Quick Tips

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Here you'll find a number of tips about various aspects of FileMaker Pro. If you add a new tip then please indicate if it is specific to a certain version.

Contents

General

Time Saving Key Strokes

Here's a few key strokes that will save you some time when doing things in FileMaker Pro.

  • Navigation: Use Control-Up Arrow or Control-Down Arrow to move from record to record or layout to layout (when in Layout Mode)
  • Duplication: Hold down the Command key (Mac) or Control key (Win) while drag-selecting objects in Layout Mode.
  • Selections: Passing your drag (with the key held down) through an object will select it rather than having to completely encompass it. Great for quick selections.
  • ScriptMaker: When editing a script on Macintosh, you can use the tab key to move between your script steps and the available steps. When in the available steps, use the space bar to move the selected step over to your script.
  • Dialogs: Get out of dialog boxes quickly by using the Esc key. It acts as the Done button in most cases. Just make sure you don't use it when there's a Cancel button on your Define Calculation and you've just made edits you want to keep!

Bypassing deletion dialogs

There are a number of places where FileMaker will prompt if you wish to delete an element. Fields, tables and scripts are good examples.

To bypass any prompt, all you have to do is hold down the Option key (Mac) or Shift key (Win).

Note, this also works with other confirmation dialog boxes like clicking Cancel when you want to discard any changes. In fact, you don't even have to click. Just hold down the specified key and use the Esc key to cancel out.

Bulk actions to save time

FileMaker uses a lot of lists. This includes your listing of scripts in ScriptMaker, the fields you want to include within an Export, and the fields and tables within Define Database.

The quickest way to perform bulk actions is to select as many as possible. For example, select a number of scripts by holding down the Command key (Mac) or the Control key (Win) and select the items you want affected. You can use the Shift key to select a range of items.

You then perform the desired action. For scripts, this could be unchecking or checking the box to show the script as a menu item. For the Import/Export dialog box this would be the >> Move >> button.

Just remember it's quicker to affect many than it is one-by-one.

Fonts & Text

Quick Color Change for Fonts

Want to know the fastest way to change text color?

Select a layout object that has text, hold down the Option key (Mac) or Control key (Windows) while selecting a color from the line tool will change the color of the text.

Merge field shortening

There will be times when a layout merge field is simply too long. It won't fit in a portal or won't fit in the space desired within the layout.

The trick is to know that FileMaker only needs the first character to be the desired size. So, making the remaining text a smaller font size will shrink the whole text object and allow it to fit within the space.

Hiding layout text

Keepign documentation on your layouts, specifically for the purpose of the Developer's eyes only, is a handy thing. The way you can do this is to use a calculation within the Conditional Formatting of a text object. 

 // Hidden text
 not IsEmpty( Get ( WindowMode ) )

Paste the above calculation within a conditional formatting rule and set the text color to be the same as the background color. When, in Layout mode (which is not a valid mode at all) the text will show, but will be hidden in all other modes.

Calculations

Easier Calculation Testing

Working on super long, complex calculations? Some times it’s easier to both test and compose long calculations in another application. With a calculation dialog box open, you can open a text editing application such as Text Edit (Mac) or NotePad (Win) and paste your code into a blank window. This allows you to work with code segments and offers features like Find and Replace (which can't be done within a calculation dialog box). Try it out!

I use Tex-Edit Plus or BBEdit on the Macintosh and UltraEdit-32 on Windows. Both are powerful text editors! [Contributed by Matt ]

There is also TextWrangler, BBEdit's FREE little brother. A very useful command is Balance, which quickly highlights all the text between 2 matching parentheses. [Added by Fenton]

If the important aspect is testing your calculation against live data, you can write it in the Data Viewer. This allows you to 'sample' your calc with live data. For example, if you're writing a Let () calculation with many variables defined in the first half, you can see the value of these in the data viewer by navigating to a layout in context, and showing the results of the calc in the data viewer. Example (if you're trying to debug why lat start is not working):

Let ( [ 

 src  = GetLayoutObjectAttribute ("web" ; "content" ) ;

latstart = Position ( src ; "<Latitude>" ; 1 ; 1 ) + 10 ; latend = Position ( src ; "</Latitude>" ; 1 ; 1 ) ; lat = Middle (src ; latstart ; latend - latstart ) ;

longstart = Position ( src ; "<Longitude>" ; 1 ; 1 ) + 11 ; longend = Position ( src ; "</Longitude>" ; 1 ; 1 ) ; long = Middle (src ; longstart ; longend - longstart )


] ;

latstart & " " &

lat & " " & long

)

Space bar function additions (Mac Only)

After you've clicked into the functions list, and started to type the first few letters of your desired function, you simply need to hit the spacebar to have that function be inserted into the last clicked location within the calculation you are editing.

Layouts

Using the Text Ruler to manage tabs

Use the Text Ruler option found under the View menu to quickly and easily control tabs and paragraph settings. Click into a field with text, turn the Text Ruler on and click inside the ruler to add your tabs! Double-click a tab to manually adjust its type and position.

Fast Object Duplication

When duplicating an object using Command-D (mac) or Control-D (win) the default is to offset the duplicate slightly below and to the right. This is typically 6 pixels.

The trick for multiple objects, spaced equidistant from each other, is to to position the new duplicate using the arrow keys. Once the new duplicate has been positioned, any subsequent duplications will be spaced according to the setting.

The trick is to not deselect the first duplicate.

Global Font Changes

This tip is about applying universal formatting to simliar objects. If you want to change all field labels to the font MS Sans from Arial. Select one field label and use the following key combination. Command-Option-A (Macintosh) Control-Shift-A (Windows) You can now apply a new font face, size, color or other settings from the Format menu. (Note: if a field or text object is specified as a button it will not be selected with the others of a similar type.)

Tool toggling & locking

When you need to change the text within a number of text objects on a layout, simply double-click the text tool and it will invert to show the tool is locked. This applies to all of the tools available.

When working between editing text and selecting layout objects, using the Enter key (not to be confused with the Return key) will toggle the last selected tool and the arrow tool.

Info palette jump-in keys

The Object Info palette is a useful FileMaker layout tool. It allows you to precisely change any of the various size settings for any object and provide a name for the object.

Getting into this palette without using your mouse is possible. On the Mac use these keys Control-Option-Tab.

(need Windows version)

Layout parts bypass dragging

There are times, when editing your Layout, that a layout part needs to come before or after what's in the layout.

A helpful trick is that you can hold down the Option key (Mac) or the Alt key (Win) while dragging the layout part. This will allow the layout part to ghost through all the existing layout objects.

Bulk layout renmaing

There are those times when you simply need to change a lot of things all at once. When it comes to layouts, it can be a hassle navigating to each layout.

Instead, simply choose the menu Layouts > Set Layout Order... and then double-click each layout you wish to rename.

Portals

Targeting the proper portal with Go to Field

This applies to versions prior to those with the option to name Layout objects.

Having scripting problems with Portals? If you have more than one portal on a layout then you need to target the proper portal with a Go To Field [Related::Field] step rather than the Go To Portal Row step. You can then cycle through the portal, target a specific row or perform a row relevant script.

ScriptMaker

ScriptMaker spacebar move steps (Mac Only)

Hate making multiple trips to the mouse while making a new script? You can use the tab key to move between areas in most dialog boxes including ScriptMaker scripts. On Macintosh use the Spacebar to move over a selected script step. On Windows use Alt-M. For quick access to a given step start typing its name (while in the steps area of a script) to jump to that step. [Contributed by Matt ]

Other Tip Areas

These need to be integrated and better organized.

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