FMLayoutMode.com

All right, so it’s been almost a week, and I still haven’t posted about FileMaker’s new product. I’ve been busy, okay?

Busy figuring out how to use the coolest product ever!

FileMaker Go is a new iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad app that you can use to either run standalone FileMaker databases, or access databases being hosted by FileMaker Server.

For the most part, it just works. If you really want to, you may be able to just open your database with FMG and start using it. That’s cool.

The biggest warning is that there are some script steps — about 50 of them — that don’t work on FMG.  Fortunately, they’re ones that kind of make sense, and some that you may not use much anyhow. So they should be easy to find. You should really check these out before you go primetime with FMG.

Soliant and the Richard Carlton Group have released files and white papers to get you up and running. There are also some good article’s at FileMaker’s Knowledgebase on their site — especially Answer ID 7734. This lists most of the behaviour changes.

The help file that comes with FMG is also very helpful.

How does it affect layouts? The maximum widths that a layout can be on an iPhone without scrolling:

• In Landscape: 320 pixels
• In Portrait: 255 pixels

On an iPad:

• In Landscape: 768 pixels
• In Portrait: 673 pixels

So, you should probably make special layouts for FMG, and restrict yourselves to the portrait widths; turn on auto-resizing to make your layout wider if your device is turned sideways.

If possible, make your whole layout a square of the portrait maximum. But if you have to make users scroll down, that’s not such an issue. Scrolling both down and sideways however: Definitely not cool.

Your buttons and fields should also be bigger to accommodate your chunky little fingers. Okay, I’m sorry, your fingers aren’t chunky. They are, however, much chunkier than a mouse pointer. You need to make it easier for users to click your bits of layout grooviness.

One other thing to consider is hibernation. In order to be approved for use on the iPhone and its family, FMG had to be able to quit its files immediately — in case the phone rings, or someone presses the home button.

You may not think that’s a big deal, but let me stress the word immediately. Your device has to be able to leave FMG without delay if you are entering data, or in Find Mode, or in the middle of running a script. Do I have your attention now?

So you need to look long and hard at what scripts you’re allowing your FMG users to run. Now that that little tidbit has had a chance to sink in, I’m sure you can think of one or two scripts that you would not want to quit in mid-process.

Having given you all the warnings, however, the best thing you can do is just try it out. It currently costs $20 for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and $40 for the iPad. That’s dirt cheap for such a powerful application.

If you have one of these devices, go on iTunes right now and get these apps. FileMaker has always made cool stuff, but they really outdid themselves this time.

Please leave some comments with your thoughts on the new product.

Notes:

1. I’ve always just called the main desktop application “FileMaker”, and wondered why they hung on to the “Pro” part of it. Now we’ll all be saying the “Pro” again, to differentiate from the “Go”.
2. In its first day of sales, FMG was one of the top sellers in the app store. It’s here, so get used to it.
3. Another thing it doesn’t do is Preview Mode. It’s almost like FileMaker Inc. knew what they were doing in FM10 when they gave us the ability to see subsummaries in Browse Mode. Hmm.
4. What with all the resizing our layouts need to do, it’s almost like FileMaker Inc. knew what they were doing in FM9 when they gave us the ability to auto-resize. Hmm.

Paul Spafford
FMLayoutMode.com
Spafford Data Solutions