FileMaker 12 launches with new templates, iOS apps now free

2

Comments

  • Reply 21 of 42
    frank777frank777 Posts: 5,839member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Gustav View Post


    Having the database back-end doesn't necessarily make you an expert in the front end. I'd rather FileMaker make an API so developers can use its back end in their own apps. I think you'll see a lot better apps if that happened.



    That might work, as long as the Filemaker side of things remains hidden whilst unlocking its database power in the backend. Right now most Filemaker-based third party solutions are basically fancy templates that seem slow or confusing.



    I still think the place to start is an ACT-competitor for the Mac platform.
  • Reply 22 of 42
    as planned, this 'upgrade' is a big disappointment. no decent way to link tables, no deeper SQL functions, no horizontal portals, still NO NATIVE REGEX (!!!!), no calendar layout tool, and so on and so forth.



    filemaker is probably considering those features for filemaker 15, with a planned release circa 2017... let's all move to php/mysql, this is where is thing is heading anyway.
  • Reply 23 of 42
    palominepalomine Posts: 362member
    I've looked at it two years ago, went straight to the relational parts and it had not improved much. Just couldn't do more than rudimentary relationships. Can't do sub-tables, or have fine control over it, pain in the ass kludge linking. Fine for simple things but only that.
  • Reply 24 of 42
    jbfromozjbfromoz Posts: 91member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hholbein View Post


    as planned, this 'upgrade' is a big disappointment. no decent way to link tables, no deeper SQL functions, no horizontal portals, still NO NATIVE REGEX (!!!!), no calendar layout tool, and so on and so forth.



    filemaker is probably considering those features for filemaker 15, with a planned release circa 2017... let's all move to php/mysql, this is where is thing is heading anyway.



    why the need for "native" regex?



    http://filemaker-plugins.com/2empowerfm-text-toolkit/



    calendar layout? if it's that important use



    http://www.seedcode.com/cp-app/ste_c...emakercalendar



    or zulu to use filemaker database as your ical or google calendars back end



    http://www.seedcode.com/ccp51/cgi-bi...g=cat&ref=zulu



    php/mysql might be useful at the back end, but getting anything looking halfway decent still has a pebcak if your database developer doesn't care about the user.



    There is a reason it is the most popular personal database in the world, the ease of deployment between desktop and mobile devices, and the capability to serve the needs of larger businesses.



    It's not free, but it more than makes up for that with productivity and flexibility. call me when php/mysql does applescript integration or allows for full end to end production of engineering documentation quickly, cheaply, securely and fast.
  • Reply 25 of 42
    frank777frank777 Posts: 5,839member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by palomine View Post


    Maybe the accountants down in the San Antonio campus can clue in Apple Corporate as to what is needed. Apple may not care about accounting and such, but databases are rather central to the whole company ecosystem, it wouldn't hurt to have a universal language to send their information around in.



    Don't even get me started about accounting. The fact that Intuit has so thoroughly messed with the Mac platform over the last few years is at least partly due to Filemaker not developing a serious Accounting application for the Mac.
  • Reply 26 of 42
    jbfromozjbfromoz Posts: 91member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Frank777 View Post


    Don't even get me started about accounting. The fact that Intuit has so thoroughly messed with the Mac platform over the last few years is at least partly due to Filemaker not developing a serious Accounting application for the Mac.



    LOL really??



    http://cognito.co.nz/



    cmon poeple get your heads out of your arses and actually look.
  • Reply 27 of 42
    frank777frank777 Posts: 5,839member
    Moneyworks and MYOB are both great solutions. Now.



    But in the decade when Quicken and QuickBooks were the only real options, Filemaker could have, and should have used its tech to aid its parent platform.
  • Reply 28 of 42
    jbfromozjbfromoz Posts: 91member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Frank777 View Post


    Moneyworks and MYOB are both great solutions. Now.



    But in the decade when Quicken and QuickBooks were the only real options, Filemaker could have, and should have used its tech to aid its parent platform.



    MYOB has been around for decades, and was able to be integrated to Filemaker using applescript back then, still no issue.



    as far as horizontal portals, other functionailty, web viewers are still able to be used to present php queries of filemaker data using the php api, or sql queries against filemaker databases, to present exactly this kind of data.



    Just because you don't realise it can do it, doesn't mean the fault lies with filemaker as a product.



    it's power is as a workflow integration tool, moreso than as a "database" its core product does this extremely well, why duplicate efforts created by other vendors when you can just connect to other vendors and not re-invent the wheel.
  • Reply 29 of 42
    It seems to me a lot of people don't understand what Filemaker is aimed at. I don't believe when they designed it the idea was to create a transactional database engine that can server millions of web transactions per hour. (btw, neither was Oracle or SQL Server originally).



    The point of Filemaker is that you can very quickly design a solution to a data capture or management problem. A nice bonus is that it's cross platform. Nothing more, nothing less.



    I don't think you can compare ACCESS with Filemaker. ACCESS has always been somewhat schizo about what it wants to be. On one hand it's trying to be a front end to SQL Server (or other ODBC databases) on the other hand it's trying to be a standalone desktop database. It can be used for both but as some already said here it's neither user friendly nor particularly stable.
  • Reply 30 of 42
    fmpnutfmpnut Posts: 2member
    Hi,



    List view and Table View is 3 to 5 times slower !



    Take a look at this, list view and table view became so slow that upgrading to FMP 12 is simply out of the question for me.



    http://forums.filemaker.com/posts/715ef37320



    Voice your concern !
  • Reply 31 of 42
    gustavgustav Posts: 827member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Frank777 View Post


    That might work, as long as the Filemaker side of things remains hidden whilst unlocking its database power in the backend. Right now most Filemaker-based third party solutions are basically fancy templates that seem slow or confusing.



    That would be the idea. There is no real API today, so comparing today's solutions is not really the same. I'm talking about a full native cocoa-developed front-end with calls to the database. No FileMaker UI at all.
  • Reply 32 of 42
    gustavgustav Posts: 827member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hholbein View Post


    as planned, this 'upgrade' is a big disappointment. no decent way to link tables, no deeper SQL functions, no horizontal portals, still NO NATIVE REGEX (!!!!), no calendar layout tool, and so on and so forth.



    filemaker is probably considering those features for filemaker 15, with a planned release circa 2017... let's all move to php/mysql, this is where is thing is heading anyway.



    Most of what you asked is available now via plugins. As for SQL, FileMaker's goal is not to become an SQL database. That's kind of the point of FileMaker - that it's not just another SQL database. If you want an SQL database, use MySQL, Postgres, or Oracle.
  • Reply 33 of 42
    gustavgustav Posts: 827member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by palomine View Post


    I've looked at it two years ago, went straight to the relational parts and it had not improved much. Just couldn't do more than rudimentary relationships. Can't do sub-tables, or have fine control over it, pain in the ass kludge linking. Fine for simple things but only that.



    And this is the problem with people who don't take the time understand FileMaker. They think in terms of SQL database because that's all they know. Stop trying to think in terms of SQL, and in terms of real world problems you want to solve. Then tell us what actual tasks FileMaker can't do.
  • Reply 34 of 42
    All this talk about Filemaker and not a word about 4D...
  • Reply 35 of 42
    quickquick Posts: 227member
    How come FileMaker 12 is not available via Mac App Store?

    So they can still charge european customers almost double the price you pay in the US for exactly the same software?
  • Reply 36 of 42
    fmpnutfmpnut Posts: 2member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Quick View Post


    How come FileMaker 12 is not available via Mac App Store?

    So they can still charge european customers almost double the price you pay in the US for exactly the same software?



    Thank god it's not ! Mac App store forces terrible limitations (sandboxing) it will be a disaster for automation
  • Reply 37 of 42
    quickquick Posts: 227member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by FMPnut View Post


    Thank god it's not! Mac App store forces terrible limitations (sandboxing) it will be a disaster for automation



    Are you sure THIS is the reasoning behind not putting FileMaker into the Mac App Store?
  • Reply 38 of 42
    frank777frank777 Posts: 5,839member
    One of the big problems with using Filemaker for contact management is getting leads into the database.



    I can come back from some events with 30-40 business cards. CardScan and other bcard scanners will scan these into vCards, but there's still no automatic way to get a bunch of vCards into a Filemaker contact database.
  • Reply 39 of 42
    I also had purchased FileMaker 11 a few weeks ago and get a link with FileMaker to upgrade to 12 for free this morning.
  • Reply 40 of 42
    I've played with Filemaker over the years and have always come away not only disappointed but outraged. It's junk. It's design and implementation shows a thorough lack of knowledge of relational database theory and practice. It has and I guess always will be an expensive commercial product that is no more than a first year computer science class project without the input from professor telling them how to separate the relational database subsystem from the view of the database contents, or instructing them on relational database theory.


    MS Access is far superior, and it's still a mediocre product that gets worse with age, adding bloat to bloat, with each release. The last release allows one to push an Access application to a server, but you cannot use most "strengths" of the Access system.


    Then, OpenOffice? Another mediocre attempt at creating a PC-based RDBMS.


    Filemaker should be scrapped. Hire top experts to design and implement such a system correctly and cleanly leaving no remnants of the old Filemaker (there's nothing there worth keeping). Integrate with iCloud (competing with Amazon and Google offerings), and server-based commercial databases, such as Oracle. Then that would be something to be proud of.
Sign In or Register to comment.