FileMaker Roadmap

You saw the Webinar today about the FileMaker Roadmap?

You learnt what is coming next summer and what is coming or not coming for summer 2018.

In the webinar, they talked about external script steps and plugins for iOS SDK. While I already have learnt about those at DevCon and made changes to my codebase already, I'd love to hear ideas from you. If you participate in a FileMaker beta program, feel free to contact me if you like to test plugins.

So please let me know your wishes:
  • Ideas for MBS Script Steps. Which function is important enough to offer it as a simple to use script step?
  • Which functions would you like to use in the apps built using the iOS SDK?
  • Which features from the roadmap could be made available via plugin today in FileMaker 15 or older?
Selected wishes may show up in future plugin releases, some maybe before Christmas!

FileMaker Stammtisch im Bärenpark

Am 16. Dezember 2016 treffen sich ab 15 Uhr FileMaker Entwickler im Restaurant Bärenblick im Alternativer Wolf- und Bärenpark Schwarzwald in Bad Rippoldsau-Schapbach.

Es empfiehlt sich etwas früher zu kommen und eine Runde durch den Park zu machen und den Bären zuzuschauen.
Der Eintritt in den Park ist obligatorisch und kostet 5 €.

Ich versuche selber dabei zu sein bei diesem Termin. Wer kommt noch?

siehe Stammtischseite beim FileMaker Magazin und baer.de.

Silent WebViewer on Windows

When working with WebViewer in FileMaker, have you seen the annoying error dialogs from Internet Explorer?

Well, you can disable them now: Webview.SetSilent

just call for each Webviewer the MBS Plugin function called Webview.SetSilent and pass the reference to webviewer (e.g. it's object name) and the new state. 1 to block errors or 0 to show them. Showing may help to find javascript errors when developing, but in a batch automated website query, you don't want a dialog to block your script.

Set Variable [$r; Value:MBS( "Webview.SetSilent"; "web"; 1 )]

See also: Select Internet Explorer version for FileMaker. For the same in Xojo, see my FAQ.

If you need a new plugin urgently, just email me.

Videos for TouchBar and MBS Plugins

Today I recorded two videos for you to show you the TouchBar features for the upcoming 6.5/16.5 plugin releases:

XojoFileMaker
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TouchBar in Xojo
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TouchBar in FileMaker

You can already download the pre-releases of the plugins and try yourself: Xojo and FileMaker

MBS FileMaker Plugin, version 6.5pr8

New in this prerelease of the 6.5 MBS FileMaker Plugin: Download at monkeybreadsoftware.de/filemaker/files/Prerelease/ or ask for being added to the dropbox shared folder.

MBS FileMaker Plugin Decision Graphs

Just updated the installation decision graph for FileMaker 15:

This got much more complicated with 15 being 64-bit only on Mac and 14 available in 32/64bit on Windows. We even got a new Linux target with FileMaker Cloud.

And I added two new graphs to decide what license to be ordered:


I hope those help you! Please send me your comments, so I can improve them in future and fix any mistake.
As usual, if the license options don't fit your use case, maybe we can define something special for you.

FileMaker Magazin - MBS Artikel

For our German speaking users:

Wir haben die Artikel zum MBS Plugin aus dem FileMaker Magazin gesammelt hier online gestellt: FileMaker Magazin Artikel:

Wir empfehlen allen FileMaker Anwender ein Abo vom Magazin und den Kauf der alten Ausgaben. Das FileMaker Magazin ist eine excellente Quelle von Informationen, Anleitungen und Profitips.


Backup, Backup and Backup

Yesterday I visited an meeting from the Apple Store business team in Frankfurt about backups. Very basic stuff, but I learnt a few little details I missed before and got a few new business contacts.

But please take a moment to check your backup situation. Here is my recommendation:

1. Bootable USB SSD drives
Get 2 or more USB SSD disks. Size should be bigger than your internal hard disk.
Using an application like Carbon Copy Cloner, you regularly create a clone of your boot disk (and other important data). Keep one of them at home and take one with your when traveling. In case your Mac is stolen, you can get a new one and simply boot from that disk without restoring first. Back at work in minutes!
For this you keep them separated. e.g. disk in jacket with you while laptop stays in hotel room. Just keep the separated, so one can be stolen.
And Carbon Copy Cloner can be configured to copy whenever the disk is attached. This way you can attach it before you do something else and go away.

2. Time Capsules or NAS
Get 2 or more Time Capsules or some similar NAS systems. We want automatic backups as they happen automatically and we don't need to start them manually. I recommend having at least two separate Time Capsules located in different rooms. Just to avoid having them die in the same water event. And of course having two makes it more likely that one actually is usable for restoring.
The Time Capsules can store 100+ backups from last months or years easily. And as they are local and you can use them over Ethernet, restore can be quick with 40 MByte/s copied. For restoring a folder you deleted last week that will be much faster than a download via Internet!

3. Remote Backup
Having a backup which works everywhere and even provides restoring when your house burns down, is a key element. You an either use a service like BackBlaze or crashplan or in Germany maybe Cloud Backup from Domainfactory or Telekom to do online backups.
Or be your own backup provider and use a software like Arq and provide your own hosting with your own Amazon, Google, Dropbox or SFTP storage account. This eliminates the middle man for management and can be less expensive, especially if you have that storage already. With Arq you can backup to several services in parallel. For SFTP storage in Germany, I can recommend the storage box from Hetzner with up to 20 TB.
The good thing is that even in an Internet Cafe you can work on a document and regularly it is uploaded.

4. Test Recovery
A backup is only as good as recovery. A good exercise when you buy a new Mac is to take the chance and try to restore to that new Mac for a test. Just to see if you remember the required login data, password and procedures to get back the last version of the data.

Backup should be mandatory for everyone. At least for business in Germany you can get penalties if you loose some tax relevant data. And some things I learnt over time: Have always at least two disks. When restoring, the disk is used heavily, so it is likely to die soon. And please encrypt all disks! And for software developers, additionally use version control.

What are you doing?

License and customize our FileMaker SDK Extension

If you like our FileMaker SDK extension and you like to modify it for your needs, you can get a license for it.

For 499 Euro or 599 USD (plus VAT If needed) we offer you a package including full source code, up to 2 hours of online training to help with setting up your copy and you contribute to the development of this project.

We would help you to install Xcode if needed, modify the project with paths to build for you. And change the scripts to build the final SDK copy for you. And of course we change the branding so it has your name, URL scheme and function names. And if time permits we may start and add your own functions.

Of course you can also request custom functions to be added and just pay for the creation.

MBS FileMaker Plugin, version 6.5pr7

New in this prerelease of the 6.5 MBS FileMaker Plugin: Download at monkeybreadsoftware.de/filemaker/files/Prerelease/ or ask for being added to the dropbox shared folder.

Printer Switch for Windows with MBS FileMaker Plugin

For the next prerelease we add a windows print switch feature. The plugin will trigger the print or print setup dialogs in FileMaker, set the values you may want to have and closes the dialog for you:



For Mac we have the PrinterDialog functions to do similar. For Windows we now got two new functions: Printer.SetPrinter and Printer.Print.

Download movie:

Sourcecode sponsored by schubec.com.

Better Localization in MBS FileMaker Plugin

Today I discovered that FileMaker is available in Czech, Polish, Russian and Turkish versions. So I updated my texts for the MBS Plugin and for the next prerelease our additions to the script workspace should be localized in 15 languages. See this screenshot in Russian:


A lot of work and probably not everything correct with all those languages and different grammar/translations. So please, if you see something wrong, tell me soon.

The search field should show localized text as well as copy button. Contextual menu should detect "Perform Script" calls in all languages and correctly figure out the script name. The detection of variables should correctly identify the "Set Variable" script steps. Also the if/loop detection should find the matching entries in all languages.

Supported languages: Czech, German, English, Spain, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Turkish and Chinese.

FileMaker Conference in Spain

I look forward to meet Spanish Filemaker developers in Madrid:



3rd December 2016 in Madrid. Maybe you want to come and chat with me?
Registration and more details on the fmvalencia.com website.

MBS FileMaker Plugin, version 6.5pr6

New in this prerelease of the 6.5 MBS FileMaker Plugin: Download at monkeybreadsoftware.de/filemaker/files/Prerelease/ or ask for being added to the dropbox shared folder.

Video zur MBS FileMaker Plugin Schulung

MBS Plugin Workshop
Presentation

(German/Deutsch)

1:02:02 minutes
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MBS Plugin Workshop
Walkthrough

(German/Deutsch)

3:09:42 minutes
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DevCon 2016 Presentation

(English)

1:22:16 minutes
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FMK 2015 Presentation

(German/Deutsch)

49:55 minutes
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[German/Deutsch]
Auf der Monkeybread Software Webseite gibt es jetzt die Videos zur MBS FileMaker Plugin Schulung bei der Denkform.
Jede Schulung hat andere Schwerpunkte und auch wenn das Thema immer das MBS Plugin ist, so haben wir jedes mal andere Fragen und neue Funktionen.

Diesmal habe ich das ganze aufzeichnen lassen und zusammen geschnitten. Ich hoffe die Aufnahme ist interessant für euch!

Zusätzlich gibt es noch die Aufzeichnung von der 2015er Konferenz in Hamburg und die Aufzeichnung von der DevCon 2016 in Las Vegas.

Weiter Schulungstage gibt es bei der Denkform am 2. März und 7. Dezember 2017. Zusätzlich sind natürlich noch weitere Schulungstage möglich, wenn sich hierfür einige Teilnehmer finden, gerne auch als private Schulung in Ihrer Firma.

[English]
If you like to watch the DevCon presentation with news about the MBS FileMaker Plugin, please go here.

If several people are interested in an english training day, we may organize one. This can include having a custom training day in your company for your employees only. Please contact us if you are interested. (more)

Scanner Dialogs for FileMaker

With next plugin version, we add scanner windows. So you can show the following panel to select a device:



and a second panel to show the full scanner interface:



The user can scan and you get a script triggered when a new picture arrives. The user can of course scan several pictures and you may want to display them in FileMaker before the starts a script to process the images.

PS: We have the same controls available for Xojo, so you can have similar windows there, too.

FileMaker User Meeting after MBS Plugin Training

Today I enjoyed the training day with a group of enthusiastic FileMaker developers and our plugin at the DenkForm office. We checked recent features and walked through dozens of example databases to explain how things work.

Later we met for the monthly FileMaker meeting in Rhein Main area:



We had nice discussions about recent announcements from Apple and FileMaker, new Macbook Pros, the recent FileMaker conferences, my Xojo conference next year, FileMaker's way of doing business now, the staff changes in Munich, per country pricing, recent and upcoming MBS Plugin features including TouchBar, FileMaker's Cloud options, Runtime future, FileMaker Pro with Connections vs. FLT, FileMaker iOS SDK possibilities, FileMaker & macOS Sierra issues including printing bug, the question of Internet Explorer version in Webviewer and much more.

Please visit your local FileMaker user group and connect to local developers to exchange knowledge and learn what is new in FileMaker.

The next training day will be 3rd March 2017, see events section.
If there is a group of interested people for an english speaking training day in an area, we may organize one.
Or one in your company for your staff?

FileMaker Magazin Award - Lobrede

Award PictureHier die Lobrede vom Klemens Kegebein von der FileMaker Konferenz 2016 in Salzburg:

Der vierte und letzte Preisträger des heutigen Abends studierte Informatik an der Universität Koblenz-Landau und gründete im April 2000 seine eigene Firma. Seitdem entwickelt er erfolgreich Software.

2006 - vor nunmehr 10 Jahren - entdeckte er zu unser aller Vorteil FileMaker und begann, sein Wissen auch in der FileMaker Welt anzubieten: Er
programmierte ein Plugin für FileMaker.

In unfassbarem Tempo setzt er die Anregungen von Kollegen, individuelle Wünsche seiner Kunden und Anpassungen an neue FileMaker Versionen um. ln manchen Bereichen hat er das Produkt, für das er seine „Erweiterung” anbietet, nahezu überholt und zeigt, was man mit FileMaker noch alles erreichen kann.

Selbstverständlich schrecken ihn weder MacOS noch Windows - auch die Ankündigung, dass FileMaker in bälde auf Amazon Webservices als Linux laufen wird, kommentierte er nur lapidar mit den Worten „MBS-Plugin für Linux hab ich hier liegen. Braucht das jemand?”

Den FMM Award „Innovationspreis FileMakerTools 2016" für seine stetigen Produkterweiterungen im Plugin und seine Rolle als Vordenker erhält

Christian Schmitz

Spätestens beim Stichwort Plugin war allen klar, wer gemeint ist und der Applaus war nicht zu überhören.
Danke an alle für die lieben Glückwünsche. (more)

MBS FileMaker Plugin, version 6.5pr5

New in this prerelease of the 6.5 MBS FileMaker Plugin:
  • Added TouchBar functions for newer MacBook Pros.
  • Updated to DynaPDF 4.0.3.12
  • Slightly improved speed for variable checks in scripts.
  • The CURL Debug file no longer contains the transferred data unless you set CURL.SetDebugWithData to 1.
Download at monkeybreadsoftware.de/filemaker/files/Prerelease/ or ask for being added to the dropbox shared folder.

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