Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with filemaker

Does there exist a lightweight and attractive forms based database?

Ookseer — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 14:12:52 -0800

Can you recommend a forms based database like Filemaker, MS Access, or OoO Base, but lightweight? I'm using Base right now and it works well, but it's a huge mammoth of a thing and takes up a lot of memory and CPU that I'd rather use for other things. (I use it on a laptop when I DJ so taking over the CPU mid show is a problem.) I'm looking for something that is, in order of importance:

- Windows (XP)
- Not a resource hog
- Not web based.
- Has highly customizable forms.
- Has decent data export (csv, excel, etc)

It doesn't need to deal with millions of records so a SQLite based DB would be enough. Price is less of a consideration that the rest.

It's been forever since I've used FileMaker (Version 5 I think), but I remember it being a similar beast. Is that still true?

Tabs in Filemaker not working

cg1 — Tue, 13 May 2008 08:34:19 -0800

When I try to create a tab using Filemaker Pro 8.0v2 on my Mac (OS version 10.4.11), it displays correctly in "edit" mode. But when I enter data-entry mode, FM "sees through" the tab - and displays all fields (from all the tabs) stacked on top of one another. Clicking the other tabs, I see the same thing - all fields stacked. The *first* time I created the tabs, I dragged all the fields into the proper place and went into data-entry mode. It worked properly. I then went back into edit mode and moved the tab window slightly, changed the color of the two tabs to make the display more aesthetic. *Then* it stopped working - and no matter what I do, won't display properly (all fields across tabs are stacked).

After hours of trying to re-create the tabular box and varying little things (not changing color, etc), I never got it to work again. I called my colleague, who I share the database with online, and asked her to try to set it up - thinking it was a problem with my local version of FM. She created the tab and it worked! I then changed one of the fields within the tab and it reverted back to the problem display (stacked fields).

She tried re-creating the tab from scratch... Same problem. Thinking that it only takes the first time created on a machine, we got all fields formatted exactly as we want them, and pulled a third colleague in - thinking we could have her create it for the first time and it work, then just drop all the pre-formatted stuff into the new tab. It didn't work.

I'm at wit's end. Any suggestions?

Simple Point Of Sale software solution

shinynewnick — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 22:01:25 -0800

Help me find an easy Point of Sale software solution for our business I've just gone through two months of absolute frustration dealing with a custom FilemakerPro programmer that my company hired. Unfortunately, he is not good at what he does, accepts no fault for the constant errors and mistakes in his program, and we are ready to dump him and count the 2/3rds payment as a loss and move on to another solution.

Our needs are fairly basic:

1. Seven registers selling various items within one location. Three registers sell Concessions, three sell Souvenirs, and one sells a single separate Concession item.

2. Centralized data for the registers. We need basic reports by station, items sold, etc.

3. A very, very easy touch interface. Virtually none of our items are barcode scannable, so a series of buttons with items on screen is ideal.

4. IP based credit card support.

I've been looking at several other solutions lately (this wasn't my project when the decision to go custom was made), and Quickbooks POS doesn't look good for a touch screen setup; Microsoft Dynamics POS looks promising, but haven't had a chance to give it a test drive.

I'm fairly certain there are good Filemaker programmers out there who have quite possibly made a POS solution; we already purchased 7 copies of Filemaker Pro and the Filemaker Server to run the data.

We have the Dell POS hardware in place already, so looking for any experience you have with PC based POS software.

How do we build a web site based on some Filemaker databases?

procrastination — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 08:49:45 -0800

My mother-in-law is a horse breeder and wants to create a web site that shows the lineage of a particular breed of horses. She has some of the data in a Filemaker 5.5 database, but needs to expand it greatly and put it online. How can we go about doing this, and/or hiring someone to do it? Mrs. Procrastination-in-law breeds an unusual type of horse. She is very involved in promoting the breed, and wants to put online a web site that shows the lineage of many horses. She has data on about 1,000 horses, but is making contacts overseas to expand the collection of information to many thousands more (say 15 or 16 thousand). The data she has is in Filemaker 5.5 for Windows, in a format that someone created for her in the past. She is comfortable working with it.

What we would like to be able to do is this:

- Have her edit the database in Filemaker. Currently, she has the old version running in boot camp on a Mac. We would prefer to use a newer Mac version, and are willing to buy it if it helps.

- Have that data easily uploaded somehow into a database that is the back end of a website, as she updates or makes edits to the database. One of the fields in the Filemaker database, though, should be a check box of whether to include that particular horse in the online database, since some owners may not want that public, even though they don't mind her having the record.

- Have a web site that allows browsing and searching of the horses, and the ability to traverse up and down through the lineage. It doesn't have to be particularly fancy.

Looking online at the Filemaker web site, I see that Filemaker can serve as the back end, but she is mostly on dial-up, so that isn't really an option. We would need to find a hosting service that provides a full-time back end. I have used dreamhost, so I know that at least mysql is available. I just don't know how easy it would be to propogate updates from Filemaker to mysql.

Any ideas, comments, or suggestions? Where could we hire someone reliable to do this? Should we not be using Filemaker? Is there a better process we should be looking at?

Making a handy phone sheet for a small business

phaedon — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 10:03:08 -0800

I'd like to find an application that would help two assistants keep track of incoming phone calls (and their status) for a small office of 10 employees, without having to commit to an expensive database solution like Filemaker. Ideally, the assistants would be able to record who called, when, and for what reason, and that information would be shared with the rest of the office. Then each call could checked as "incoming" or "resolved".

Anyone have any tips or obvious solutions for making a simple but handy phone sheet that I am missing?

How do I combine records in Filemaker?

parkerjackson — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 09:20:25 -0800

Filemaker question: How do I combine two records into one? I’m pretty new to database construction, and I need some help with Filemaker 9.0. I’m reading in data from a text file full of test scores (FYI, a fixed-width file, nothing fancy). Each kid has taken two tests (with multiple battery scores) and has two rows of data, one for each test. I'm using the Middle() command to extract the columns I want for each test. When I read in the data, I end up with two records per kid. How do I collapse them into one? (Bonus if I can somehow read them in on one line in the first place.)

Data set I have:
ID_ A1 A2 B1 B2
Julie .. .. 87 89
Julie 92 95 .. ..
John .. .. 97 82
John 82 75 .. ..

Data set I want:
ID_ A1 A2 B1 B2
Julie 92 95 87 89
John 82 75 97 82

If this is a trivial question, sorry. I did try my google-fu and the help files before posting here.

How to best manage a physical mailing list?

LongDrive — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 02:15:34 -0800

How to manage an unwieldy mailing list (for physical mailing) on a Mac. I use an opt-in mailing list that I use to send out promotional mailings from my business. This is a physical mailing list that I print labels from through Indesign. I have been maintaining these databases using the new Numbers software from Apple (because my both myself and my lovely Mac do not get along with Excel).

Every few weeks I am sent an updated master list that has new contacts added, and deletes out of date ones.

I am looking for some solution that can compare my local edited copy with the new master copy, and update my local copy as required.

Something mentioned in this thread would be useful, but I am not collaborating with another person per se, rather being provided an updated list every few weeks by a third party. (fyi, this is not spam)

If budget allowed, I would love to hire a Filemaker or Excel guru to build a custom thing for me, but I was wondering if anyone knew of any alternative software for Mac that could possibly perform this function or simply better manage this list?

How do I finess Filemaker Pro?

segatakai — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 06:56:23 -0800

How do I get Filemaker Pro to look up dates from one table and put them into another? Ok. I have a database, created in Filemaker Pro 7.
Each record in the database has fields corresponding to names and dates (plus a laundry list of other things). Below, I have produced a mock-up of what I am trying to do, simplified for ease and (hopefully) clarity (I can't get the tabs or spacing to work here, but I think you can get the idea). For each record, there is a "Name" field, a "Date1" field, a "Date2" field, and a "Date3" field.

Usually, I want to produce a list, which sorts by name, and presents each of the dates for each name.
George 10/10/03 4/4/04 3/3/07
Hank 9/9/04 7/7/07 8/8/07
John 6/6/06 11/11/07 12/12/07

That's easy enough. But I also want to be able to produce a list which sorts by date (all dates), and gives the name associated with each date.
10/10/03 George
4/4/04 George
9/9/04 Hank
6/6/06 John
3/3/07 George
7/7/07 Hank
8/8/07 Hank
11/11/07 John
12/12/07 John

Ideally I'd also like to have a note associated for each date also be displayed. This would mean:
George 10/10/03(a) 4/4/04(g) 3/3/07(x)
Hank 9/9/04(g) 7/7/07(a) 8/8/07(g)
John 6/6/06(x) 11/11/07(x) 12/12/07(a)

and
10/10/03(a) George
4/4/04(g) George
9/9/04(g) Hank
6/6/06(x) John
3/3/07(x) George
7/7/07(a) Hank
8/8/07(g) Hank
11/11/07(x) John
12/12/07(a) John

I suspect it's probably not that tricky, but I just can't get my head around the relational aspect of databases, and I don't currently have a manual, and the Help is frustratingly vague. Not knowing quite what to ask also makes it difficult to search for answers on the web, so I'm turning to the AskMe crowd. Anyone an expert, with a flair for explaining things such that a simpleton can grasp? I did google, and I did search Ask Me, but I don't know the terminology, in order to successfully phrase a search to come up with something useful. Also, I might not know something useful if it bit me in the ass...

Bonus question (or, on second thought, maybe it's the question): Can anyone recommend a book, or training of some kind to help understand the more complicated workings of Filemaker Pro? I've been using Filemaker for years, but I know I'm only scratching the surface of what it can do. FWIW, I'm currently in Japan; access to books or training in English is not impossible, but ... complicated.

Thanks kindly.

XSL Simple Code

crapples — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 14:28:01 -0800

Filemaker Pro XSL Web Publishing Filter: I don't know XSL syntax at all, but what I want to do should be very simple. Details inside... All I want to do is take the page that FMP created with it's web publishing software (written in XSL) and add a link to a regular URL to the page. I tried a standard href line, as I would do in HTML, but it didn't work. What is the XSL language that will give me a link?

Thanks a lot! I can't find this online anywhere.

Could I design databases for a living?

argybarg — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 18:43:05 -0800

Can I, should I, make a career change into database design? I'm a teacher, former graphic designer and amateur computer nerd. I've found that in building a backside for my classroom projects (using FileMaker) I've gotten way into database design. I find constructing a data model and making it talk to be strangely thrilling -- great mind food. I even like the theoretical side, data normalization and all that, without fully understanding it yet.

On my hardest teaching days I wonder if, at 37 and without IT experience, I could become a data architect for a living. Some questions:

-- Is it typically an interesting job? I know most people would find all of it painfully dull, but I'm wondering if people who start out finding data modeling interesting wind up hating the work. Is it all writing routine queries or are there big, juicy problem-solving projects to be had?

-- Is there a career path aside from years of entry-level work followed by slowly collecting new job titles? Can I teach myself and hope to work before I'm 50?

-- I assume FileMaker is a peashooter in a world of big guns like Oracle and SQL. Is this correct? What should I be learning? What about PHP?

-- Am I nuts?

Thanks in advance.

How to uninstall a Mac app without the CD?

lorimer — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 11:25:29 -0800

On Mac OS 10.4, how do I completely uninstall FileMaker Pro 8.5 Advanced without access to the physical CD? Then how do I test that it's entirely gone?

Can FileMaker read from SQL?

mark7570 — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 15:48:42 -0800

Can FileMaker read from a SQL database? I've talked to (SQL) developers and they can't find a way to do it. I have a FileMaker 8 database which is hosted online (i.e. not just on my local computer). Separately I have a SQL database also online.

I'd like a script within the FileMaker database - or any way to do this within FileMaker, doesn't have to be ScriptMaker - such that the FileMaker database will reach into the SQL database and read some data.

I know there's some vague mention of ODBC in the FileMaker manual, but my developers can't figure out a way for FileMaker to do the above. Any help?

Password emergency / mystery with Filemaker

lorimer — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 00:26:24 -0800

Password emergency / mystery. I'm a new Filemaker user and I've somehow set a password that's keeping me from accessing the file I just put two days of work (and some not easily replaceable data) into. I'm running Filemaker Pro Advanced 8.5v1 on an Intel Mac (OS 10.4.8).

I installed and started learning Filemaker on Friday. I was playing around with all the settings and options, and one is password-protecting a file. Since I was only experimenting with making my first file, and since I (wrongly??) thought I was setting a file-level rather than application-level password, I put in a throwaway password which I now do not remember and have no record of. The next time I tried to open this file it prompted me for the password, I tried a few times but couldn't remember it, and I gave up and created a new file.

This second file DID open repeatedly without a password during the same session of the application (i.e. app had not been restarted since creation of this second file, but file closed and opened freely). Unfortunately this session didn't shut down properly because of an unrelated issue (buggy unrelated app -- which I must use -- that occasionally makes my system stop responding and need to be manually shut down by holding the power button).

After I restarted the computer and Filemaker, my attempt to open this second file gave me the same password prompt. I'm 100% positive I didn't set a file-level password for this second file. This second file was made from scratch, not from a template and not a copy of the first file.

I tried creating a third file -- doing nothing but defining a few fields and one record, saving the file, and restarting the app. This third file DOES OPEN without a password -- implying this is not an app-level password issue.

During all of this I've been logged in as an Administrator-level user. The username in the password prompt is my Administrator username (but my system-level Administrator password is definitely not the password Filemaker wants). The option to log in as "guest" is greyed out.

I've Googled and the only Filemaker password reset or recovery utilities I can find are for Windows. Filemaker's Help says nothing about removing a password.

Please tell me there's some way to open my second file. I unfortunately put a LOT of work into it over the weekend, both data entry & careful layout/formatting. I dutifully made running backups of it... which are of course as unopenable as the original. Trying to open the file in a plain text editor gives me nothing usable (just strings of random-seeming characters).

I'm ready to entirely uninstall and reinstall Filemaker if it will help, but I can only assume these first two files have some metadata that says "no copy of Filemaker can open me without this password." If I were the company, I would've put in many safeguards to prevent me from doing what I'm trying to do now...

FileMaker me?

weaponsgradecarp — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 12:59:53 -0800

FilemakerFilter: I need some database help, because I am a n00b. My FIRST robotics team is creating a database of teams at our regional event, for scouting... ...but I've never used FileMaker before.

Each round of the robotics competition has six randomly selected teams playing on two alliances

For each match, I want six computers in the stands, each with a person collecting data on one team that match.

Right now, I have a set of fields set up that have data on each match as follows:

Team # the person is scouting
Who their alliance partners are
color of that alliance (red/blue)
who the opposite alliance is (3 team #s)
a bunch of checkboxes and dropdowns that define the abilites of the robot you're watching
text comment field
win/loss/tie dropdown

I want to be able to have six computers simultaneously be entering data into this form over a network, match by match, and then be able to pull up a summary view from a 7th machine that will sort the data by showing a list of team #s, what matches they played in, and their ability data from each match.

my filemaker database file can be found here:

http://www.cheapfilehost.com/file.php?file=d8dd2740e6562d25bfbee444b5a6edc3

and a diagram of what i'm trying to do here:
http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/6572/diagramww2.jpg

Thanks for your help...

Filemaker redux

anonymous78 — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 09:20:39 -0800

How do I add a single piece of data to a list of Filemaker entries (1500 out of 4500)? I do not want to replace data, just add. The previous posts on adding data to multiple entries talk about replacing data which I know how to do. I just want to add a single phrase to a field that already has information in it.

The entries I have isolated are by state and I need to be able to expand/contract this list independently of this sorting option, so I want to identify them differently.

Is there no way to do this in a single move?

Dark Ages version of FileMaker Pro

anonymous78 — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 11:24:15 -0800

I'm using Filemaker Pro 5.5 and one of the fields is locked, so to speak. It's supposed to have several possible entries/terms but only one pops up when you click on it. I therefore can't search for records with any other terms. Any ideas how to fix this?

From Mail to Filemaker?

bink — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 09:09:14 -0800

How can I automagically parse the oddly-formatted text from the body of an email so that Filemaker can use it? I am using Mal's E-commerce as my shopping cart software. It works very well, especially since it's free, but I'm bummed out that I have to copy and paste all the information field by field into my Filemaker database.

Here is a sample of the emails I get from the software:

Date : 14 Dec 2006 - 09:37
Shopper Id : 1234567
IP number : 123.234.56.78
For payment by: Paypal

Product : Quantity : Price
widget-01 : 1 : 1.00
widget-02 : 1 : 1.00
gewgaw-03 : 1 : 1.00
whatsit-01 : 2 : 1.00

Voucher : -0.00
Discount : -0.00
Subtotal : 5.00
Shipping : 3.00
Tax : 0.00
TOTAL : 8.00
Ship zone : 1

Invoice to:
Joe Schmoe

123 Main St.
Anytown
NC
12345
US

Tel :
Fax :
Email : jschmo@hotmail.com

What's the best way to massage the data so that Filemaker can correctly import the relevant information? The fact that it's all separated with colons and carriage returns seems to baffle my poor old Filemaker 5.

Since I'm copying and pasting right now, I have the address info as one block, but it's possible to have the email break the lines out with headers (Address: City: State: etc.)

When Filemaker 8 Goes Bad

fourcheesemac — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 06:56:39 -0800

Filemaker Pro 8 refuses to launch. Why? Mac OSX 10.4 Server, Powermac G4 Quicksilver, 1GB RAM. It ran fine for months and then, with no changes to anything, just started crashing on startup, with no warning or dialogue boxes. I've deleted preferences, fixed permissions on all drives, reinstalled FM8, removed FM7 (which I also had on the machine) to no avail. Trying to avoid reinstalling OS X server. Advice?

Glitchy FMP IWP

crapples — Tue, 23 May 2006 05:06:40 -0800

Filemaker Pro 8 Instant Web Publishing Filter: Am I doing something wrong or is it really glitchy? I'm getting fields that I can't select online using the mouse (even though I can select them by tabbing to them). On one database the summary fields don't appear at all in the header. There are other glitchy things too. This could be the most amazing tool for my job if I could get it to run smoothly, but right now I get too many problems when I go online. Is this the nature of the beast or do I need to read something that will teach me how to do it better?

Also: Is there a way to get rid of the left frame that you see when you're viewing the database online or is that a permenent fixture? Thanks.

Filemaker Automation/Scripting

rossination — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 19:18:50 -0800

I need some help with Filemaker. I think that there is more of my work that I can make it do. At the place when I work as an office assistant, we use Filemaker Pro (7) to keep track of records. Often, I have to input the exact same information for about 30 people, which means lots of tedious mouse-keyboard movement (or at least tedious tab-enter movement). I can't help but feeling like there is an easier way to do this: can't I tell Filemaker something like, "mark 'glorp' in field 'X' for all blue widgets"? Isn't this what it is for?

Google searches for scripts and automation have been confusing: they lead to overwhelming repositories of information or services that do this same thing. Can anyone offer some good FAQs, how-tos, and getting started guides?

FWIW, this is running on Windows XP. I am pretty computer-savvy but have no programming experience. I know how to hash together something like this on OS X using Automator, but alas, we're not using Macs...

FileMaker Language Settings

cg1 — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 14:10:20 -0800

How do you change the language setting in FileMaker? Functions like MonthName() are outputting in French and we want them to output in English. (FileMaker database originated on a French computer but is now being hosted remotely)

fm7 mailsmith

cgt — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 07:17:03 -0800

I'd like to be able to send an email from filemaker 7 to mailsmith. in filemaker 6 the send mail script would send to whatever the default mail client was. filemaker 7 seems only to talk to the apple mail program. is there anything I can do to fix it? thanks!

Question number 10218

Metametadata — Wed, 15 Sep 2004 13:37:46 -0800

Does anyone know of a freeware or shareware database program that can read and edit .fp5 files? I know they're proprietary to filemaker.

Question number 7155

samelborp — Tue, 11 May 2004 10:29:13 -0800

I am a freelance journalist, and a document freak. But also I am very chaotic. I would like to use some sort of database to keep track of the articles, documents, web snippets, references, quotes, URLs, bibliography that I use in my work. But I have many questions and doubts [more].

Should I use a database that it is linked to the external documents (which I keep nonetheless), or should I go for a database that has all of these documents embedded? I work in a Windows / OSX environment (desktop PC and a G4 Powerbook), so this keeps me from going all the way to Access (which I hate) or Filemaker (which I don’t know very well). I’ve been thinking of keeping a MySQL database server, maybe powered with a modification of something like Everything, and accessing the data via web browser, but I fear that the thing wouldn’t escalate well. (Keep in mind that I am not a programmer, I can install Movable Type or GeekLog in my webserver, and tinker a little with php files changing little things here and there, although I have friends that can help me)

I don’t know if there are built-in solutions for what I need, or if you can point me to a database template (for Access or FileMaker) already built for journalist research. The fact is that I have tons of information and documents (some of them already stuffed in CD and DVD backups), but I have a hard time keeping track of everything, and very often it is very difficult for me to retrieve information that I know I have saved but I can’t tell where it is.