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Level: Any, Version: FM 12 or later

Unicode

Kevin Frank

Update 5 May 2014: article and demo have been updated as per observations by Jeremy Bante in the comments section.

This weekend I threw together a Unicode utility file (unicode-characters.zip). It takes the values 1 through 65535 and converts them into Unicode symbols, and makes it easy to copy characters and values into the clipboard.

5-5-2014 12-10-29 PM

(The original version of the demo had 99999 records, but as pointed out by Jeremy in the comments section below, the range 65537 – 99999 is a repeat of the range 1 – 34463, with 65536 being a special case.)

Any value over 99999 the Char function will interpret as multiple characters, and bear in mind that multiple values are interpreted a) from right to left, and b) in five digit blocks with leading zeros, except the leftmost one will not have leading zeros.

Continue reading “Unicode” →

Level: Any

Live Development + “New Record”

Kevin Frank

Recently there has been discussion in the FileMaker community regarding a known problem with live development (i.e., modifying database schema while other users are connected to the system). The problem is that under certain circumstances, the “New Record” command and script step will fail.

4-28-2014 5-10-52 PM

The aim of this article is to identify some specific circumstances under which New Record will fail, and also identify some specific circumstances under which it will *not* fail, and is based on a series of tests conducted using FMS 13v1 and a couple clients running FMP Advanced 13v3.

Disclaimer: These are preliminary findings and do not claim to be exhaustive or conclusive. If you are doing live development, you should test for yourself and draw your own conclusions.

Methodology: A system with two tables, Sales and Employees, was used. For all tests, the developer opened Manage Database and then did something (or in the case of the first test, nothing), but then did not click OK — instead the Manage Database dialog was left open. In no case was the “OK” button clicked.

Continue reading “Live Development + “New Record”” →

Chart, Level: Advanced, Version: FM 13 or later, Virtual List

FM 13: Virtual List Charts, part 1

Kevin Frank

4-20-2014 11-18-24 AMToday we’re going to look at applying the virtual list technique to FileMaker charting with the goal of producing a reusable chart “object”, or rather, a series of chart objects. We’ll need more than one because while certain attributes (e.g., chart title) can be set programmatically, others, including type (e.g., column or line), must be hard-coded into the chart object.

We’ve already explored Bruce Robertson’s virtual list on this site a number of times, but briefly, you create a utility table in your solution to facilitate non-standard viewing, reporting, etc., and pre-populate it with “more records than you’ll ever need”. The records in this table will derive their data “virtually”, by parsing it from an array — typically one or more $$variables.

Well it turns out the technique can be applied to charting as well, and today we have a demo file, Virtual List Charts, that contains six examples: three for Web Visits…

4-20-2014 2-03-32 PM

Continue reading “FM 13: Virtual List Charts, part 1” →

Level: Intermediate

FMDiSC Follow Up

Kevin Frank

Thank you to the folks at FMDiSC (FileMaker Developers in Southern California) for allowing me to present this past Friday on the topics of Summary Lists and Virtual List Charts. Here are links to files we looked at during the presentation, as well as relevant blog entries and xmChart links.

FMDiSC_SM

Demo Files

Blog Postings

xmChart

 

Level: Intermediate, Version: FM 13 or later

Unique Records Revisited… again, part 2

Kevin Frank

In part 1, we looked at a new way to count unique entries in a sub-summary report based on an arbitrary found set of sales data. To avoid redundant explanation, this article will assume the reader is familiar with part 1, but in a nutshell…

1. we used a pair of FM 13 summary list fields
2. to create found-set-aware multiline keys
3. which we related to special purpose table occurrences
4. which provided the basis for related value lists of salespeople
5. the ValueListItems function allowed us to grab lists of unique salespeople
6. and the ValueCount function allowed us to count them

The demo in part 1 was based on a single “flat table” of data. Today we’re going to unflatten that table, and see how the technique can be applied to a properly normalized system, i.e., with separate tables for Sales, People and Zones, related like so…

graph 1

Continue reading “Unique Records Revisited… again, part 2” →

Level: Intermediate, Version: FM 13 or later

Unique Records Revisited… again, part 1

Kevin Frank

Several recent postings on this blog have offered variations on a theme: using the new-in-13 summary list field type as the basis for a multiline relational key. The net effect is to produce a relationship that is found-set-aware. (If you aren’t familiar with summary lists, you can read about them here.)

Last week we looked at basing a value list on one of these “summary list relationships”, to facilitate counting unique values within the current found set…

4-2-2014 8-02-41 AM

…and today we have a demo file, FM-13-Count-Unique-v1, that extends the concept to sub-summary reporting.

4-1-2014 10-57-14 PM

Continue reading “Unique Records Revisited… again, part 1” →

Chart, Level: Intermediate, Version: FM 13 or later

FM 13: Column Chart on Found Set, revisited

Kevin Frank

Today I’m going to address a shortcoming in the “FM 13 Column Chart on Found Set” demo in my previous article. Specifically, I took a lazy path of least resistance re: calculating the chart title.

3-27-2014 11-47-00 AM

The challenge was to count the number of states in the found set, and since there weren’t many records in the original demo I decided to use a recursive custom function to build a list of unique states, and then the ValueCount function to count the number of entries in that list.

And that was fine. When the found set was small. Continue reading “FM 13: Column Chart on Found Set, revisited” →

Chart, Level: Intermediate, Version: FM 13 or later

FM 13: Simple Column Charts

Kevin Frank

Two things I appreciate about FileMaker charting are its user-friendliness and its flexibility. I do a fair amount of charting with xmChart, but when it’s time to “go native”, my typical approach is to load up some variables with return-delimited lists of data, and use those as my data source.

[Note: click here to see all FileMaker Hacks articles with charts.]

An advantage of basing charts on variables is that it allows charts to be context-independent, reusable objects. But a disadvantage can be a loss of simplicity, and missing out on some of the ease-of-implementation that FileMaker charts offer “out of the box”. So today we’re going to take a look at some simple FM 13 column charts that do not rely on variables…

2-26-2014 8-31-27 AM

…with help from these four demos: Continue reading “FM 13: Simple Column Charts” →

Level: Any

Site Migration Complete

Kevin Frank

If you recently experienced broken links within this site, they have now been corrected. If you’ve had problems coming into this site via an external link, here are updated links to recent articles, and I apologize for any inconvenience.

FM13: Summary List + Virtual List
http://filemakerhacks.com/2014/02/02/fm-13-summary-list-virtual-list

Summary List Fields in FM 13, part 2
http://filemakerhacks.com/2014/01/22/summary-list-fields-in-fm-13-part-2

Summary List Fields in FM 13, part 1
http://filemakerhacks.com/2014/01/19/summary-list-fields-in-fm-13-part-1

FileMaker 13 Popovers
http://filemakerhacks.com/2013/12/14/filemaker-13-popovers

Generating Sample Data
http://filemakerhacks.com/2013/12/01/generating-sample-data

It’s Sorta A Value List Thing
http://filemakerhacks.com/2013/11/22/its-sorta-a-value-list-thing

Tab Panels: Seen, Unseen and Simulated
http://filemakerhacks.com/2013/11/18/tab-panels-seen-unseen-and-simulated

Conditional Tab Panel Access
http://filemakerhacks.com/2013/10/23/conditional-tab-panel-access

 

Level: Intermediate, Summary List, Version: FM 13 or later, Virtual List

FM 13: Summary List + Virtual List

Kevin Frank

Recently a question came up on the FMP Experts list re: the possibility of displaying a found set of customers in 3 columns in browse mode in FileMaker 13. While FileMaker doesn’t naturally display data this way, there are various ways to trick it into doing so, and today we’re going to look at a method that combines the new-in-13 Summary List field type with the Virtual List technique.

Demo file: FM 13 Summary List + Virtual List

2-1-2014 10-03-20 PM

Continue reading “FM 13: Summary List + Virtual List” →