10227

Provides: Create and run databases
Developer: FileMaker Inc.
Requirements: Mac OS X.4.11 or later, G4 (and 256MB of RAM), G5, or Intel (and 256MB of RAM), Super VGA (1024 x 768) video
Retail Price: New: $299 ($179 for upgrade) (No upgrade pricing for Bento users.)

The stalwart database program for the Mac and the PC, first released some 24 years ago, has just released a new version. This latest "Pro" iteration marks the decade release (with the "Pro" title) with "10." Over the years each release brought some small and/or giant steps, some more for users, while others were more for database developers. For example, I felt that the advances of FileMaker 9 were more for programmers than users, while FileMaker 8 was more for users. This one is is a good mix, albeit slanted toward users a bit more than developers. Without a doubt, the biggest change will strike you the moment you open up a database for the first time. After 24 years with a mostly similar look, FileMaker (the company) has changed the look of FileMaker (the application). The UI changes are mostly good (I do have a few quibbles here and there), but the single addition of dynamic editing, as well as a few other important inclusions, make this a mostly great update.

If you are not familiar with databases in general or FileMaker Pro in specific, you might want to look at my review of FileMaker 9 and/or the review of FileMaker 8 where, in the early part of the reviews, I cover what a database is and why there are big advantages for using them.

Although the latest version of this program's icon is no different, you will see what's new with FileMaker the moment you open your older databases. Yes, the new release is compatible with all versions of FileMaker from version 7 through this new release. To remind you, below is a screenshot of a database as seen in FileMaker Pro 9. Included in this image is the "Standard" toolbar seen just below the menus with a variety of helpful actions that are all just a click away.

The new FileMaker Pro is quite different, as seen below. The general control region that has been on the left hand side since day one of the original first version of FileMaker has been removed. Now, all of the controls are placed on the top, the top left, the top right, just below the top right, just below the middle top, just below the left top, etc. This is both great and, at least in the beginning of FileMaker use, a bit frustrating because before this release I always knew exactly where to click to change modes. Now, this item is here, that item is there, and where's the other thing? After having used it for some time now, I'm still in debate on its value. If you look at the image above, there are four small icons underneath the Mac streetlights. The first is a small pencil, the icon for the Browse mode. Here is where you can enter data, look at data, and interact with the data in your database. The magnifying glass is to go into the Find mode where you can go into a database of recipes and look for (say) cranberry muffins. The "T-square" (that's what it is, although it is hard to see) is to go into the Layout mode to arrange which fields and how your fields are distributed on any layout. Last is a generic "page" icon to show the Preview mode where you can see how your records will look when printed.

Also gone is the "Standard Toolbar." Admittedly, there wasn't much in the toolbar I used outside of the Format Painter. However, I was always using the "New Database" icon on the far left because that opened up FileMaker's Quick Start window. Since I have some eight databases I often use, the Quick Start window is a quick access to those databases. Now, the only way to access the Quick Start window is to select "New Database…" from the File menu. Not a big thing, but clicking one thing is always faster than click-drag-select. [One improvement I was hoping for was the ability to set where the Quick Start window would default open. Unfortunately that didn't happen.]

In FileMaker Pro 10, the location to select these various views has changed considerably. Now, you are in browse mode unless you are not. In the header region on the right hand side is the magnifying glass to go into the find mode, below that is a texted button to go into the Layout mode (called "Edit Layout") and to the left of Edit Layout is a text button called "Preview" to go into the Preview mode. Each of these last two are click-on or click-off buttons meaning that you click to go into Preview mode and click again to get out of Preview mode. While I fully agree with the intent of this new approach, I'm finding I'm having to hunt around too much to go into the various other modes. Fortunately the key commands to access these modes have not been changed, nor has the small drop-down menu on the bottom left of the window (where it says "Browse") changed to also select which mode you want to be in.

Instead of the open book with geeked text and arrows metaphor for displaying each record, this metaphor icon has been simplified down to only the left and right arrow. This is a fine-space reducing mechanism. One uses these arrows for clicking through the records in your database one-at-a-time (e.g., if you have a database of recipes and you've done a search for breakfasts, you can click through the various recipes that you have for breakfasts). Unfortunately, the arrow-book is not full black. From the first days of Macintosh, black was active while gray was not. When you look at the record selector, if you are at the first record, the only way you can click is to the right, and when you are at the last page of the book, all you can do is click to the left (otherwise you can click up or down through your records). If you have a null set, than both arrows are very light gray, meaning you cannot click through records because there are no records to click through. Unfortunately FileMaker is following a new direction that other software vendors are also doing by using some shade of gray as opposed to full black. While it's obvious when you are looking at either end of the records where one side is obviously a lighter shade of gray, I'm finding that when you are in the middle of a book, the pages/arrows are not as black as other items which are in the near vicinity, and I'm often confused. "What? Are there no records?" Even after having worked with this for some time now, I'm still not used to the gray arrows. Several images down in this review are some screenshots of the record arrows. You can see what I'm referring to as "not dark enough" gray and that it is hard for me to easily determine unless one of the arrows is obviously lighter gray.

Below the toolbar is a single strip called the "Status Toolbar." From this strip you can select from the various layouts your database has, as well as click on the Form view, List view, or Table view. These various views are not new to FileMaker, but accessing them from the Status toolbar is...prior to this, one had to go into the View menu for any changes. The Preview button has already been mentioned, as well as the Edit Layout button, but between these two buttons is a small button showing "Aa." When clicked, the Formatting Toolbar opens below the Status Toolbar. As is obvious, this lets you set fonts, size and paragraph formatting as you work. Unfortunately if a field has been set to (say) Verdana and you copy and past text in from Word that was set in Times, the font will enter as Times. The good news is that Formatting Toolbar makes fixing this long-standing glitch a bit easier.

Better seen in the image below is the blue drag button to quickly scroll through the various records. As always, you can also manually enter any record number you wish in the open field. A new feature is the pie chart that shows what percentage of the records total you are working with after you've done a find. Below you are seeing a found-set of 139 (out of a total of 186) records. [The "unsorted" refers to the fact that the records as currently shown have not been sorted by alphabetical, numerical, date, or some other criteria yet.] One of the nifty "hidden" features of FM 10 is if you click on the pie-chart, the omitted set replaces the original found set as shown in the bottom of the three screenshots below.

In the past, when you went into Layout mode (where you accurately place, and establish the dynamics of each field) the left side just expanded to display the various tools, as seen below, again of version 9. Below the Standard toolbar, the Arrange and Align toolbar are in place in the toolbar region (below the menus). They can be manually pulled from this location to free-float as the Tools toolbar is showing.

Now, the new FileMaker 10 follows its new header approach and fills out all of the tools along the top. Here, the Arrange and Align toolbars are now floating and shown. There is no longer a Tools toolbar (it was redundant anyway) and just as before, the Align and Arrange toolbars can either float (as shown below) or they can lock into the toolbar region under the menus as before. [Note: the Object Info palette is the same and still exists but is not shown.]

Sorting has always been a mixed bag when working in FileMaker because any time you did anything after having sorted your data, you lost your sort and you'd have to resort your data to see what you were just looking at sorted. Now, after having sorted data, the sort is dynamic and any change you make will adjust to sort what you've just changed. This effects both List view and Table view. This dynamic view also means that sub-summaries work when in List view.

While the List view is not new, and sub-summaries are very not new, this dynamic of the List view is new and is fantastic; if you have a layout that utilizes sub-summaries, in the past, the only way to "see" the effects of sub-summaries was to go into Preview mode. However, in Preview mode, you cannot make any changes. Now, when in List view, sub-summaries can display after you've made a sort. Now, if you need to make a change, you do not need to get out of Preview mode to fix the error and then find your way back to where you were. As an example, let's say you were cataloging all of the reviews Charles W. Moore and I have made here at Applelinks. Let's also assume you've set the name as a sub-summary. Now, let's say as you entered data into your database, you forgot to add Charles' middle initial, "W" every once in a while as well as identify me as both G Coyne and Gary Coyne. Thus, when previewing after you sorted by Name, then Title, you'd see:

• Charles Moore
  • Title A
  • Title D
• Charles W. More
  • Title B
  • Title C
  • Title E
• G Coyne
  • Title A
  • Title C
• Gary Coyne
  • Title B
  • Title D

This is obviously not what you'd want and would need to be corrected. As you correct each entry, the view would automatically adjust each time, eventually arriving at:

• Charles W. More
  • Title A
  • Title B
  • Title C
  • Title D
  • Title E
• Gary Coyne
  • Title A
  • Title B
  • Title C
  • Title D

As stated, the only way in the past for you to see a problem, fix the problem and see the result would be to:

1. Find the desired data
2. Sort the data as needed
3. Go into Preview mode and search for the problem region
4. Mentally note the problem
5. Go back to Browse mode
6. Find the errant record and fix it
7. Repeat steps 1-3 as needed.

One recent benefit was that FileMaker could open multiple windows of the same database, which meant you could look at the Preview mode view and see a number of records that needed some tweaking and fix them in a separate window. However, to see the results would still require you to get out of Preview mode, sort, and return to Preview mode to verify your corrections.

Now, in List mode, you can see sub-summaries, and since you have complete access to any field, you can make the changes as you work, the database would update in real time to adjust to any of your corrections. The time that this can potentially save a user is immense. The only drawback is that if you have any sliding fields, in List view they do not slide. You still have to be in Preview mode to see any compression of sliding fields to see how your database will print.

A short time ago, I did a side-by-side comparison of FileMaker's FileMaker and Bento, it can be read here. One of my comments was that I expect some of the features and/or dynamics of Bento to show up in the next version of FileMaker. Guess what? I was right. Well, mostly, kinda, sorta.

For Bento users who've been wanting more and are ready to upgrade to FileMaker, you can now "Import" your Bento database into FileMaker. This, like any Excel file, will open up in FileMaker as a long list of fields. Unfortunately you will need to fine tune the look of your database, meaning the size of the fields, the location, the order, everything. One of the features of Bento I was hoping to see in FileMaker is how Bento has floating-like fields that avoid overlapping other fields. Not so in FileMaker. Creating the neat layouts in FileMaker from scratch can be a bit of work. If you are not interested in re-creating wheels that don't need to be re-created. FileMaker does provide 30 different "Starter Solutions," or databases that have already been created, fine-tuned, and ready-to-have-data-placed-within (along with any customization you might chose to alter). Thirteen of these have had recent updating to take full use of some of the newer dynamics and features of FileMaker. If you are new to FileMaker, especially if you are converting from Bento, this is a great place to start before you undergo the task of creating a database from scratch.

[Keep in mind that once you make your first addition to either your Bento database or to your converted-into-FileMaker database, they are now not in sync. If you update your address book, that data will not be updated in the FileMaker database as it had been in Bento. You will need to update FileMaker independently from your Address book, iCal, and any other Bento projects. Once you convert your Bento database into a FileMaker database, you have to remain with the Filemaker database.]

One of the strong features of Bento was that after having been working with your database, if you didn't like its look, you could change the theme of the database on a whims notice. Now, 10 of those themes found in Bento can be found in FileMaker. However, the big difference is that you can only establish a theme at the time of creation. Once a theme is set, altering a theme means you have to create a new layout page and copy and paste all of the fields. Depending on how complex the layout, this may be fast and simple or somewhat tedious.

One area that some programmers may ponder as to whether they might update their databases' user interaction/interface is that some of the commands that are often built into databases are now potentially available in the menu bars. Unfortunately these can be customized by the user at any time, which means their potential use by programmers is limited. The full list of options are shown below.

As nice as it is to potentially display such commands as Sort, New Window, Import, Save as PDF, (etc.) in the toolbar, all of these potential commands will be universal for any database opened with that copy of FileMaker on that machine. This means that if you want to establish a given set of commands for the Toolbar to a specific database, you can't. Similarly, if you assume the user will have (at least) the default commands, don't count on it. In addition, if you have created for yourself a long, full list of commands across the toolbar and you open a database with a smallish sized (width) layout, all of the commands on the right side of the window will be off the window and will not be displayed.

This also effects the programmer as well. Earlier in this review, there is a screenshot of the Layout mode. If your window is too narrow, the entire strip of Layout controls cannot be seen until you sufficiently increase the width of the window.

Sadly, as nice as these icons are, as they currently are implemented, they are best for the user to determine if they are needed, not the programmer. It would be better if the programmer can select which icons are available for any given layout for any given database. Each set of icons could then be "locked" into each database and/or layout. Currently, there is no benefit for the programmer to implement any design that considers these tools. Additionally it would be helpful if the icons could "wrap" similar to text as the window width decreased.

There is one main set of new toys for the programmer: Script Triggers. These are events that can initiate scripts. These have been around for a long time, most commonly used when the action of opening or closing a database would cause a script to be triggered. Now there are a slew of new script triggers in two categories.

• Object-based Script Triggers
  • Click in a field
  • Click out of a field
  • Modify a field value
  • Save a field value
  • Press one or more specified keys
• Layout-based Script Triggers
  • Load a record
  • Commit a record
  • Revert to the previous record
  • Press one or more specified keys, not in an object
  • Load a layout
  • Enter a new mode
  • Exit a mode

The way these can work is, for example, you could have a record spellchecked after you "Commit a record," or, after "Modifying a field value," a script could compare that data with another field for verification.

The ability to email from FileMaker is already there but was limited to sending the email data to your email client for subsequent sending. The email command now looks pretty much as it did then with a very important addition: SMPT. As shown below, one can select that your email is sent via your email client program (Mail, Entourage, whatever), or directly from FileMaker Pro.

Sending email from your client email program worked, but had some strange issues. For instance, in Entourage where the mail would collect in the Drafts folder for you to manually send (each and every one). Beyond that, you can select whether the mail would go to a single address or the result of a found set, whether the selected email (field) data would go ito the To, CC, or BCC field of the client program, and the Subject and Message text can come from any field such as report fields or special fields for you to fill in just prior to sending the email.

New with FM Pro 10, you can do all this directly from FileMaker with FM as an SMTP source. This means you bypass the email client program entirely. The one big difference I found with testing is that the email went out, and back to myself amazingly fast. Normally, when I send myself test messages, there is a lag time of my hosting service to process the outgoing email and then processing the email back to me. Using the SMTP process, the mail was ready for me as fast as I could switch to my email program and tell it to look for new email.

When you select the SMTP dropdown menu, there is a new button called "SMTP Options" which, when selected, brings up the following window. The big thing to note here is that you can either fill in the various fields directly or they can be referred to various fields within the database for the necessary data.

Lastly, one of the special "surprise" treats is that now you can save custom Find sets. Remember that FileMaker provides true Boolean searches of "And, Or, and Not" and the complexity of a find can be quite extensive. Thus, let's say you have a database of every plumber in the United States, and you want to find all the plumbers in Ohio except for Joe. You'd do a search on one level for "plumber" under occupation, and Ohio under state. Then you'd bring up a 2nd Find request (the icon on the top left as seen below) and name, type in "Joe," and then click the Omit button. This would find just what you'd want in a new found set. If you think this is a criteria you might use often, you can save the current Find for future use. Note also in the image below that FileMaker will save your recent Finds even if you do not formally Save them.

Any such saved finds are exclusive to the computer they are on. That is, if the database is on a company server, you will not encounter any saved finds of the other users. This is both good and bad, as it might be efficient to take advantage of someone else's saved find. Perhaps in the future one might be able to export the saved find as an XML file for someone else to import.

Before I leave "Finds," let me add one more new feature that's one of those very small but very big added features. In the past, when you moved from Browse mode to Find mode, if you weren't paying attention, you'd be hard pressed to know you are no longer in Browse mode. I, like many other FileMaker users, have gone into Find mode, got caught up in things forgetting I was in Find mode, and later, after entering data for a long time, discovered I've been busy entering data while in Find mode. Thus, all the time and work that I had done after entering Find mode was time and work wasted. It was for situations like this that I learned to create scripts so that when I clicked on a "Find" button, I was taken to a completely different layout, typically of a radically different color than the normal data Browse mode layout, all so it was very obvious that I was not in my normal mode.

Finally, FileMaker has come to everyone's aid. Now, when you are in Find mode, a magnifying glass image shows up within every field. When you click into a field, the magnifying glass goes away, leaving room for you to type in your find material. While somewhat more subtle than a major color change, it does the job and I no longer have to create scripts to move me into the Find mode to move into a duplicate layout to do a Find. This is nice.

In short, after a major structural change that FileMaker Pro has just gone through, it's a safe bet there's a whole new range of future changes of FileMaker that were not added due to time limitations on this release. As with all software, any update will be superseded by the next release, and the constant question always remains: "Is this release enough for me to place my money down now, or should I wait for the next-next release?"

Obviously, the cosmetic alterations of the main interface are not enough to make most people say, "Hey, I gotta have this now!" Any time anyone puts money out, there has to be an incentive to make that change, and typically that incentive is how much more productive the upgrade make me you? Right at the very top of this decision has to be the dynamic lists. If you input data and find that you need to tweak that data due to small errors that effect sub-summaries or the like, This update is a biggie. If you like the option of personalizing some of the commands into the header of a database, than this is also an easy consideration. Similarly, Script Triggers have been long-desired by programmers, and the ability to perform SMTP directly from FileMaker is also a big plus.

If you've been attracted at the potential of what a database can do with Bento and now you want to start working with a real database program, well, jump on in. If there was any mistake (IMHO) that FileMaker made with this release, it's that there is no financial upgrade benefit for Bento users. If there had been (say) a $49 discount for Bento users (the same cost of a single user Bento license), perhaps some Bento users might be more inclined to investigate this possibility.

But all this gets down to a common statement I make after most software updates; if you use this software, you know what you need and what is of importance to justify spending money on an upgrade. I'm a real big fan of FileMaker Pro and have been a user ever since version 1, some 24 years ago. Trust me, if you've been managing data on Excel, it's time to start using some real software for data management; FileMaker is a must-have. If you already have FileMaker, then it's up to your knowledge of your needs as to whether this is a must-have update.

As this review was based on a prerelease copy of the software, no rating is given.

___________ Gary Coyne has been a scientific glassblower for over 30 years. He's been using Macs since 1985 (his first was a fat Mac) and has been writing reviews of Mac software and hardware since 1995.

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