FileMaker 14 brings feature, speed improvements across Mac, iOS & Windows
Apple-owned FileMaker on Tuesday launched FileMaker 14, a major update of its database software for Mac, Windows, and iOS devices, focusing on speed improvements but adding a variety of other new features as well.
The company's flagship Mac and Windows software -- FileMaker Pro -- has gained the Launch Center, which organizes solutions into an icon-based interface, eschewing menus and dialog boxes. There are 29 included icons, but users can also design custom ones if they want a unique look for their organization.
A tool called the Script Workspace is intended to simplify the automation of common actions -- like reordering inventory when stock is low, or producing an invoice during a customer meeting -- by unifying the creation, editing, and viewing of scripts and calculations. It has options like favorites, auto-complete, and shortcuts, and is designed to be simple enough that non-programmers can use it.
FileMaker Go 14, the iOS client, has been improved with an interface that better matches iOS 8, and now can be set to display videos or whole databases in fullscreen. Scripts can be used to lock layout in portrait or landscape mode, or toggle whether the onscreen keyboard appears. When editing text, users can control size, color, and font, and make text bold, underlined, or italicized. Go 13 will soon be removed from the App Store.
FileMaker Server has been updated to allow mobile access to databases hosted on WebDirect. WebDirect also has a new mobile-oriented toolbar, although it's similarly present on desktop browsers.
Server administrators can specify password strength and offer login hints, and should have to worry less often about disconnections, since FileMaker Pro will now automatically reconnect to Server when possible. Likewise, a new set of Command Line Interface entries can be used to switch over to a secondary server.
FileMaker Go is free for any iOS 8.1 device, but FileMaker Pro is $329 new, or $179 as an upgrade. Equivalent prices for Pro Advanced are $549 and $299, while Server is simply $1,044, with no upgrade path. Pro, Pro Advanced, and Server can also be had in subscriptions costing $9, $15, or $29 monthly. Adding a bundle of five concurrent connections to Server costs $1,440 outright or $40 per month.
The company's flagship Mac and Windows software -- FileMaker Pro -- has gained the Launch Center, which organizes solutions into an icon-based interface, eschewing menus and dialog boxes. There are 29 included icons, but users can also design custom ones if they want a unique look for their organization.
A tool called the Script Workspace is intended to simplify the automation of common actions -- like reordering inventory when stock is low, or producing an invoice during a customer meeting -- by unifying the creation, editing, and viewing of scripts and calculations. It has options like favorites, auto-complete, and shortcuts, and is designed to be simple enough that non-programmers can use it.
FileMaker Go 14, the iOS client, has been improved with an interface that better matches iOS 8, and now can be set to display videos or whole databases in fullscreen. Scripts can be used to lock layout in portrait or landscape mode, or toggle whether the onscreen keyboard appears. When editing text, users can control size, color, and font, and make text bold, underlined, or italicized. Go 13 will soon be removed from the App Store.
FileMaker Server has been updated to allow mobile access to databases hosted on WebDirect. WebDirect also has a new mobile-oriented toolbar, although it's similarly present on desktop browsers.
Server administrators can specify password strength and offer login hints, and should have to worry less often about disconnections, since FileMaker Pro will now automatically reconnect to Server when possible. Likewise, a new set of Command Line Interface entries can be used to switch over to a secondary server.
FileMaker Go is free for any iOS 8.1 device, but FileMaker Pro is $329 new, or $179 as an upgrade. Equivalent prices for Pro Advanced are $549 and $299, while Server is simply $1,044, with no upgrade path. Pro, Pro Advanced, and Server can also be had in subscriptions costing $9, $15, or $29 monthly. Adding a bundle of five concurrent connections to Server costs $1,440 outright or $40 per month.
Comments
I have been a professional FileMaker developer for over 20 years, and it keeps getting better and better. It runs nearly every aspect of our $10M company's operations. Awesome development system!
Does it speak SQL yet? That was my biggest beef when I last played with it (granted that was probably around FM 8).
but, but-- BF and others said Apple buys companies like FileMaker and abandons them, leaving their users holding the bag! (they did say that about FM in particular! oops)
I have been a professional FileMaker developer for over 20 years, and it keeps getting better and better. It runs nearly every aspect of our $10M company's operations. Awesome development system!
Do you know if Filemaker has implemented a touch based drag and drop for manual sort of records? I came across a way of doing it, but it really would be smooth to have it implemented easily for iOS devices.
Love the web features and waiting with baited breath on reports of how the scripting works. Haven't used FM all that much but I'm looking to learn.
I haven't used it all that much, but the iOS implementation looks useful to me.
but, but-- BF and others said Apple buys companies like FileMaker and abandons them, leaving their users holding the bag! (they did say that about FM in particular! oops)
Remember FileMaker Inc is what's left after Apple reintegrated Claris. What happened to the other Claris apps?
FileMaker is also an exception because it is run separately from Apple. It's basically an independent company: separate corporation, sales, support, offices...
Apple didn't buy FileMake. Where did you get that idea? It started out as part of Apple (Claris) and was allowed to go slightly independent probably because at the time they were targeting those beige boxes running what was it ... Oh yes, Winblows. (That's just my theory).
I for one would like see FM brought back in to Apple fully then maybe we'd get pricing on par with other Apple Pro apps.
I'm probably naive, but why the great price difference between subscriptions and boxed prices?
Digitalclips is correct. FileMaker has always been an Apple company/product, although they didn't advertise that fact when it was under the Claris umbrella to enable Windows-biased PC users to buy it too.
Apple didn't buy FileMake. Where did you get that idea? It started out as part of Apple (Claris) and was allowed to go slightly independent probably because at the time they were targeting those beige boxes running what was it ... Oh yes, Winblows. (That's just my theory).
I for one would like see FM brought back in to Apple fully then maybe we'd get pricing on par with other Apple Pro apps.
Yeah, wouldn't it be great if FileMaker had the price and attention that Apple give Aperture.
Oh, wait...
Does it speak SQL yet? That was my biggest beef when I last played with it (granted that was probably around FM 8).
A few ways FM uses SQL:
+ run SQL against an external datasource via a script step.
+ run limited SQL SELECT queries internally against base tables via calculation which can be very handy for context-independent & complex queries.
+ integrate External SQL Sources (ESS) into the Graph for a few select DB platforms (SQL is behind the scenes here).
+ serve as an ODBC data source to other platforms.
Love the web features and waiting with baited breath on reports of how the scripting works. Haven't used FM all that much but I'm looking to learn.
bated breath refers to a state in which you almost stop breathing as a result of some strong emotion, such as terror or awe.
I hate to think what baited breath refers to.
Sally, having swallowed cheese,
Directs down holes the scented breeze,
Enticing thus with baited breath
Nice mice to an untimely death.
Actually, Apple DID buy FileMaker many years ago. I started using FileMaker when it was a product of Nashoba Systems around 1991 or so. I was system manager at a large retailer, and we kept track of our ad placements (and many other things) in Filemaker.
I always liked FMP back when I used it, and came to love it after being forced to use Access on Windows. But I sure wish there existed a FileMaker Lite, or Consumer version. There are things I'd like to use a stripped down database manager for, but they really don't justify buying FMP at $349. Maybe that would have been Bento (RIP)?
I'd like a light on its feet relational database that handles text fields only, and maybe a limited number of records if that help the price down. No more than $100, because otherwise you just go back to making lists in Excel.
FileMaker began as an MS-DOS-based computer program named Nutshell - developed by Nashoba Systems of Concord, Massachusetts, in the early 1980s. Nutshell was distributed by Leading Edge, an electronics marketer that had recently started selling IBM PC-compatible computers.[1][2]
With the introduction of the Macintosh, Nashoba combined the basic data engine with a new forms-based graphical user interface (GUI). Leading Edge was not interested in newer versions, preferring to remain a DOS-only vendor, and kept the Nutshell name. Nashoba found another distributor, Forethought Inc., and introduced the program on the Macintosh platform as FileMaker. When Apple introduced the Macintosh Plus in 1986 the next version of FileMaker was named FileMaker Plus to reflect the new model's name.
Forethought was purchased by Microsoft, which was then introducing their PowerPoint product that became part of Microsoft Office. Microsoft had introduced its own database application, Microsoft File, shortly before FileMaker, but it was outsold by FileMaker and Microsoft discontinued it. Microsoft negotiated with Nashoba for the right to publish FileMaker, but Nashoba decided to self-publish the next version, FileMaker 4.[1]
Shortly thereafter, Apple Computer formed Claris, a wholly owned subsidiary, to market software. Claris purchased Nashoba to round out its software suite. By then, Leading Edge and Nutshell had faded from the marketplace because of competition from other DOS- and later Windows-platform database products. FileMaker, however, continued to succeed on the Macintosh platform.
Claris changed the product's name to FileMaker II to conform to its naming scheme for other products, such as MacWrite II, but the product changed little from the last Nashoba version. Several minor versions followed, and things finally settled down with the release of FileMaker Pro 1.0 in 1990.
In September 1992, Claris released a multi-platform version for both the Mac and Windows; except for few platform-specific functions, the program's features and user interface were the same. Up to this point FileMaker had no real relational feature; it was limited to automatically looking up and importing values from other files. It only had the ability to save a state—a filter and a sort, and a layout for the data. Version 3.0, released around 1995, introduced new relational and scripting features.
By 1995 FileMaker was the only strong-selling product in Claris's lineup. In 1998, Apple moved development of some of the other Claris products in-house, dropped most of the rest, and changed Claris's name to FileMaker, Inc., to concentrate on that product.
Actually, Apple DID buy FileMaker many years ago. I started using FileMaker when it was a product of Nashoba Systems around 1991 or so. I was system manager at a large retailer, and we kept track of our ad placements (and many other things) in Filemaker.
10 points for knowing your history. Yes, Filemaker originally came from Nashoba Systems in the days when HyperCard was still a thing.
Claris was also known for AppleWorks, which was the grandfather of the iWorks suite Apple provides now. And the original Appleworks dated back to the Apple ][ and /// days...the later Mac versions would even be able to upgrade old Apple II files for quite some time. I remember way back in my Apple days of converting a bunch of Appleworks documents from an Apple /// to MS Word and Excel for a customer. But since the Apple /// used 5.25" floppies and the Mac was 3.5" floppies, I had to use an Apple IIgs we had in the office which could read and write from both. Then I washed the files into Mac Appleworks and then saved them into export formats that Excel and Word could understand. Fun times.
Well that was low fruit. How about Final Cut Pro X? Even Aperture in its day (after the price drop) was very reasonable for its power. These last few years the cost of Apple software is amazing. FileMaker remains at the old mentality pricing IMHO.
You are correct, I apologize. I recall using PFS a lot and then Claris came out with their database Somewhere along the line I must have missed the memo that Claris acquired the database code. Of course the company 'Filemaker' as we know it now is Claris rebranded.
"FileMaker began as an MS-DOS-based computer program named Nutshell - developed by Nashoba Systems of Concord, Massachusetts, in the early 1980s. Nutshell was distributed by Leading Edge, an electronics marketer that had recently started selling IBM PC-compatible computers.[1][2]
With the introduction of the Macintosh, Nashoba combined the basic data engine with a new forms-based graphical user interface (GUI). Leading Edge was not interested in newer versions, preferring to remain a DOS-only vendor, and kept the Nutshell name. Nashoba found another distributor, Forethought Inc., and introduced the program on the Macintosh platform as FileMaker. When Apple introduced the Macintosh Plus in 1986 the next version of FileMaker was named FileMaker Plus to reflect the new model's name.
Forethought was purchased by Microsoft, which was then introducing their PowerPoint product that became part of Microsoft Office. Microsoft had introduced its own database application, Microsoft File, shortly before FileMaker, but it was outsold by FileMaker and Microsoft discontinued it. Microsoft negotiated with Nashoba for the right to publish FileMaker, but Nashoba decided to self-publish the next version, FileMaker 4.[1]
Shortly thereafter, Apple Computer formed Claris, a wholly owned subsidiary, to market software. Claris purchased Nashoba to round out its software suite. By then, Leading Edge and Nutshell had faded from the marketplace because of competition from other DOS- and later Windows-platform database products. FileMaker, however, continued to succeed on the Macintosh platform.
Claris changed the product's name to FileMaker II to conform to its naming scheme for other products, such as MacWrite II, but the product changed little from the last Nashoba version. Several minor versions followed, and things finally settled down with the release of FileMaker Pro 1.0 in 1990.
In September 1992, Claris released a multi-platform version for both the Mac and Windows; except for few platform-specific functions, the program's features and user interface were the same. Up to this point FileMaker had no real relational feature; it was limited to automatically looking up and importing values from other files. It only had the ability to save a state—a filter and a sort, and a layout for the data. Version 3.0, released around 1995, introduced new relational and scripting features.
By 1995 FileMaker was the only strong-selling product in Claris's lineup. In 1998, Apple moved development of some of the other Claris products in-house, dropped most of the rest, and changed Claris's name to FileMaker, Inc., to concentrate on that product."