When writing a script to carry out a particular task, ask yourself what conditions need to be true for this script to run properly.

Sometimes, a script will do something which can potentially fail, and cause a cascade effect or errors, IF the initial conditions were incorrect. It is always a good idea to check for suitable conditions before doing anything in the script…

The Replace Field Contents command/script step is a very powerful tool for updating field values across records in your found set. This article goes into depth about the use of this command, some of its benefits, and some of the potential pitfalls you need to be aware of…

In part two, I demonstrated how to implement the basics of the join table solution in FileMaker. While the solution works fine as an illustration for join tables, it lacked many of the basic interface features that would make it a usable solution.

In part three, I will show how to implement some of these features, namely the following: Better selection of a Student for an Enrollment, Deletion of Enrollments & Prevention of “over-enrolling” a course…

Part two carries on from where Part one left off. This article outlines the construction of a basic join table solution from woe to go…

Perhaps one of the most asked questions that I see asked on the FileMaker Cafe is in regards to join tables. While some users have an understanding of what they are, they may lack the FileMaker skills to implement them. Others are unfamiliar with the concept altogether, but will explain their real word example. Usually it is a prime candidate for a join table. This article provides a real world example that will give you an understanding of why join tables are important, and in what circumstances they should be used. The example will then be implemented in a simple FileMaker solution…

FileMaker provides us with the ability to create related records directly from a portal. This is a great and easy way to generate records without the need to script the process, and for that reason it is a popular technique among both new users and Developers alike. This article extends this concept further and suggests various user interface improvements for making data entry in this method more user friendly…

In part one, we built a couple of basic conditional value lists to select sport names & equipment items. Part two demonstrated how the conditional value lists could be tweaked for use within a portal. The last part in the series gives some basic techniques to help the selection process from your drop-downs, and ensure that the chosen values remain consistent and correct…

Part two in this three-part series deals with constructing conditional value lists that are to be used within a portal. In part one, the conditional value lists built were for use on a single record on a layout. Portals however may contain many rows, each row being a record with it's own field values…

With the introduction of script triggers in FileMaker 10, live filtering or portals was made possible. Numerous techniques were introduced to help achieve this. In conjunction with existing filtering techniques, the "Live" aspect was achieved usually by introducing an OnObjectModify script trigger to the filter entry field. As soon as the user enters a value into the field, the triggered script would force a save of the fields contents, thus updating the relationship in question, which in turn updated results in a portal on screen…

In versions of FileMaker prior to 11, working with the Import Records mappings dialog was easy. You could very quickly select and deselect all mappings by selecting all fields and then clicking one of the arrow mapping icons between any two fields in the mapping…