- Getting Started
- Understanding FileMaker Pro Features
- Using the Status Toolbar
- Working in FileMaker Pro
- Working with Records
- Working with Fields
- Working with Related Data
- Finding Data with FileMaker
- Sorting
- Printing
- Importing and Exporting Data
- Using the Web Viewer
- Troubleshooting
- FileMaker Extra: Becoming a FileMaker Pro Power User
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Using the Status Toolbar
The Status toolbar replaces the old Status Area and provides much more powerful control and feedback. The Status toolbar at the top of FileMaker Pro windows combines controls and information displays in a compact structure. Most of the objects in the Status toolbar accomplish tasks that can also be accomplished with menu commands and their keyboard equivalents.
The View menu, shown in Figure 2.9, lets you control how the current window is displayed.
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Figure 2.9. The View menu controls the user interface.
The Status toolbar itself can be shown or hidden for any window. Simply select the window and choose Status Toolbar from the View menu.
As you can see in Figure 2.9, you can control the visibility of the Status toolbar separately from the visibility of the Formatting bar. In Figure 2.10, you can see the Formatting bar at the top of the window; the Status toolbar is hidden.
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Figure 2.10. The formatting bar lets you format selected text.
The formatting bar is available only when text is selected. This means that its controls are dimmed if you select a field containing a graphic. In Browse mode, which you use to enter data, only a single text field can be selected at a time. Whatever text you have selected in that field is affected by the controls in the formatting bar.
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If you select a text field and do not select any text within it, you will set the formatting for the insertion point and any text that you subsequently type. To change the formatting of all the text in a text field, double-click in the field to select the field and all its text.
Customizing the Status Toolbar (OS X)
Toolbars are an important part of the OS X interface; they are supported deep within the operating system.
When an application provides a toolbar, it generally enables you to customize the toolbar. You do this by choosing View, Customize Status Toolbar (the command is available only when the Status toolbar is shown). You will see a sheet with the customization options, as shown in Figure 2.11.
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Figure 2.11. Customize the Status toolbar in OS X.
You can rearrange the items in the toolbar by dragging them back and forth. Remove items by dragging them out of the toolbar, and add new ones by dragging them up into the toolbar. If you want to revert to the original toolbar, the default set at the bottom of the customized display moves as a single unit when you drag it to the toolbar.
Just above the default set are two important special items: a space and a flexible space. You can insert them as many times as you want into the toolbar to organize it.
Finally, at the bottom of the customization display, you can choose small or large icons, icons alone, icons and text, or text only.
Each icon can appear only once in the toolbar. You do not have to worry about putting too many icons into the toolbar. If the window is narrower than the toolbar is wide, a double arrow appears at the right of the toolbar, and the icons that do not fit are shown off to the right of the window as text only, as Figure 2.12 demonstrates with the New Record and Delete Record commands. In addition, commands (icons or text) are dimmed if they are irrelevant.
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Figure 2.12. Toolbar commands can extend beyond the window.
Your settings for the Status toolbar apply to the database; all windows for that database reflect your settings for its toolbar. Toolbars for windows based on other databases are not changed.
Customizing the Status Toolbar (Windows)
Toolbars are one of the few areas in which the Windows and OS X interfaces differ. As you can see from the figures in this chapter, the Status toolbar itself looks much the same on both operating systems, but the way in which you customize it differs.
On Windows, you begin by choosing View, Customize Status Toolbar, just as on OS X. This opens the dialog shown in Figure 2.13.
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Figure 2.13. Customize the Status toolbar on Windows with Customizable commands.
The first tab, Toolbars, lets you select the toolbar to customize. There is currently only one choice: Status. The second tab, Commands, shown in Figure 2.14, lets you choose either the customizable commands or the standard commands; the standard commands are shown in Figure 2.14
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Figure 2.14. Customize the Status toolbar on Windows with Standard commands.
In either case, drag the command up into the toolbar.