…Continued, from Part 1 of the review

Quick Find in the native toolbar
One of the major benefits of the native toolbar is that users are getting the benefits of increased innovation as FileMaker Inc. adds more functionality to the database. They have only added two functions to the customizable toolbar: a Save As Snapshot button, and a Quick Find search field.

Without a doubt, this exponentially increases the power of a database for end users who can’t wrap their head around Find Mode, Browse Mode, and navigating between the two. It unquestionably builds upon the experience of search engines in the web space and OS X’s Spotlight function where all the data is reachable in one or two clicks away but without procedural thinking on the part of the end-user. Advanced developers have been replicating this kind of functionality for years, but most especially since v7 allowed field entry in header and footer parts, and even moreso with the advent of script triggers. For simpler databases, this feature may be the death of Find Mode as it allows users to specify which fields are included in the Quick Find index and search across those fields fairly painlessly. Ultimately, this kind of functionality is what we want from our data – smarter responses without a lot of cognitive processing by the user.

Unfortunately, I could only get this functionality to work in a simplistic fashion. When I tried it on Separation File databases, the search failed miserably and would never progress beyond a barber pole “Find In Progress” dialog box. In all-in-one files where I was on a layout for a table included within my database, the Quick Find performed well as soon as I committed and hit Enter on the keyboard. This doesn’t replicate search-as-you-type functionality a la OS X Spotlight, but it doesn’t have to and it works well in this regard. Hopefully, I missed something but, for now, the homebrewed solution that I’ve employed in more complex databases doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere.

Some other notes:

• In my simple tests, on a table with 73,000 records, search terms with 2200 results were coming up instantaneously and as fast as the search would generate through Find Mode.
• Chaining together multiple terms from different fields performed equally as well
• Search operators such as > < and … affected search results as well so it seems safe to say that this functionality is available within the Quick Find field
• There is no event fired/triggered after search results so you can chain on any additional scripting
• The toolbar doesn’t really allow customizable buttons beyond the functionality already available in v10

The New Inspector Palette
With wider displays and the collection of various functionality that is distributed throughout older versions of FileMaker software, the inspector is a welcome addition. It centralizes all the little modal dialogs and modifications available to any field on a layout, in a 3-tab format, that floats nicely in Layout Mode only.

All the functionality is there from throughout the application: Alignment, Text Formatting, Field Behaviors, Paragraph & Tab control, and more. This is a simple refinement that is long overdue. It shows its value as you won’t want to go back to databases without it, once you’ve gotten use to the productivity boost from not having to wade through modal dialogs. See a small video ’bout it here.

Invoice Starter Solution
Ummm, really? Yawn. Are we really supposed to upgrade for this? Perhaps for an unseasoned user/developer, this can provide a lot of useful instruction and basic out of the box functionality, but it doesn’t add much in my book.

Layout Folders
If your solution has grown beyond just a couple of layouts, this simple organization can be a godsend. Again, this is the kind of refinement that is just simple and elegant. Frustratingly, it’s so simple and elegant that it’s annoying for users to have to wait till v11 of a product to get it. BUT, it does add tremendous benefit to navigating larger solutions, with multiple windows and layouts.

The old layout management forced everything into a single list as shown above, whereas with a simple modification, your layouts can be organized hierarchically, as shown below, in version 11.

The remaining features
There is more to discuss but a lot of these come across as minor enhancements except for one or two. In order of priority:

• Built-in portal filtering – This normalizes functionality developers have been re-inventing with every iteration of FileMaker. Hopefully, this settles it as it allows layouts and portal components to automatically show only related records based on a calculation rather than complex relationships that have to be created through advanced techniques such as constant or cartesian joins. See a demo here. Verdict: Very useful.
• Additional Script Triggers – v11 has added three additional script triggers to the event model in FileMaker. They are fired when exiting a layout, before an object is validated, and when changing between form, list, and table views. Verdict: Very useful.
• Smoother scripting workflow – Now, when defining buttons and triggered scripts, you can modify scripts through the Button Setup dialog box rather than backing out of the current window and navigating to the Manage Scripts window. Verdict: Helpful.
• Improved file security – Some security concerns are still present in previous versions of FileMaker. v11 apparently has a new security model which closes the back door on field access through external files. Verdict: Very useful.
• Variables in Find Requests and Merge Fields – Variables in stored find requests should definitely create more opportunities to reduce script complexity and simplify database schema. It’s hard to imagine any good usage of stored searches without variables, so this feature is long overdue. In addition, we can now display variables in merge fields which should also reduce database complexity. Matt Petrowsky has pointed out in his very illustrative video presentation, that the current implementation is flawed and that if the variable is empty or not yet created, then the window displays the merge code e.g. <<$$MyVar>> in Browse Mode. Hopefully that implementation will be polished in an update. Verdict: Helpful.
• Updated UI to Instant Web Publishing – With the advent of the new toolbar, FileMaker has finally added much needed spit and polish to Instant Web Publishing which now replicates the look and feel of the native FileMaker toolbar. While they did replicate the look and feel, any custom button names performed through clever menu items is not replicated in IWP. So if you’ve changed the New Record button to read New Inventory Item in the native FileMaker toolbar, it will not be reflected in IWP and still read as New Record. Verdict: Helpful.
• Text highlighting – Ummmm, you can change the background color on layout items such as merge fields to yellow. And they made a button for this… Verdict: Useless.
• Object badges – Now you have an easier and more visual way to identify fields that have tooltips, script triggers, are linked to Quick Find, and other different properties. Verdict: Helpful.
• Copy & Paste Custom Functions – This should be more appropriately named as import functions from other files in one or two clicks. Simple, as advertised, but a definite productivity to Advanced developers. Verdict: Helpful
• Updated GUI – This version seems to have taken a cue from Bento and uses some graphical niceness to smoothen transitions. In addition the font in the Calculation dialog and almost all other windows has been changed from the monospace font to a proportional font. Aesthetically, it’s nicer but it doesn’t add anything productivity-wise and may hurt developers who space out calculation code in particular ways. The Manage Scripts window and Layout Mode both have been updated to display a ghost of whatever object you are moving and update the screen after releasing the object in its new place. Previously, the object was updated on the display in real-time. Verdict: Negligible.
• Script refinements – When specifying a Print script step and saving the configured options, the saved printer name and other options are now displayed in the script step. Verdict: Helpful.

There are still quibbles throughout the application that need that refinement that other parts of the program have gotten, for example:

• runtimes still have no close button
• toolbar buttons aren’t fully modifiable
• conditional formatting doesn’t change border color
• dialog alerts still default to a too small size
• still no integration with Addressbook, iCal, Apple Mail, and iPhoto on the Mac side
• and more

but all in all, FileMaker Inc. has put forth a solid release. Dominique Goupil once presented to the NYFMP user group and mentioned how the various internationalizations of FileMaker Pro, plus the various platforms and operating systems creates a large cost for updating even small features, so it is impressive that some of these larger ones have finally happened. As always, it’s good to see but developers always want more. If you’re still on version 7, now is finally the time to upgrade. If you’re coming from version 10, and if the charting, report creation, and filter options don’t seem useful for you, then hold out for another 20 months or so until v12!