- 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
Working in FileMaker Pro
The following sections walk you through working in some typical FileMaker Pro situations and address many of the common tasks you must be able to perform.
For more information on using other tools to access the data, see the chapters in Part IV, “Data Integration and Publishing,” which begins on p. 519.
NOTE
Over the past few revisions of FileMaker Pro, functionality has been added that lets you create databases in FileMaker but access them through other applications. With web publishing, you can use a browser to access FileMaker data. You can use ODBC import and export to share data with SQL-compliant applications, and you can even import and export Excel spreadsheets. This section focuses on working with FileMaker data using FileMaker Pro itself.
Opening a Database
The first step in working with FileMaker Pro, obviously, is opening a database. FileMaker Pro databases can live in various places. They can sit on your own computer, just as any other document might; they can be hosted by another computer; or they can be served by FileMaker Server. On any of those computers, they can be housed on shared volumes or external devices (although there are constraints for the FileMaker Server database locations).
Local Files
Opening a local file is a simple matter of double-clicking its icon in either your Windows environment or the OS X Finder. You can also use FileMaker Pro’s File, Open command or the Quick Start screen, as described previously.
You can use the Open command to navigate to any database file to which you have access—whether it is on your own computer, somewhere else on your network, or on the Internet—if you can get to it from the Open File dialogs shown in Figure 2.15.
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Figure 2.15. Use the Open command to open a FileMaker Pro database.
Note that in addition to the Open button, there is also a Remote button; it is discussed in the next section.
Remote Files
Working with remote files requires connecting to a server. That server could be a database hosted on FileMaker Server (the software that allows you to host a FileMaker database for use across a LAN or WAN by up to 250 users) or a FileMaker database file that is set to multiuser and running in FileMaker Pro on another person’s workstation. After you connect to a remote database, everything works just as it would with a local connection (although over a busy network, there might be a slight lag in response). The only distinction that you will note is that the title of the window shows not only the name of the database but also—in parentheses—the name of the server on which it is hosted. Compare the title of the window shown in Figure 2.16 remotely with the same database shown in Figure 2.7.
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Figure 2.16. A FileMaker Pro database opened remotely shows the name of the host in its title.
Exploring Remote Connections
A remote connection is one that lets you connect to a copy of FileMaker Pro from your own copy of FileMaker Pro. If you use the standard Open dialog as described in the previous section, you open a database with your own copy of FileMaker Pro, whether the database is on your computer or on the network. When you use the Open Remote dialog by clicking the Remote button in the lower right of the Open File dialog shown in Figure 2.17 or a remote favorite from the Quick Start screen, the database to which you connect has already been opened by a copy of FileMaker Pro or FileMaker Server. Actually, it is to that copy of FileMaker Pro that you are connecting, and through that copy of FileMaker Pro or FileMaker Server to the database.
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Figure 2.17. Use the Open Remote File dialog to open a database on a LAN, in a corporate domain, or (with a proper IP address) across the Internet.
Only one copy of FileMaker Pro or FileMaker Server can attach to the actual database file at a given time; all other users (if any) attach to that copy of FileMaker. The same applies to users of FileMaker databases connecting through ODBC or the Web: They are connecting to the copy of FileMaker Pro or FileMaker Server that has the database open. (Sharing databases with FileMaker Pro is possible on a small scale, but performance significantly improves with dedicated hardware resources and FileMaker Server.)
Although the most common scenario involves sharing databases across a network or the Internet, other configurations are possible. You can use Open Remote to open a database on your own computer as long as another copy of FileMaker Pro on your own computer (perhaps FileMaker Pro Advanced) has opened it. In that case, both the server and the client are the same computer, but there is no question which is the server (the version of FileMaker Pro that opened the database with the Open command) and which is the client (the version of FileMaker Pro that opened the database with the Open Remote command).
While discussing these matters, it is worthwhile to point out that server is sometimes used to designate one or more computers on a network that provide shared resources such as common disks. The term server might also refer to one or more computers that provide shared services such as email, web hosting, and the like on a network. In the FileMaker context, server refers to a computer running either FileMaker Server or a version of FileMaker Pro or FileMaker Pro Advanced and configured to share databases. It can be located on a server (hardware) that runs server software (network administration, email, and the Web), but it might be any computer on the network. In fact, there are often significant advantages in a high-volume environment to using a dedicated computer to serve FileMaker databases so that no other demands are made on that computer’s disk and processing resources.
- For more information on FileMaker Server, see Chapter 27, “FileMaker Server and Server Advanced.”
To open a remote database, click the Remote button in the Open File dialog, or choose Open Remote from the File menu. As you can see in Figure 2.17, you can choose from those hosts available to you locally (those on your network, within your domain in corporate environments, or accessible on the Internet), or you can navigate to a particular server via a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) server. You can also view servers and databases that you have previously marked as favorites. Finally, you can type in the address of a file in the box at the bottom. Make certain in this case to use the prefix fmnet.
When you choose Local Hosts, you will first see a list of all the FileMaker servers running on your local network. It might take some time for FileMaker Pro to locate all these servers, so be patient. After you click a hostname (either a local host, an LDAP host, or a Favorites host), FileMaker Pro interrogates that host for the list of databases to display in the list at the right of the dialog. This, too, might take some time. As you navigate through hosts and to an individual database, the fmnet address at the bottom of the dialog fills in automatically.
If you add a database or a FileMaker host to the favorites, it shows up not only in the Favorites of this dialog, but also in the Favorites for the Quick Start screen (shown previously in Figure 2.4). When you select a host or database, you can click Add to Favorites to open the dialog shown in Figure 2.18. It is a good idea to rely on favorites—particularly for remote databases where the network file path might be a lengthy string of numbers and/or words that are easier to select from a Favorites list than to retype.
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Figure 2.18. Use Favorites to organize your databases and hosts.
NOTE
If you are browsing files on a remote FileMaker server, you will see all the opened FileMaker databases that the developer has specified should show up in the Open Remote dialog. You will not see closed databases or those marked not to be listed in this dialog.
TIP
If you want to open a database not shown in the list, you can quickly create the appropriate fmnet address. Select, with a single click, a database shown in the list and simply erase the name of that database from the end of the address; then type in the name of the database that you want to open.