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Provides: Flat and Relational database creation

Developer: FileMaker, Inc.

Requirements: G3 Macintosh, Mac OS X v10.2.8, CD player and hard disk drive

Retail Price: $299 new; $149 upgrade

As mentioned in my review of FileMaker 6, that was the last version of FileMaker that would run in Mac OS 9. If you have no plans to upgrade to OS X and are happy using FileMaker 6 in Mac OS 9, you might want to stop reading now. On the other hand, if you've enjoyed using FileMaker 6 in OS X and want to enjoy the new features of FileMaker 7, get ready for a treat. You will be mostly glad you did, as this new version of FileMaker has the most user-level benefits in a long time. This is one of the best FileMaker upgrades for the general user since FileMaker went relational.

In fact, there are so many new features, improved features, and other benefits that. if I fail to mention or inadequately mention some feature that is of importance to you, I apologize. I'm doing the best I can—there is much to talk about.

Let me also warn you from the get-go that this new version has the worst "User Guide" (both printed and PDF) in the history of FileMaker. At best, the User Guide provides comments on features in FileMaker and invariably refers the reader to the online help file. The help provided by the FileMaker Help is barely better. Typically, FileMaker's help and manuals provide some level of assistance for those who are already familiar with FileMaker Pro. As such, most users will depend upon third party books to avail themselves of full use of FileMaker. Alas, the only FileMaker 7 book available at this point in time is Sams Teach Yourself FileMaker in 24 Hours by Jesse Feiler from Sams Publishing (ISBN: 0-672-32578-0, $24.99 U.S. estimated retail price). All other FileMaker books are expected to be released sometime this summer. [This article was written at the beginning of June, 2004. As these books become available, I hope to review them. Please check back.]

For those who are unfamiliar with FileMaker and/or database creation programs, let me quickly state that when you get FileMaker, you are essentially getting an opportunity to create your own collection of data. I like to make the analogy of business cards: how does one file them? Does one place the business card for their tax preparation person under "J" for John, "S" for Smith, "B" for business, or "T" for taxes. Either one gets four business cards or one enters that person into his database once but creates key words in appropriate fields so that the tax preparer can easily be found. This is opposed to bringing up the Find command in Word to find all the occurrences of taxes in a file, and then digging around, looking if the information I want is to be found A database is as good as you make it to be able to quickly find what you are looking for. Consider a TV cop show where they are looking for all the NY license plates with the letters "JK" on a blue Chevy registered in the Bronx. That's a database at work.

The good news is that if you are new to database work, you can always adapt one of the 30 supplied database solutions provided for your needs. If you are not proud that you didn't create the database from scratch, it's an easy way to get started early off. There are other benefits to these templates, and I'll get back to them later.

Despite all the new features, there was one old feature that was dropped: if you look very closely on the side of the FM7 box, in the smallest of print is a short sentence: "**FileMaker Pro 7 can not be used as an ODBC or JDBC data source on the Mac OS X." However, FM 7 does support both of these as well as XML and XSL. FM just can no longer be used as a source for those data types. [By the way, the origin location for the referenced "**" was on a box surface perpendicular to where this text was.]

Function wise, I did notice a problem with the auto self-numbering performing somewhat erratically (where new records were not consistently obtaining a number and imported numbers failing to receive numbers). I haven't seen the problem with 7.0 v2 so I can suppose it was repaired even though that issue was not listed in the repaired or corrected list. Unfortunately it was an erratic problem that was not possible to easily replicate.

One other warning, FM7 has so many new features, and because it was a complete re-write of the entire program, it is not backwards compatible with previous versions. If you are by yourself, no problem. But, if you share files with other people, there is no choice but for all to upgrade or all to wait. There is no other alternative. Well maybe Web Publishing, more on that later.

I am going to divide the review into two parts: one for the user and one for the programmer. Most of the improvements in the last several versions were much more relevant to the programmer. The user only received a few cookies while the programmers got nice dinners. In this version, both get full dinners.

For the user, there are a lot of new features.

FileMaker 6 could import images. Now it can import just about any kind of image except RAW images. In addition, FileMaker 7 can now import any type of file: PDF, MS Word, video, music, etc. in the Container fields. If you are concerned about these files filling up your database too quickly, each database can now contain up to 8 terabytes of data (that's 4,000 times the old limit—I was unable to test this limit).

For me, one of the best new "user" features in FileMaker 7 is "New Window," the first item under the Window menu. What this simply does is open a new window of the database you are looking at. It will be named with the name of your database followed by a hypen-2. That is, "Your Database" will open as "Your Database - 2" so it's easy to know which you are looking at—but it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things because they are the same database. Let me give you a simple example why this is absolutely wonderful. Let's say you have a database of authors and their works and you have a layout that has a sub-summary on the authors name. The problem will show up after you've sorted and look at the preview mode:

• Bill Shakespear
  
  
  
  • Love Labor's Lost
    
  • Taming of the Shrew
    
  
  
• William Shakespear
  
  
  
  • Romeo and Juliet
    
  
  
• William Shapespear
  
  
  
  • Julias Caesar
    
  
  

Here are four separate books by one author, but ,due to variations in entry and/or typos, there are three authors in the list. In the past, you'd have to go back to Browse mode (perhaps change the layout to your data entry layout), find the errant records, fix them, go back to the layout in question, and continue looking for other items to correct.

Now, with FileMaker 7, you simply open up a new window of your database and change the errors in one window while looking for things to correct in the other window. Each window can be in any layout, in any mode. Changes in one window will automatically show up in another window as long as you are not in Preview mode. There are other limitations. For example, when you make a change in text in one window, you may or may not need to click into a different window to see the change in that window; the redraw sometimes needs a bit of a tap. Additionally, if you have a found set and add a record in one window, in a different window that new record will act as an omitted record from that found set. Also, if you make a change in Layout mode in window one, changes will not show up in window two until you move out of the Layout mode in window one. The operative issue here is that these are multiple windows of the same database, and there doesn't seem to be any limitation of how many extra windows you can open. But whether it's fixing data or comparing two individual entries, the multiple windows of FileMaker 7 is one of my top new features.

One of the first two things you'll notice when you first open a database with FM7 is the toolbar:

The toolbar has been around for some time on Windows and has even poked it's head around in FileMaker 6 in Classic mode, but, for some reason, couldn't be done in OS X until now. There's not much here of major importance unless you prefer to do the cut/copy/paste, add/delete/omit record, etc. from toolbars over command key controls. This window either sticks to the top or side of the screen, or floats, so it's easy to move it where you need it. If you don't need it, close it.

The other obvious change is the main control region. It's the same but different:

As can be seen on the image to the right, of the two images, the one on the left is FileMaker Pro 6 while the one on the right is FileMaker Pro 7. In reality, the only new items are the four icons underneath Apple's three dots. Else wise:

• Now there is an identification for "Layout" whereas before it was understood.


• Now the current record is in an obvious field, whereas before it appeared down and to the right of the vertical record book.


• Now the record book is horizontal, whereas before it was vertical.


• Now there is a different distribution of Found, Total, and Sorted data.

Fortunately FileMaker Inc. doesn't depend upon changes such as these to sell new copies.

The most noteworthy change here are the four small icons (apparently Adobe is not the only company with a driven need to make anyone with older eyes feel much older). The icons change you to the four FileMaker modes and are (in order): Browse, Find, Layout, and Preview.

Luckily, FileMaker has left all the previous mechanisms—such as the various key-commands as well as the dropdown menu in the bottom of a FileMaker window—to get to these modes.

Another big time saver is font control in text fields. Finally, it's done right. In the past, if you had a field set in (say) Times, and you were dragging or pasting text into the field that was in (say) Helvetica, that's what you got: Helvetica in a field that was supposed to Times. Despite varied attempts of scripts, exporting, importing, and a variety of other attempts at time-saving, it often fell to manually going into each field and resetting the text to the desired font. In FileMaker 7 you can set a default font for the entire database—any text pasted or imported will be automatically set at the default font. However, if you have a given field set to (say) Arial Bold, that overrides the default font, and all text placed in that field will be Arial Bold. But, let's say within a given sentence you have some dingbats. Those customized fonts within text will override both a field's set font and a database's default font.

Be forewarned, FileMaker has shifted all font control to Unicode. While this is a welcome development, there are some problems. For example, there may be problems with kerning and displaying some fonts when in Browse mode, and, if web publishing, very few browsers render all Unicode characters properly.

Alas, not everything is hunky-dory in font land, as FileMaker Pro will only work with True-type fonts on the Windows platform. For the individual Mac user, this is no problem. However, if you are creating cross-platform solutions, you have to watch your selected fonts; inadvertently selecting a Postscript or [Mac OS X] .dfont font will only show up in some generic font on a PC and identified as "unknown" font.

In addition, FileMaker has left it to the computer to do font generation. For the Mac, this is not really a problem, as it is depending upon OS X's Quartz engine. For the PC, this has been a problem. The anti-aliasing was originally too strong and smaller text was so fuzzy as to be hard—if not impossible—to read. But on both platforms, 8 point font is hardly worth the effort. FileMaker released an upgrade to v2 should solve this, but, from what I can see in Virtual PC, instead of too much anti-aliasing, there is now not enough. In my opinion, the text at small size is too pixelated to be read on any platform. At least in Browse, Layout, or Find mode, you can zoom the page to magnify the text.

On the other hand, in Preview mode, all fonts look dreadful when zoomed. So bad, in fact, as to make any attempts of reading small text in the Preview mode (if zoomed) impossible. As seen in the image below, the larger text is 9 point and the smaller text is 8 point. This is how the text appears when zoomed at 100%, 150%, and 200%. What appears to be happening is that once the Preview views are created, it is not possible for the image to be redrawn when zoomed, so all you are viewing is a magnification of the image of the text. This is absurd and absolutely not acceptable.

Other disappointments include no scroll wheel support and, if you manually drag the scroll tab, nothing happens until you unclick the mouse. So, be forewarned, if you want to move up or down just a bit at a time, you are limited to clicking away on the up and down arrows in the scroll region.

However, before I leave user benefits, let me end with another one of FM7's strengths. One of the more impressive improvements is "Instant Web Publishing." It's been around for some time now, but never this easy nor of this quality. To test this, follow these steps:

1. Start FM7 and open a database to test.


2. From the FileMaker menu, select Sharing -> Instant Web Publishing...


3. From there, you click the "on" Radio button, note the URL of your machine (generated at the time you click "On").


4. Click once on the database you want to publish. If there are more you want to publish (and are open), click on them as well.


5. Select access to "All Users" radio button


6. Click OK. You are now web publishing your database for up to five users.

1. Open your browser. I suggest you stay with either MSIE or Safari.


2. Type in the URL from #3 above.


3. You will first see the Instant Web Publishing home page (unless it was turned off in the previous window).


4. Select the desired database (if only one was selected or opened, that's all you'll see).


5. You'll be presented with a Name and Password sheet. Type in "Admin" (without the quotes) and don't bother about the password. Click OK.


6. You're done.

At this point, you'll see the database just as it was in FM7, albeit with somewhat different controls that are more in tune with what a browser can project. While you have no Layout nor Preview modes, you can Browse, Find, Sort, Edit, Add, or Delete. If you want those with access limited to certain actions, you have to set that up in either FM7 security controls and/or in the web access controls. Below is a view of a database seen in FM7 and below that the same page from Safari:

Let me also point out that the documentation (PDF) for Instant Web Publishing is by far the best documentation that FileMaker provided in this release. What this shows is that FileMaker Inc. can do good documentation, which again shows how bad the basic documentation is.

Probably the biggest limitation is that the larger the database the slower it will run on a browser. Also, "Find" buttons built into your database do not seem to work. You are limited to clicking the Find "magnifying lens" on the left side of the browser window. For control on access, use either the Options in setting up the web publishing and/or permissions for the database.

For the programer, there's lots to learn.

The first indication that FileMaker 7 is a different programming beast shows itself when you type Command-d to bring up the "field" definition box and see new options.

At first glance, things are mostly the same except for some cosmetic alignment changes. That is, until you notice three tabs on the top leading you to Tables, Fields, and Relationships.

This is the point when I can give you the bad news if you've been developing FileMaker files for a long time...it's time to start learning a whole new paradigm.

To start off, Tables. Ever since the beginning of FileMaker, the whole concept of Tables was mostly irrelevant. For every FM document, there was one table. Their coupling was so ingrained that the term hardly ever came up. To make a relational database, you related one document with another or one table to another. It didn't make a difference. [Note: for those who've only created databases in FileMaker, the term "Tables" here does not refer to those things you look at in Excel or the Tables view offered in the Browse Mode. Here, a Table refers to a collection of data. Keep that in mind as you continue reading.]

Now, you can have multiple Tables in one FM document. This means you can have a relational database with one file. A single file can have many Tables. However, there may be situations where you need more than one file, so, at times, there will be benefits of multiple files and/or times of multiple Tables. And, to make matters very, very bad, the aforementioned documentation from FileMaker is essentially silent on the subject of Tables.

However, just to give you a tingle on the advantages of Tables, consider that a relational database that used to be composed of two or more files now can be composed of one. This means that no longer will you request someone to send you "the entire database" only to receive one of several files, rendering what you receive useless. It also means that data protection is easier because you only have to encrypt one file, not many. Interestingly enough, to obtain access to any tables within a database, they are to be found in the Layouts menu. To the user, any table is as available as any layout might be. I'll get back to this when I discuss scripting.

After an extensive web search, I found an excellent article on the new FileMaker Pro 7's Tables. It can be found at the Database Interest Group for FileMaker site (the link goes directly to a PDF). If you have already upgraded to FM7, or plan to soon, I encourage you to download this document as it provides the best explanation of FileMaker and tables I've yet seen. Trust me, there is nothing from FileMaker Inc. anywhere this detailed.

I've been complaining about the poor documentation throughout this review, but let me extend it here. When you open your FileMaker 7 box, you will find a printed User Manual with only basic information on FM7, and a printed Tutorial, also with only the basic information. After installing, there is a somewhat extended information provided in Apple's Help Viewer (this is the Help application with the icon of a swimming pool's life-saving ring). Included on the disk is a PDF of the "User Manual" and the "Tutorial." Also included is a PDF with the full title of "Converting FileMaker Databases from Previous Versions." While not printed, if you are a database designer, I do encourage you to print out the 82 page document as it provides a lot of the programing differences and distinctions that make FM7 different from previous FM versions. Unfortunately, it only mentions that when converting a relational database into FM7, FM does not automatically place separate files into tables of the same database during the conversion process. While that may be understandable because many the scripts would not likely work, the manual provides no suggestions regarding in what situations you might best be served to utilize tables, nor in what situations you be best served keeping a multi-file database as multi-file.

I recall when FileMaker went from flat-file to relational, I felt at that time there was a very poor "hand holding" on how to deal with the new relational paradigm. After having "thought in a flat-file manner" for so many years, I found it a bit hard to shift to relational thoughts. Sadly, the same situation is taking place here. Which relational files should be kept as separate files and which should be integrated into tables, and why?

As a final comment on the dreadful documentation for Tables, very early on I mentioned that there are some 30 sample databases (Templates) for the beginner to work with. Despite a certain amount of overlap from within each division, twelve of these do use tables. Let me save you the time as I went through each Template folder (so you didn't have to). These templates can be found in the FileMaker 7 application folder -> English Extras -> Templates -> (the following folders)

• Business - Finance: check out the file "Time Billing."


• Business - People & Assets: check out "Lending Library" and "People Management."


• Business - General: check out "Product Catalog," and "Registration."


• Business - Projects: check out "Resource Scheduling" and "Task Management."


• Education: check out "Task Management," "Lending Library," and Registration."


• Home: check out "Photo Catalog," and "Lending Library."

These are worth checking out as I am a strong advocate of database autopsies. That is, where you make a copy of a database and rummage through it looking to see how it works and what are the inner workings. What are the steps in the Scripts, how do they work, and what happens if you do such-and-such? Sadly, you will learn more from any autopsies on these files than anything you will learn from FileMaker.

Showing that FileMaker has thought out the user interface, they have amalgamated Tables, the relational link creation, and field generation from the menu Edit -> Define. So, now when you bring up "Command-d" you can define all aspects of a database. Links are now graphically made, as seen below:

I remember a long-gone relational database called Fox (or something like that) in the late 80s—long before FM became relational—that used graphic linking for their relational connections, so this approach is not new. It is welcome nonetheless. From here, you can create links to the same file, different files, and/or different tables. All links are automatically bidirectional, as opposed to previous versions where you needed to create two relations if you needed bidirectionality.

As one would expect, scripting has been expanded to deal with the functionalities of FM7. For example, consider how widows are dealt with in regards to New Windows. If you compare the Window options from the Scripting of FileMaker 6 to FileMaker 7, it's easy to see the range of new options.

When you select "New Window," you are limited to a copy of a new window from whatever layout your database currently has showing. Be advised that all the "Specify" buttons (as seen in the window below) open up to create "Calculation fields." There are ways to bring up a new window from one of the other tables in a database, but it's not as easy as simply having a script open a different database. One example of this can be seen in the Template "Photo Catalog" from "Home" templates. Click on the button labeled "Keywords." Study the script to see how it was done.

Else wise, judging from all the templates provided, it seems that the easiest (and perhaps most practical) way to interact with a different table's data is not to have multiple windows open, but rather via a portal.

There are a variety of ways to update any previous database you may have, but if there are multiple files, the easiest way is to place all the files in a folder and drag the folder onto the FM7 icon. You will be asked a variety of basic questions, and all will be done.

Regrettably, there are no options to place relational files into tables, and, if you had multiple files before the transition, you will have multiple files after the transition. If you want to convert all those files into tables in one file, you will have to redesign the entire database and import the individual data files into their respective data tables. If you do this professionally, consider this another billing opportunity or an opportunity to create great customer relations.

In all fairness, I have to split FileMaker's grade into two, one for the application itself and one for the documentation. For the program, there is no doubt that this program is monumental in what it offers. There are tremendous strides in just about every part of the program, all for the good. However, there are also a disappointing amount of fine-tuning on the program that should have been done before it was released. The lack of magnification in Preview mode, for example. And, while I'm on the subject of fonts, I do not understand the exclusion of all font types beyond True Type fonts. Did Adobe do something to FileMaker to really tick them off, or did something else happen? Inquiring minds and all that. Lack of scroll wheel support exemplifies how it can often be details that get dropped—but shouldn't.

If Applelinks allowed half point ratings, I would certainly give FileMaker Pro 7 4.5 points. But, as I can't do that, I also cannot give five points to a program with the problems presented by magnification of Preview mode. I give this a strong buy support with the above caveats, and I do hope they are fixed soon.

Applelinks Rating: FileMaker Pro 7

Applelinks Rating: FileMaker Pro 7's documentation

Purchase FileMaker Pro 7

___________ 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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