Here is a selection of tutorials from Datasplash and also a good selection of articles from the rest of the FileMaker world.
There are some real gems in here. As always I’m sure that the FileMaker DevCon causes a splurge of information around this time of the year.
Roundup of Datasplash Articles
This has been a busy month for Datasplash outside of the blog, so our activity has been less than we would have liked, but with that said I think we have done ok, we certainly noticed a good increase in engagement in the site. We’re still learning, we hope you are too.
- FileMaker Pro Naming Convention Basics, For Beginners
- The FileMaker world doesn’t have fixed conventions for naming. Therefore, many beginners try to invent their own, which can often result in a pickle. This post’s message was essentially saying: experiment experiment experiment, research review and learn, and only then – deploy your own naming convention system.
- Keep Your FileMaker Pro Custom Functions Organised
- A free download of a file I’ve shown a couple of times in screencasts. It’s a very simple file, but very useful none-the-less. I hope you find it useful.
- FileMaker Pro On PC Went, After FileMaker GO Came
- A soul baring post. The message: Don’t get stuck in your own paradigm. When you read signals from the marketplace, challenge your own mindset – I did, and I missed this one at first glance. Now I have a fresh outlook and it has already changed the direction of my own FileMaker Development.
- Auto Colour Swatches using FileMaker Pro & Scriptmaster Plugin
- A technique that I’ve implemented a couple of times that allows users and administrators to dynamically choose colours for status/types aspects in their interface. Also shows a couple of examples of extending the UI aspect for use with the webviewer. It is a basic level technique, and you should consider making custom functions from the technique to make it more user friendly and globally convenient in your solutions.
Roundup of articles I found interesting from other FileMaker Developers
These are some of the articles that I found very useful. Some of these articles were released during the period and some were articles written earlier, but that I discovered during the period.
- FileMaker GO is a whole new platform
- Todd Geist nudged my senses into life with this post about his vision on where FileMakerGO will take the FileMaker development industry in the coming years. It’s an interesting insight and I agree with his thought-train. In true Maven fashion Todd jumped in and acquired the WorldCloud hosting company.
- FileMaker Custom Functions, explained.
- I found this via Dwayne Wright’s blog. Very good YouTube article series on making custom functions, by Russ Kohn. I don’t envy Russ having to explain tail recursion to a group of people, it’s a difficult topic at the best of times.
- FMLayoutMode – Taming a Wild Layout
- Anybody following the “Clown Puke” from Paul Spafford will be able to see the finished product on Taming a Wild Layout. Very good article series for beginners this was, very good and clear tutorials also.
- Server Side Scripting an informative article by Agi Riley at Zero Blue Technologies.
- This article is a good companion to those of us thinking about FileMaker GO and changes in our development approach, amongst other reasons too. I certainly look forward to this article being extended as promised…
Plugin Releases of Interest
- Scriptmaster from 360Works
- Updated and now has a pro offering which allows you to make your own plugins. Very interesting concept, and possibly a new model for plugins. The plugin is much faster than the previous version, certainly in my own tests. I have had a couple of issues when using the plugin whilst recording screencasts using screenr – but I think this is due to a clash between them both fighting for the Java resources. After a couple of reboots it was fine. I love this plugin, for its massive range of built in functions and its extendibility.
- Scribe Plugin from 360Works
- This plugin looks amazing for its interaction with MS Office documents and PDF’s. There is too much to list here so head over to the site and check out the demos and feature list. 360Works have just released a single license version, and I will certainly be taking them up on one.
- Webservices Plugin from Beezwax
- This plugin looks absolutely amazing. You can connect to any SOAP service via WSDL, including interaction with RESTful API’s. This one is on my shopping list. I am really looking forward to trying this one out.
- SimpleDialogue by 24uSoftware
- 24U Software released their new SimpleDialogue plugin. It looks very interesting and a good addition to the dated custom dialogues that FileMaker serves up natively. Including progress bars and dynamic updating of dialogues on the fly, it is well worth heading over to the page (linked above) and checking out the full roll call for this plugin.
- Seedcode Calendar by Seedcode
- The latest in the line up of calendar products from Seedcode. Check out the video that accompanies the latest release. Simply breathtaking. Enough said.
It has been a healthy month in terms of plugin releases, there have been many more, but these are the ones that caught my eye. I hear that the Fusion Reactor plugin is in the final stages of testing for a new release. That one will certainly be on my buy immediately list. I’ve had this plugin since the first release and it is superb.
That’s just about it for this roundup. I plan on doing these roundups reasonably frequently, perhaps monthly – as long as there is enough to write about. No doubt there will be next month after DevCon.
Thanks, and stay tuned.
About the Author: Darren Lunn is on a mission to help new FileMaker Pro developers to become competent FileMaker Pro Developers. You can connect with Darren on Twitter
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