FileMaker is an incredible database-creation platform: it is so customisable that one could almost create any data-processing application. An example is NoteMaker 1.1.5 (available free to owners of FileMaker 18 or 19 at https://notemakerdatabase.com), which facilitates students and anyone else to make, store and organise notes.
Up to version 18, FileMaker has been meticulously built. It is one of a few pieces of software you'd be hard pressed to find bugs (though this may not be the case with the latest version: 19).
Equally important, it has extremely powerful visual tools and a sophisticated internal programming language. The visual tools help create fields, portals, buttons and other objects, thus making it easy to design the interface or the "front end" of your database. The programming language is not compiled like C++, but is script-based, similar to JavaScript. FileMaker scripting can be as easy as placing a single Go to Layout command on a button or as difficult as a 500-line set of commands found in NoteMaker's Scan button that runs through a note and capitalises the first letter after a full stop or fixes a hundred other things.
FileMaker's scripting power grows with you – as needs arise. Here, books on FileMaker may help as can Sunny Chu's YouTube channel, "FileMaker Beginner". The most incredible book ever written on FileMaker is "Using FileMaker 7" (by Steve Lane, Bob Bowers, Scott Love & Chris Moyer, Que Publishers, 2004). Though this classic among the FileMaker literature is naturally out-of-date in many, many ways (in May 2022, we're up to version 19), "Using FileMaker 7" was written with an outstanding depth and breadth of knowledge in order to come to grips with the greatest revolutionary changes ever made to FileMaker at the time. For one thing: the idea of many tables in just the one file was implemented ... thus FileMaker was no longer limited to just one table per file. To offset the fossilised aspects of "Using FileMaker 7", "Learn FileMaker Pro 19" by Mark Conway Munro (Apress publishers, 2021) comes in handy as do up-to-date YouTube videos.
Version 19 sees FM [Claris] at the crossroads. Facing competition from websites that allow users to put together a database with the ease of large amounts of drag-and-drop functionality and selections from pop-up lists, FileMaker is attempting to promote itself as a "low code" database-creation tool to emulate such new kids on the block as Caspio. Instead of being given new power-coding capability (as the incredible While function was given to us in version 18), users are given new functions in version 19 to assist more in the development of web-bound apps. Because of the irony that Caspio promotes itself as "no-code", it is my opinion that an app such as NoteMaker (with thousands of lines of code) would not be possible with Caspio. The issue perhaps is not so much with "low-code" or "no-code" but with "low-cost". Caspio is promoting itself as costing less than FileMaker.
Great, however, are the nine free add-ons offered in version 19. Add-0ns are modules that can be inserted into your application. FileMaker provides nine such and two of the standouts are the highly functional calendar and Kanban (signboard with three process lanes). They're just a matter of drag-and-drop. This idea of ready-made modules will flourish in two ways: additional ones may be offered by FileMaker (for free as the current nine are free) and then there are those available for purchase at the Claris Marketplace, which range in price. The marketplace also gives every developer the opportunity to sell their wares there.
Tailoring one's apps for deployment to the iPhone and iPad has been fine-tuned in version 19.
It's a difficult time for FM [Claris]. It's one of those "you're dammed if you do and damned if you don't" moments. As a hobbyist, who loves the ownership and security of developing database apps offline, on my local hard-drive, and wishing to freely share my apps to others' local hard-drives, version 19 didn't excite me as previous upgrades have, though the nine modules, especially the calendar add-on, continue to tempt. To this day (29 May 2022 AEST) I've been able to hold off going over to version 19 in the hope that the yet-to-be released version 20 may give me that critical mass in new features I so much yearn for.
Should you upgrade to version 19? Yes, if you're into online deployment, have a desire to work with samplings of internalised JavaScript coding, deploy to mobile devices, love the new add-ons feature and you're okay with subscription payments (FM still offers a one-off ownership payment, but access to some features may not be included). For some small-time hobbyists, such as myself, who create apps for the hard-drives of desktops and laptops, our days of growing with FileMaker may be numbered (I hope I'm wrong). It is my belief that it's the hobbyist who is likely to venture into innovations that go beyond the mainstream concerns of creating databases for recording transactions, distributing invoices, managing contacts, organising events, tracking inventory and monitoring assets – witness NoteMaker, which dares to encroach on the realm of word-processing by providing user-defined auto-corrections and auto-expansions.
In conclusion …
FileMaker is without a doubt a brilliant piece of database-creation software. It is what they call a Rapid Development Environment – and for good reason: it is. It's my belief that its level of customisation cannot be matched by Caspio and other purely online offerings (of course, FileMaker cannot compete with enterprise-level software such as Oracle and SAP). Simple mainstream databases can be easily created with FileMaker (probably nearly as easy as can be done with Caspio). However, because FileMaker offers customisation levels beyond these kinds of competitors, it has a naturally longer learning curve. Another advantage Caspio and others like it offer to businesses and organisations is "low-cost" and as much as anything else this is a challenge for FM [Claris], as FileMaker, in comparison, may look expensive. For myself, I'm staying with version 18 … but hoping that version 20 will be more about empowering hobbyists to create powerful and innovative apps in and of themselves. From among some of the dilly-dallying hobbyists of today may come the CIOs of tomorrow, who may very well have a penchant to introduce FileMaker solutions for their businesses or organisations.
Sometimes, big companies busily chasing big clients forget how important it is to cultivate the lower substratum of users who wish to experiment with their products and take them off mainstream and into new – perhaps exciting – directions.
FM [Claris] is in a dilemma. Up to and including version 18, FM [Claris] has taken care to include all hobbyists with the growth of their main product, which has been always focused on the large community of professional developers who create solutions for businesses and organisations. But version 19 appears to be the first time that FM [Claris] may allow some hobbyists to go by the wayside. My feeling is that some of us are no longer necessary to FileMaker's growth and new direction – if that's the case, let it be so; every company has a right to seek the most profitable pathway for its goods and services and to attempt to find ways to successfully meet new challenges. Version 19, I think, makes that clear.
My wishlist for version 20:
1. to automatically colour comments in the Specify Calculation dialog to delineate them from code and thus reduce the appearance of clutter;
2. to modernise the Custom Function dialog in line with the Specify Calculation dialog, which had been modernised several versions ago;
3. to offer more powerful functions for desktop-to-desktop development (like, eg, version 18's While function);
4. a client-side version of FileMaker that is free to download and which would allow apps created in FileMaker proper to run on desktops and laptops that don't have FileMaker installed (but which of course themselves cannot modify or create databases). This would enable apps, such as NoteMaker, to be freely available for anyone who, in the case of NoteMaker, may prefer to engage with an explicit database approach to making notes. I've yearned for a client-side program since I first came to FileMaker (at version 5) as the ultimate solution to cost-free and fuss-free distribution and sharing of hobbyist-created databases.
Claris International Inc. Claris Filemaker Pro 19 Upgrade V.19
3.2 | 3 ratings
Price: 149
Last update: 12-25-2024
About this item
Organize contacts, track inventory, manage projects, create invoices, and more
Start with a prebuilt template or drag and drop a spreadsheet with your existing data
Easily build custom reports, connect to existing systems, Integrate with javascript, sql, xml, and more
Start with a prebuilt template or drag and drop a spreadsheet with your existing data
Easily build custom reports, connect to existing systems, Integrate with javascript, sql, xml, and more
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