the very bottom you have
the option for custom size and here you
| | 04:35 | can enter 973 x 768.
| | 04:39 | That will give you a custom stencil and
you can plainly see the extra size made
| | 04:43 | available by removing the toolbar.
| | 04:45 | If you compare the Desktop customer
details layout with the iPad customer
| | 04:50 | details layout on screen at the same time,
you can see that the sizes of the
| | 04:54 | fields and al the objects are
pretty dramatically different.
| | 04:56 | You'll notice that if you turn on the inspector,
you'll see that the height
| | 05:00 | of the fields are 33 points on the iPad side
and only 22 points on the Desktop side.
| | 05:07 | That being the case, both list views
and portal objects contain multiple rows
| | 05:10 | that should have a row height set
somewhere between 34 and 44 pixels,
| | 05:14 | which means they adhere to the
Apple Human Interface Guidelines.
| | 05:17 | A couple other things to keep in mind
when you're designing these layouts is
| | 05:21 | that FileMaker Go supports most of the
features found in the desktop FileMaker Pro.
| | 05:24 | Layout objects such as portals, web
viewers and tab controls work much in the
| | 05:27 | same ways they do in the FileMaker.
| | 05:29 | Keep in mind though that an object does
not have a hover state in FileMaker Go.
| | 05:33 | If you've applied some sort of tooltip
for example to one of the objects or if
| | 05:38 | you have some sort of appearance change
on hover, remember that there is no such
| | 05:42 | thing as a hover state when you are in a touch interface.
| | 05:45 | FileMaker Go supports some iOS gestures.
| | 05:48 | For example, if you wish to zoom in on a
particular portion of a layout, you can
| | 05:52 | double-tap the desired area and
FileMaker Go will zoom to that area.
| | 05:57 | Additionally, you can use pinch and zoom
gestures to either zoom out or zoom in.
| | 06:02 | If you'd like to prevent some of this
unintentional movement, it can be a good
| | 06:06 | idea to lock the zoom setting in your navigational scripting.
| | 06:09 | This will help eliminate issues like horizontal scrolling
in a list view or something like that.
| | 06:13 | And one way you can do that is to go
into your iPad Layouts, click Layout Setup
| | 06:19 | and hit Script Trigger and On Layout enter
you see we've got a couple of things
| | 06:25 | here already showing the toolbars.
| | 06:28 | You'll find another option called
Set Zoom Level, which you'll find here
| | 06:31 | alphabetically, and if you set it to Lock,
it will prohibit any of those gestures
| | 06:35 | that we just showed earlier.
| | 06:39 | If you're designing your new layouts,
you should be aware that FileMaker also
| | 06:43 | provides different themes.
| | 06:45 | You'll notice when you're creating a
new layout or changing the existing one,
| | 06:49 | all these groups of themes will have
options that end with the word touch.
| | 06:53 | Those are the themes that are specially designed
for when you're creating layout to for Go.
| | 06:58 | And one final note, when you're
deciding to design layouts for use with
| | 07:02 | FileMaker Go, this should come after
you've already planned out which of your
| | 07:05 | users or user groups will need access on these devices.
| | 07:09 | As you embark on bringing your software
from the desktop to the iOS platform,
| | 07:13 | stay focused on the ways in
which people use the iOS devices.
| | 07:16 | For example, people often use iOS devices
when they are on the go and in
| | 07:20 | environments filled with some distractions.
| | 07:22 | Part of your job is going to be to create
responsive compelling experiences that
| | 07:26 | pull people in and get them quickly to
the content they care about and maintain
| | 07:30 | focus on that content.
| | 07:32 | Many times you discover user groups
that may only need a subset of features
| | 07:35 | rather than all the features
available on your desktop version.
| | 07:38 | So for example, we've created this
customer details layout, has portals and all
| | 07:43 | sorts of tabs and maps and what not,
but during the process of learning about
| | 07:47 | what users need to do on the devices,
we may have determined that they don't
| | 07:50 | need access to all of those items or
perhaps not portals at all but instead
| | 07:54 | navigation to list views.
| | 07:55 | So make sure to only design layouts
with data and features that are required
| | 07:59 | by the Go users rather than trying to replicate
your entire desktop database into Go layouts.
| | 08:04 | Following what's known as the 80-20 rule,
the largest percentage of users
| | 08:08 | typically at least 80%, use a limited
number of features in an app, while only a
| | 08:13 | small percentage, seldom more
than 20%, use all the features.
| | 08:16 | So most of the features in your database
are not going to be required by a lot
| | 08:21 | of the users that are going to be accessing it
via Go, so definitely take that
| | 08:25 | into account when you're designing these layouts.
| | 08:26 | When you're designing and developing
layouts for any platform, there are always
| | 08:29 | specific considerations to take into account
and FileMaker Go and user specific
| | 08:33 | to FileMaker Go are no exception.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Security and session management| 00:00 | When you're going through your
planning exercises before you build your
| | 00:03 | database, you have to take into
account all the different user groups.
| | 00:06 | Don't forget to include the user groups
that maybe accessing your database via
| | 00:10 | devices; and you should know that
FileMaker Go supports the FileMaker Pro
| | 00:14 | security model very faithfully.
| | 00:17 | Both the file access and access to features
in operation that you've setup when
| | 00:20 | you setup your privilege sets in manage
security will remain unchanged with just
| | 00:24 | really a few exceptions.
| | 00:25 | For example, some databases like these
exercise files are setup to automatically
| | 00:31 | log in with a password and that is a
default setting actually in FileMaker.
| | 00:36 | But if you want to override that on the
desktop, then you'll hold down the Shift
| | 00:40 | key on Windows or the Option key on Mac.
| | 00:43 | That same feature is available on
FileMaker Go but it's initiated in a
| | 00:47 | slightly different way.
| | 00:48 | So instead of holding down a key
while you're opening and obviously you
| | 00:51 | can't do that here.
| | 00:52 | What you can do is just press your
finger down on one of the names of the files
| | 00:56 | and then release it even though that
file was set to automatically open with
| | 00:59 | some account name and password combination.
| | 01:01 | You can still prompt it to enter one in
by holding down your finger on the name.
| | 01:06 | But the biggest consideration for
accounts used to access the database via
| | 01:09 | FileMaker Go is the fact that devices
can interrupt the database session.
| | 01:14 | Keep in mind when you're accessing a
database in FileMaker on the desktop when
| | 01:18 | you connect to a server for example,
| | 01:20 | you're initiating the session and you
hold that session all the while you're
| | 01:23 | connected to the server.
| | 01:25 | Of course, that session remains
persistent until you close the file or the
| | 01:29 | last window on the file more specifically, but
interruptions can occur anytime in the iOS world.
| | 01:34 | For example, users will often flip
between applications by pressing the Home button
| | 01:38 | or in the case of an iPhone, a call may come in.
| | 01:42 | FileMaker, unlike many iOS apps, actually uses
database sessions to manage user experiences.
| | 01:48 | So you can see when I log back into
FileMaker Go, I'm still connected to the
| | 01:53 | file that's hosted on the server.
| | 01:55 | So you should be aware of how FileMaker
manages interrupted sessions so that you
| | 01:59 | can program accordingly.
| | 02:00 | So here are some important things
to know about interrupted sessions.
| | 02:04 | If you're using FileMaker Go and your
device needs to take over in order to
| | 02:07 | switch to the home screen or manage a
phone call for example, FileMaker Go
| | 02:11 | switches to the background saving the
state of your current session and then it
| | 02:16 | goes into a suspended state if possible.
| | 02:18 | When this occurs, any scripts that
happened to be running will also be suspended
| | 02:23 | and when you return to FileMaker Go,
it will try to restore the user to the
| | 02:26 | previous state and resume any active scripts.
| | 02:29 | When a script resumes, it continues
from where it left off and completes.
| | 02:33 | However, if the resumed script
encounters anything unexpected such as a locked
| | 02:37 | record, the user will be alerted
when he or she attempts to perform an
| | 02:41 | additional action against the affected records.
| | 02:43 | That of course would be an
alternative to them being alerted right away.
| | 02:47 | Now sometimes, your sessions might be
terminated; and if the connection to a
| | 02:51 | hosted file is terminated perhaps,
it's a result of a lost connectivity, then
| | 02:55 | FileMaker Go will try to reopen
the file next time it's opened.
| | 02:59 | In the case of a terminated connection,
a script will not pick up where it left off.
| | 03:03 | You should also be aware of
how FileMaker restores sessions.
| | 03:07 | Restoring a session or the last state
of a database, includes returning you to
| | 03:11 | the layout and the record
that you were last viewing.
| | 03:14 | If you were interrupted when entering
the data into a field, or leading data
| | 03:17 | uncommitted in anyway, you will find
that the data is still present waiting
| | 03:21 | for you to continue.
| | 03:22 | If the interrupted session was in a hosted database,
FileMaker Go will attempt
| | 03:26 | to reconnect to the server and reopen the database.
| | 03:29 | If that process is successful, it will then attempt to
return to the record that you were previously editing.
| | 03:34 | If the record has not been removed
from the database while you were in an
| | 03:37 | interrupted state or had its data
committed by another user, you will then be
| | 03:41 | able to continue editing the record.
| | 03:43 | If the record was edited by another user
between the time your session was
| | 03:47 | interrupted and the time it was restored,
FileMaker will alert you that the
| | 03:51 | record was changed while your session
was hibernating and then you must either
| | 03:54 | cancel or revert the record.
| | 03:57 | You should also be aware that FileMaker 12
introduces a new extended privilege
| | 04:01 | that's called FM re-authenticate.
| | 04:03 | You can find all privileges under
Manage>Security and you'll notice under the
| | 04:07 | Extended Privileges.
| | 04:09 | You see that we've got two options
by default called fmreauthenticate10
| | 04:13 | and fmreauthenticate0.
| | 04:15 | Within fmreauthenticate, you are able
to specify a grace period within which
| | 04:18 | users are able to resume their session.
| | 04:20 | Make it do so without being
prompted for additional credentials.
| | 04:24 | Once the grace period has passed, re-authentication
or re-login will be required.
| | 04:28 | The grace period is set very easily by
simply putting an integer after the word
| | 04:33 | reauthenticate, so you see the default
reauthenticate10 option that's applied
| | 04:38 | in any new database means that you
will grant the users a ten minute grace
| | 04:42 | period, so anything after ten
minutes will require them to log back in.
| | 04:45 | You'll notice that the other
default is set for authenticate0.
| | 04:50 | That means that after any interruption,
when they come back they're going to
| | 04:53 | have to reauthenticate no matter what.
| | 04:55 | You can also create a new one if you'd like to
and simply put in fmreauthenticate
| | 04:59 | and put your own integer at the end of it.
| | 05:02 | The maximum grace period that can be
used is 10,080 which actually is one
| | 05:08 | week worth of minutes.
| | 05:10 | While it is possible to use an integer
greater than the maximum allowed when you
| | 05:13 | setup the extent of privilege,
FileMaker Go will treat any integer larger than
| | 05:18 | 10,080 as just 10,080.
| | 05:22 | And also, if what appears after
fmreauthenticate cannot be interpreted as an
| | 05:27 | integer. for example a special character,
FileMaker will just treat it as zero.
| | 05:32 | In addition, if a privilege set has
more than one fmreauthenticate extended
| | 05:36 | privilege associated with it, for
example each with a different integer, the one
| | 05:41 | with the smallest integer or no integer,
which of course implies a zero, will be
| | 05:45 | the one that gets used.
| | 05:46 | Any file that has been converted will
maintain the default behavior to require
| | 05:50 | re-authentication, whereas any
newly created file will not require
| | 05:54 | re-authentication as a default.
| | 05:56 | So when you're planning your user
groups that will access the databases via
| | 05:59 | devices, you should know that FileMaker
Go supports the FileMaker Pro Security
| | 06:02 | model but keep in mind that unlike
other iOS apps, FileMaker databases use
| | 06:07 | sessions that can be terminated or interrupted.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
5. Communicating with Other iOS AppsUnderstanding the FMP URL scheme| 00:00 | In this chapter, I'm going to cover some pretty
advanced functions that involve FileMaker Go.
| | 00:05 | But I urge you to hang in there and
check it out because at the end of this
| | 00:09 | chapter we're going to do
some pretty amazing things.
| | 00:11 | This is all centered around the fact
that there is a really powerful feature
| | 00:15 | inside FileMaker databases on
FileMaker Go that allow the databases the
| | 00:18 | ability to pass data to and then
receive data from other iOS applications.
| | 00:24 | So just like in plug-in can be used to extend the
capabilities of FileMaker Pro on the desktop,
| | 00:28 | something called the FMP URL scheme
extends the capabilities of FileMaker Go
| | 00:34 | by allowing FileMaker Go to use the URL to
open and pass data to other applications.
| | 00:39 | So first, lets backup for a second before I lose you all
and let's talk about what a URL scheme is.
| | 00:45 | First, let's start with the URL portion of that.
| | 00:48 | You probably are already familiar with what a URL is.
| | 00:51 | You've seen various, different varieties of it
in the address bar of your
| | 00:55 | browser when you visit different websites.
| | 00:57 | URLs contain different messages
like the location of servers, names of
| | 01:02 | databases, and different instructions.
| | 01:05 | Maybe something is simple, for example,
as search terms that you're searching for on Google.
| | 01:11 | For example, here you can see this is
the address where you can find the server
| | 01:16 | and the language and search terms and
various other attributes that are defined
| | 01:21 | by the developer of the system.
| | 01:24 | So every web application uses this
concept to communicate from the web
| | 01:27 | application in the browser to the
database application on the host machine.
| | 01:31 | But its not just web applications that use this.
| | 01:34 | For example, you may already be
familiar with the FMP URL within the FileMaker
| | 01:39 | application and may not even realized it.
| | 01:42 | If you've ever used the Option under
the File menu for Send>Link to Database;
| | 01:47 | that of course, pops up an email and
it gives this clickable link to the
| | 01:51 | recipient of the email and which
you may not have realized is that this
| | 01:55 | clickable link starts with FMP:// . Now
most of the time when you see web address
| | 02:01 | it starts with a scheme like HTTP: or HTTPS: or even ftp:
| | 02:07 | but many applications, like FileMaker,
have their own URL scheme.
| | 02:13 | So this scheme FMP:// tells this link
that when it gets to the server, which is
| | 02:19 | located at that IP address, that it should
pass this instruction on to FileMaker Pro.
| | 02:24 | This one when it simply declares just
the name of a database tells FileMaker
| | 02:28 | just to open up the database.
| | 02:30 | But the FMP URL in the syntax is
provided by FMP URL and can allow us to
| | 02:36 | instruct FileMaker to do a lot of different things.
| | 02:39 | Let's take a look at all the different syntaxes
provided by the FMP URL.
| | 02:44 | So first you see you have the ability to use FMP://
also declare what the host is and the name of the file.
| | 02:52 | And you can see here that you can also run a
script and send it a parameter if you'd like to.
| | 02:58 | So to look for the file at that location
and execute a script based on the name of the script.
| | 03:03 | Also you can do the same thing on FileMaker Go.
| | 03:06 | You'll notice the difference here is
that the top FMP URL has host after the
| | 03:11 | first :// but there's a dollar sign ($)
inside the one on the second row.
| | 03:18 | The first one assumes that a database
is being hosted, the second one assumes
| | 03:21 | that the file exist on FileMaker Go.
| | 03:23 | So that's kind of how it sends a message to itself.
| | 03:26 | You just put the dollar sign ($) in there
and that indicates the location of the file is on FileMaker Go.
| | 03:32 | And sometimes you can use that little
tilde sign (~), which causes FileMaker Go
| | 03:36 | to look for and potentially open a file
with the specified name over the
| | 03:40 | network or on local device in the document's directory,
then the name script must be in that file.
| | 03:45 | So the syntax of this URL is important
because FileMaker Go will behave slightly
| | 03:49 | differently depending on which syntax is used.
| | 03:52 | If the file happens to have an account
and password, you can prefix the URL by
| | 03:57 | adding the account:password@ and
then include the host, the file name, the
| | 04:02 | scriptname, and the parameters if you would like.
| | 04:05 | Now how do we put all this stuff together
to actually send in instructions to
| | 04:09 | the FileMaker database to perform some action?
| | 04:12 | Let's take a look at how we would
construct these one at a time.
| | 04:15 | It can be helpful to look at the URL
as pieces of a puzzle to understand how
| | 04:19 | they work together and to know
what options are available to you.
| | 04:23 | So the first part of the URL triggers FileMaker Go
to search for and potentially open a specified file.
| | 04:30 | The syntax may look something like this.
| | 04:31 | Of course, this is an option if there's an
account and password required to open the file.
| | 04:36 | If you don't include the account and
password, the user will either be prompted
| | 04:41 | or the default login will be used to open up the file.
| | 04:46 | In that case, you would get a simpler prefix,
it would just be FMP:// location
| | 04:51 | of the host and the name of the file.
| | 04:54 | And then once opened, FileMaker could perform
a script that's specified using the same syntax.
| | 04:59 | So it might look something like this.
| | 05:02 | It could allow you to pass data back to FileMaker Pro
or you could pass information to a script.
| | 05:08 | So for example you could say the host name,
the file name, ?script= if you're
| | 05:14 | not using a parameter, you could call the scriptname,
so here you can see we're
| | 05:18 | calling a script specifically called Show_Scan_Result.
| | 05:22 | Data can be passed into a script
as an optional parameter using the
| | 05:26 | param=parameter syntax but it's also
possible to declare scripted variables.
| | 05:30 | Script variables are the same type of
script variable you're used to when you're
| | 05:35 | developing scripts in FileMaker Pro on the desktop.
| | 05:37 | If you decide to pass optional parameter
your URL will look like this.
| | 05:42 | So here we see the login, the local
host address where it's hosted, the name of
| | 05:46 | the file, the name of the script and
also a variable that's called $result and
| | 05:51 | then, the value that's being passed.
| | 05:54 | This will allow FileMaker to execute
the script and it will also pass that
| | 05:58 | variable to the script that can be
then unpackaged on the FileMaker side.
| | 06:02 | You can also supply multiple parameters
by just concatenating them with an
| | 06:06 | ampersand so you can say a $variable=dadada
and ampersand, another
| | 06:13 | $variable2=such and such and so on.
| | 06:16 | So although this might be kind of a
complicated concept, if you can understand
| | 06:19 | FMP URLs then from any application you
can pass FileMaker instructions on how to
| | 06:24 | run a script and what values to pass to that script.
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| Understanding other iOS app URL schemes| 00:00 | So we've discussed how FileMaker has
its own URL scheme which is really just a
| | 00:06 | series of instructions that's prefixed by FMP://.
| | 00:11 | Now that's only half of the equation to
make FileMaker communicate with other apps.
| | 00:15 | What we need is to find out the same type of
URL scheme but for apps that are not FileMaker.
| | 00:21 | And the good news is, almost all iOS apps
do have their own URL scheme.
| | 00:27 | As you can see here in this Apple URL
scheme reference document, it's kind of
| | 00:32 | subtle but if I send a URL or for example
in FileMaker, if I create a script
| | 00:38 | that uses the Open URL Script step,
and simply use the TEL: prefix,
| | 00:43 | it's going to actually pull up
a telephone application and suggest to
| | 00:49 | the user that they dial that number.
| | 00:51 | So in this case, the TEL:
acts as its own URL scheme.
| | 00:56 | You'll also notice something simple
if you want to send a text message.
| | 01:00 | You could do the same thing in FileMaker.
| | 01:02 | You could pull up a script step
that's called open URL and put in SMS:
| | 01:08 | and then the contents of a phone number field
and that will initiate the device to send a text message.
| | 01:14 | So various different applications all
have different URL schemes and you can
| | 01:18 | find them using Apple's iOS Developer Library.
| | 01:22 | However, some non-Apple iOS Applications
also have their own URL schemes.
| | 01:27 | In here, I found many of them listed.
| | 01:30 | You can see the Apple ones listed here
but also if you scroll down a bit further,
| | 01:35 | you can see that there is a third-party applications
that also have their own URL Schemes.
| | 01:40 | So if you're interested in having FileMaker
communicate to other applications on
| | 01:44 | the devices then, you might want
to take a look at some of these.
| | 01:48 | One of them that I'm going to direct you to
is down here in the middle, it's a
| | 01:52 | free app available on the iTunes Library called Pic2Shop.
| | 01:55 | And you'll see that Pic2Shop also has its own URL Scheme.
| | 02:00 | You'll notice it right here.
| | 02:02 | Let's take a look at this a little bit closer.
| | 02:05 | So the URL Scheme for the Pic2Shop app
is simply pic2shop://.
| | 02:11 | And then it has different listed actions
that you can invoke by simply putting
| | 02:15 | that action ID after the ://.
| | 02:19 | So in this case, if we simply create a script
in FileMaker that says Open URL
| | 02:24 | and we put in pic2shop://scan?,
that alone will prompt the Pic2Shop app to open
| | 02:32 | and then, it will prompt it to switch over
into it's Barcode Scanning mode.
| | 02:37 | So with this very simple, short little phrase,
we can instruct another app to
| | 02:42 | open up its barcode scanning camera.
| | 02:44 | And all these different third-party apps
have all sorts of actions that you can call.
| | 02:48 | But we're going to make this one work for us.
| | 02:50 | So we can create a script inside FileMaker
that instructs Pic2Scan to do this.
| | 02:55 | So we'll open it up and start it's scan action.
| | 02:58 | And then we're going to add something else.
| | 03:00 | You see callback=, that's something
that's specific to Pic2Shop URL Scheme.
| | 03:06 | What it means is, after the scan occurs perform this action.
| | 03:11 | And so callback= so all it's going
to do is open up Pic2Scan, open up the
| | 03:15 | scanner and after the user performs a
barcode scan then, anything declared after
| | 03:20 | the callback= will occur and
guess what we're going to put there.
| | 03:23 | We're going to put in FMP URL Scheme
that tells us to open up our invoice's
| | 03:28 | file and then even further, we're going to
have it run a script called Show_Scan_Result.
| | 03:34 | And what we're going to do is also
pass a variable and we're declaring a
| | 03:38 | variable that's going to equal EAN.
| | 03:40 | Now that's also something in Pic2Scan's Library
that says, whatever the value
| | 03:44 | was that was scanned or the numeric value
represented by the barcode, that's the
| | 03:49 | value that we're going to grab from their apps.
So EAN represents that value.
| | 03:54 | What we're doing opening up the app
going to the scan, performing the scan and
| | 03:58 | when it's done, calling a FileMaker database,
you can see by the dollar sign ($),
| | 04:02 | it's located on the same device.
| | 04:05 | Opening up the database, running a
script called Show_Scan_Result and passing
| | 04:09 | that script the $result value.
| | 04:12 | So it seems like a lot of nonsense
if you first look at it, but when you
| | 04:16 | break it down piece by piece, you can see
that there are some pretty simple instructions.
| | 04:20 | And this just happens to be this one
free app that we're using, Pic2Shop, but you
| | 04:24 | can go into any third-party app and
look at how its syntax is broken down and
| | 04:28 | then use the same thing to instruct
FileMaker to perform some activity.
| | 04:31 | So now we can put all this information together
and create some scripts inside
| | 04:35 | a FileMaker Pro Database that will
allow us to open the database, invoke a
| | 04:40 | barcode scanner, scan the barcode and
then go perform a search based on the
| | 04:45 | value represented by the barcode inside of our database
thus showing the found set of the results.
| | 04:52 | We'll take a look at that in the next movie.
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| Scripting interactions with other iOS apps| 00:00 | So now were going to put together all
these concepts, this FMP URL and these
| | 00:04 | third-party application URL Schemes.
| | 00:06 | Essentially, what we're going
to do is create two scripts.
| | 00:09 | One script that gets initiated from within FileMaker
when its own FileMaker Go
| | 00:13 | and that script is going to tell FileMaker
to go open up another app, which in
| | 00:17 | this case, we're using a free app called Pic2Shop.
| | 00:20 | And in that app is going to open up its scanner,
the user is going to scan a
| | 00:24 | barcode and then grab that number from the barcode.
| | 00:27 | And you'll see here inside of our database,
we have a field that represents the barcode number.
| | 00:31 | So then what we're going to do is have Pic2Shop
send a message back to FileMaker Go
| | 00:36 | and say, okay, here's the information that we just scanned.
| | 00:41 | Go perform another script with this and
that script is going to perform a search
| | 00:45 | and hopefully find the record in our database.
| | 00:47 | So let's take a look at the two scripts.
| | 00:51 | You'll see them in your exercise file
in the very bottom on the folder that's called, Scan.
| | 00:56 | The first one is the one that's attached to this button here.
| | 01:00 | So in Layout mode and we've got
a button object that has the script,
| | 01:06 | Open Pic2Shop already assigned to it.
| | 01:08 | So let's take a look at that script.
| | 01:13 | Open Pic2Shop is one simple script step
called Open URL, which you can find down
| | 01:20 | on the bottom in your Miscellaneous Section.
| | 01:22 | Open URL is the key here.
| | 01:24 | Open URL will allow you to pass URLs that
you can construct and you can
| | 01:29 | construct the URL using your specified
calculation dialog window, which is great.
| | 01:35 | And you'll see that a lot of it is text.
| | 01:38 | Most of it should look familiar from in our
previous movie when we broke all this down.
| | 01:42 | The Pic2Scan, the scan operation,
calling back to the script after the scan is done,
| | 01:49 | running another script called Show_Scan_Result
and passing in a variable, which is called $result.
| | 01:56 | All that's different here is I'm using some FileMaker
code here to encode the name of the file.
| | 02:03 | And if you want to use this exact same
code inside your own efforts, what this
| | 02:08 | does is dynamically determine what the name of the file is.
| | 02:11 | So this way, when the file is hosted on Go
it knows to look for it locally,
| | 02:15 | as opposed to if it's been hosted,
it will do all that work for you.
| | 02:19 | I could have just hard coded in the FMP
URL with the dollar sign ($), if I knew
| | 02:24 | it was only going to be run on Go.
| | 02:26 | So anyways this script will execute.
| | 02:29 | That will cause the Pic2Scan app to open up.
| | 02:32 | I will then scan a barcode and then that barcode
will be set to the script parameter of $result.
| | 02:38 | Now you'll also see that we're running a script
called Show_Scan_Result.
| | 02:42 | Now that will be run as part of the callback
and we can see Show_Scan_Result.
| | 02:49 | Pretty much this goes to a certain layout,
does some error capturing and we're performing a Find.
| | 02:54 | Let me show you what that Find is.
| | 02:58 | Simply putting into the barcode ID Field,
that's this field, a reference to $result.
| | 03:04 | So really we're just grabbing the number
that we scanned from the barcode and
| | 03:08 | performing a search based on that, in that specific field.
| | 03:12 | And then, we've got some error capture saying
if we can't find it, it tells you that you can't find it.
| | 03:16 | Otherwise, it goes to the product details layout
showing the matching record.
| | 03:22 | So if you would like, you can perform
the same task on your site by transferring
| | 03:27 | the exercise file to your iPad and
also downloading the free Pic2Shop app.
| | 03:32 | And then all you have to do is navigate
to this layout and hit the button.
| | 03:37 | So now you're on the device,
we've got the Invoice 05_03 database here.
| | 03:42 | And we're on the layout called Product's iPad.
| | 03:44 | The Product's iPad layout has an icon
on the top of the screen that you see
| | 03:48 | that has the script assigned to it.
| | 03:51 | So when I hit the button, it's automatically
going to invoke the Pic2Scan.
| | 03:55 | Pic2Scan opens up its scanner and I scan the barcode
and then it comes back to FileMaker, does a search,
| | 04:04 | and as you can see by the records on
the bottom of the screen, has found one
| | 04:08 | matching record in the database and the
script takes it to the product details
| | 04:11 | layout and shows us that product.
| | 04:13 | So this could be used in real world for
inventory management or scanning items
| | 04:19 | as you walk around the store or whatever it is.
| | 04:21 | And this really just involve two simple scripts.
| | 04:24 | Its just one example of the many different
iOS apps that have supported URL schemes.
| | 04:28 | The more you do research, the more functionality
you can add to your FileMaker Go application.
| | 04:34 | Here we add seamless scanning functionality
to a FileMaker database but with URL
| | 04:38 | Schemes and the FMP URL, the sky is the limit.
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ConclusionGoodbye| 00:00 | Well I hope you've enjoyed
Up and Running with FileMaker Go.
| | 00:03 | I'm very excited to be able to talk to
you about this great new product and to
| | 00:07 | be able to show you FileMaker
databases on different devices.
| | 00:10 | This is by no means a comprehensive
list of features of FileMaker Go or a
| | 00:14 | comprehensive list of all the things
that you can do with this product.
| | 00:17 | If you're not familiar with how to build
FileMaker databases, please feel free
| | 00:21 | to check out the lynda.com online
training library for different courses
| | 00:24 | about building databases in FileMaker Pro.
| | 00:27 | But for now, thanks for watching.
We'll see you next time and enjoy working
| | 00:31 | with FileMaker on those iOS devices.
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