Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Filemaker 9 introduces more useful features and better SQL integration

I just finished reading the specs for the new Filemaker 9 and the great news is that it is compatible with 7, 8, and 8.5 so there will not need to be a further migration to use the version 9 client. One of the major new features is the ability to exchange data with external SQL and Oracle databases. It also lets you produce a PhP-powered database-driven website directly from within Filemaker. Other new features include:

*New Conditional Formatting that can be applied to fields, FileMaker Web Viewer objects, text objects, or text based buttons. Choose from a list of pre-defined conditions or create your own with a calculation for enhanced reporting. For example, you can now set future due dates to green and past due dates to red and bold. ( I won’t have to create special calculated fields to do this anymore)

*Just click on Send Link and FileMaker Pro will create an email with a simple hyperlink that when clicked on, will open your database. You can edit the email in your email client to add any additional instructions or information about your database for your users making it easier than ever for your users to connect to your database.

*With the new Append to PDF feature, you can combine multiple reports into one PDF and email the PDF to the recipients you specify, connecting them to the latest information. (I think the Send as Excel and Send as PDF feaure was one of the best of the last version)(Again a great timesaver for solutions with dozens of scripts)

*Add a status bar or display HTML content stored in your database with the new FileMaker Web Viewer options. (Does this mean no more coffeecup?)

*Field Level Spell Checking so you can turn on or off visual spell-checking for individual fields.

*Multiple Undos and Redos so you can undo and redo more than once when editing text within a field.

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