Filemaker released today Filemaker 14 to coincide with the Filemaker Inc. 30th anniversary. Happy Birthday Filemaker! Not many software companies survive 30 years.
So having played for a while with this version I will use Filemaker’s ‘New Feature’ section from their ‘Help’ as a basis to analyze this version.
New features in FileMaker Pro 14
FileMaker Pro 14 includes the following new features and improvements.
New user interface for creating scripts and calculations
The new Script Workspace window allows you to:
- Create and manage FileMaker scripts in a unified workspace
- Add script steps by typing or choosing the script step’s name (as you type, a list of matching script steps appears along with a brief description)
- Edit many script step options inline
- Work with multiple scripts in the same window
- run or debug scripts from the Script Workspace window
This is one of the biggest features of Filemaker 14 if not the biggest.
The ‘Script Workspace’, as it is called now, is now in-line with other development platforms.
Features like auto-complete commands and fields, color coding commands, multiple script tabs and in-screen descriptions will be a huge help to developers.
- Redesigned Specify Calculation dialog box – As you type function, table, and field names, a list of matching items appears along with a brief description.
- Improved Script Debugger – A description of the last error encountered is displayed along with the error number.
New Launch Center window for opening files
- Launch Center window – Open local and remote FileMaker Pro solutions, convert other files, and manage favorite files and hosts all in one place.
- Solution icon – Choose a predefined icon or provide your own icon to represent your solution in the Launch Center window.
Personally I don’t find this a very useful feature as I like to have full control over the look and feel of the available solutions and create my own interface anyway.
Improved layout design tools and controls
- Improved button labels – Define buttons to have a text label, an icon, or both. Choose from predefined icons or use your own.
I like the ability of combining the button graphics with the actual object. It will be appreciated a lot by WebDirect developers who suffered from the problems of having layered graphics and buttons.
- Button bars – Define button bars to group and format buttons and popover buttons uniformly. Add a text label, an icon, or both for each button or popover button. You can assign actions — a single command or a script — for each button to perform
This is a cluster of buttons in other words. So can be useful in some cases but not so useful if you need full control over each and every button.
- Placeholder text in fields – Display a label or instructions within a field until you enter data or search criteria.
Another nice little feature. Not a game changer, Kind of like an extra power outlet in your car, nice to have, but can live without it.
- Enhanced scroll bars in portals and fields – Display a scroll bar in a portal or field always or only when you’re scrolling.
- Layout parts for navigation – Add a navigation part to the top and bottom of a layout to help you easily build navigation for your solution.
The main advantage I can see for this new navigation part is that it doesn’t resize with the rest of the screen when zooming in or out.
- Improved color palette – Add or change custom colors, set specific color values, and enter or paste hexadecimal values. The palette includes colors that coordinate with the predefined themes.
This is a really useful feature. Mac users have had the color picker option for many years but Windows users did not. The theme coordinated pallete is also a great enhancement.
- Additional support for object components’ display-state styles – Use the Inspector to define display states for pop-up menu, drop-down list, drop-down calendar, checkbox set, radio button set, button, and button bar components. Define Hover and Pressed states for portal rows.
The lack of granular object style control has been a sore spot for developers since FM 12. This addresses part of the issue.
- Apply the same style to all tab panels in a tab control – Specify that tabs share a single style when creating or modifying tab controls.
- Tooltips for badges in Layout mode – Badges in Layout mode display tooltips about an object, such as the placeholder text for a field or the condition on which an object is hidden.
This existed before but has been enhanced with some additional badges.
- Choose a custom device size – You can change the width and height values of layouts you create for custom devices in the New Layout/Report assistant.
Minor but nice to have.
- Check mark in checkboxes – Choose the symbol you want displayed in checkboxes (a check mark or x).
This seems like a minor feature but I can recall a couple of solutions where this would have increased the speed of our solution and saved time during development (imagine a file with hundreds of flags and calculated containers with checkboxes).
New themes and improved style handling
- New minimalist themes – Use the Minimalist and Minimalist Touch themes, which have no custom styles, when you’re making many changes to styles and intend to save them as a custom theme.
- Copying and pasting custom styles – On the same layout, you can copy and paste a custom style between objects of similar types.
This was a no-no in Filemaker 13 as it created a lot of extra CSS code and bloated the solution. Since it is mentioned here I am guessing the the copying functions were optimized and do not have the same affect in filemaker 14 (anyone care to test the theory?)
- Improved style handling in the New Layout/Report assistant – When you create a new layout or report using the New Layout/Report assistant, FileMaker Pro applies an appropriate style to objects created through the assistant. For example, when you create a report, the appropriate part text style is applied to any merge fields created in the header or footer part.
Again, another nice little feature that isn’t a game changer.
- Automatic custom theme updating – Updates to FileMaker Pro software that include formatting changes for the predefined layout themes, or certain file recovery options, may update your custom themes.
Something to keep in mind (don’t forget to make those backups)
Improved performance and usability
- Redesigned security interface – In the new Manage Security dialog box, you can create accounts and edit basic settings in a single view. You can continue to manage privilege sets, extended privileges, and file access as in previous versions of FileMaker Pro.
A minor cosmetic change
- Improved gesture support – If your device supports gestures, you can use gestures to move through records, zoom in or out, scroll inside portals and web viewers, and move through slide panels.
- Media playback in container fields – For FileMaker Go, you can create scripts that control options, including playing the media in full screen or as embedded; playing, pausing, or stopping the media; disabling user interaction; showing or hiding playback controls; or choosing the position to start the playback from.
This option will open a lot of opportunities for solutions dealing with sound and video. Unfortunately most solutions don’t, so this is more of a niche improvement.
- New options for saving passwords – Windows users can choose to save their account names and passwords for solutions in their credentials. Solution developers can control whether users can save account names and passwords in credentials (Windows) or keychain (OS X and iOS).
This is actually a nice feature and I can see many using it. The question is whether it can be disabled for organizations that would regard this as a potential security issue (on Windows I’m guessing it can be blocked by Group Policies).
- Run FileMaker Pro as a 64- or 32-bit application – For Windows, you can install FileMaker Pro as a 64- or 32-bit application in supported 64-bit versions of Windows. For OS X, FileMaker Pro is installed as a single application bundle containing both 64- and 32-bit versions; in the Get Info window, you can choose which version to run.
This is perhaps the 2nd biggest change in Filemaker 14 (the first being the Script Workplace). Having the ability to finally move away from the 32bit and some of the limitations and problems that causes is definitely big.
We recently had an issue with trying to get Filemaker 13 on Windows to append multiple PDF pages. While the Mac did it in about 20 seconds the PC took about 20 minutes!
We decided to try it on Filemaker 14 a lo and behold it was as fast as a Mac. Digging deeper revealed that the PDF DLL that is embedded in Filemaker (created by a 3rd party company) was replaced with an improved version (we thought it was only for the 64 bit DLL but apparently they improved the 32 bit as well).
Enhancements to script steps
- Insert from Device – Specify a title, message, and prompt for the signature capture screen.
- Show/Hide Menubar – Lock the menubar in FileMaker Go. This script step is now compatible with FileMaker Go in addition to FileMaker WebDirect.
Perhaps the 3rd most important feature. The ability to natively lock Filemaker Go to prevent undesired access by users. This eliminates the need for kiosk solutions (which have their own problems, such as editing value lists on iOS for non-admins).
- Insert From URL – Automatically encode special characters and verify SSL certificates for HTTPS URLs.
Definitely an important security enhancement.
- Set Zoom Level – Enlarge the image on the screen up to 200% in FileMaker Go.
Not quite sure what’s new here. Can someone enlighten me? I never tried zooming in Filemaker Go.
New script steps
- Set Allowed Orientations – Controls the orientation of FileMaker Go and layouts displayed in FileMaker Go.
Another great enhancement for iOS solution granular control.
- Get Directory – Prompts the user to select a folder, then sets a variable to the fully qualified path of the selected folder.
Although we had the ability to do this for years using various methods it is nice to finally be able to do it n威而鋼
atively.
- Refresh Portal – Refreshes the relationship and contents of the named object.
Compliments the refresh object script that was added in FM 13
- AVPlayer Play – Plays audio, video, or image files from a container field, layout object, or URL in FileMaker Go.
I’m guessing we will be seeing some creative things done with this.
- AVPlayer Set Options – Changes the settings for a media file that is playing or is paused in FileMaker Go.
- AVPlayer Set Playback State – Pauses, resumes, or stops playing a media file that is playing or is paused in FileMaker Go.
- Enable Touch Keyboard – In FileMaker Go and Windows 8, enables or disables the touch keyboard.
You will hear a sigh of relief from most developers that created an iOS solution. Having the big bulky iOS keyboard popping up when you don’t want it to was very annoying.
Changed script steps
- Set Script Animation is now Set Layout Object Animation.
Name change
- Open Manage Scripts is now Open Script Workspace.
Name change
New script triggers
- OnObjectAVPlayerChange – In FileMaker Go, triggers a script to run when the state of the media in a layout object changes.
- OnFileAVPlayerChange – In FileMaker Go, triggers a script to run if a media file is playing from a field or URL, and a user or a script step setting changes the playback state.
- OnExternalCommandReceived – In FileMaker Go, triggers a script to run when the user presses a playback button on the lock screen or on an external device.
This will have some interesting uses too I believe.
Changed script triggers
- OnGestureTap – Adds compatibility with FileMaker Pro in Windows 8.
This can give some companies the option to use FMP on a Surface Tablet instead of an iPad for example.
New functions
- Get(MenubarState) – Returns a number for the current menu bar state.
- Furigana – Converts Japanese text to Hiragana, Katakana, or Roman text.
- Get(ApplicationArchitecture) – Returns the current application architecture.
This will enable to identify things like 3264bit
- Get(ScreenScaleFactor) – Returns the scale factor of the screen in which the current file is open.
Again, helps with granular control with all the different device specs.
- GetAVPlayerAttribute – In FileMaker Go, returns the setting of the specified attribute for the audio, video, or image file in a container field.
- Get(TriggerExternalEvent) – In FileMaker Go, returns a number representing the event that activated an OnExternalCommandReceived script trigger.
- Get(TouchKeyboardState) – In FileMaker Go and Windows 8, returns 1 (true) if the touch keyboard is set to display automatically when needed; otherwise, returns 0 (false).
Changed functions
- Get(ApplicationVersion) – Returns version numbers in the format 14.X.X instead of 14.XvX for all FileMaker applications.
- Get(TriggerGestureInfo) – Adds compatibility with FileMaker Pro for Windows.
Good for laptopstablets with touch abilities using Windows
- Get(WindowContentHeight) – Adds compatibility with FileMaker Go.
Some more granular control
- Base64Encode – Adds support for encoding text in Base64 format.
Not sure what’s new here
- TextFont and TextFontRemove – The fontScript parameter has been removed.
So to summarize:
The big things in Filemaker 14 are (in my opinion):
- The new Script Workspace
- A Windows 64bit client
- Webdirect speed improvement
- More CSS granular control
- Better VideoAudio software integration and control
- and a lot of little improvements and additions.
Unfortunately there isn’t any WOW factor this time, no major new feature like ExecuteSQL or PSOS that had a major impact on development.
Also, some things you could do before with one click on the screen require now a few clicks or knowing shortcuts by heart.
Nice but not great.
I would have liked to see faster ESS, HTML emails with multiple attachments, PDF creation on the server, integrated sync etc….
I guess we will just have to wait another 18 months or so.
Feel free to post what features you like the most and what you would have liked to see in Filemaker 14.