Hey Trixi,

You're right that it may not seem like a pile of upgrades when you consider that it has taken place over six years, but each one of those upgrades has made my life much easier, and my development much quicker.

FileMaker seems to follow the same upgrade philosophy of its parent company. Lots of little upgrades -- making sure each feature is as bug-free as possible -- instead of throwing a pile of new features at us that haven't been tested as thoroughly. First, they create a new feature, making it as airtight as possible; then they expand on it to make it cooler. I'd love to see more, but am happy that I can trust each new upgrade to be relatively bug-free.

I've seen and created some sophisticated interfaces in FileMaker, and how do you define "programming"? FileMaker may not have a generally accepted programming language, but its point-and-click scripting tool is very powerful; it can really do almost anything you need done in FileMaker, and can even interact with some other programs.

FileMaker is trying to be both: a professional development tool, and a beginner custom database. We may find it frustrating at times, but it's a good solid tool.

Of course, there's always room for improvement and new features. That's why I'm looking forward to FileMaker 12.

Paul



--
Paul Spafford
FileMaker Database Superhero,
Spafford Data Solutions

Tel: 613 838 9956
www.paulspafford.com
www.ottawafilemakerdeveloper.com
www.fmlayoutmode.com






On Jan 26, 2011, at 1:56 AM, Beatrix Willius wrote:

> I'm mostly a developer in Realbasic and Access.
> 
> The idea of Filemaker is great, but the tool is disappointing.
> 
> In Realbasic I can do the interface I want to 99%, but it's a lot of work. Access get's me about 75%, but doing nice interfaces in Access just sucks. The programming environment hasn't changed much in 10 years, but it's solid. Filemaker is good when you want simple things. What about a simple 3 pane UI like many applications now have? For Filemaker I need
> 
> - ability to do sophisticated interfaces
> - ability to do programming
> 
> Instead of doing important changes Filemaker rather concentrates on beginner apps like Bento. I have given up mostly on Filemaker. The versions below are since 2004! It's a joke what Filemaker thinks is an upgrade. The features below should have belonged to one upgrade.
> 
> On 26.01.2011, at 05:04, [log in to unmask] wrote:
> 
>> Seriously? I'm of the exact opposite opinion, Jonathan. There have been some amazing features for developers since v6! Think of how much faster you can develop now than you could back then.
>> 
>> 7 offered the ability to have multiple tables -- and external tables -- in one file which (along with the addition of script parameters) made scripting easier.
>> 
>> 8 gave us tabs, which totally reduced the number of layouts needed -- and the time to create them -- as well as the data viewer (which is HUGE for debugging and for writing new calculations). We also got custom menus, which helped to clean up our layouts even more.
>> 
>> 9 gave us conditional formatting and auto-resizing, to make our layouts cooler and faster to create, as well as non-modal scripting windows (which is just the coolest!).
>> 
>> 10 had the ability to insert objects into the tab order (huge time-saver), and script triggers, which gives us more control over the interface, and just about every other little thing.
>> 
>> 11 has the Inspector (I like it!). It also has charts, portal filters and quickfinds: things that we've been creating for years, but are now native.
> 
> Mit freundlichen Grüßen/Regards
> 
> Trixi Willius
> 
> http://www.mothsoftware.com
> Mail Archiver X: archive, clean and search email
> http://www.beatrixwillius.de
> Fractals, 3d landscapes etc.