Servoy TIP: Creating a Timed Recurring Script

Have you ever wanted to create a method that would run at a certain interval within your solution? Maybe you're creating a messaging application that checks for messages every 30 seconds; or maybe you want to automatically generate PDF reports and email them every night...

FileMaker Tip: Live Summaries

NOTE: This tip requires FileMaker 10 or higher

I don't know about you - but I get a lot of requests from users to create exports to Excel. They have their reasons - but mainly it's because they want to see data a certain way, or they've used it for so long it's the only software they feel they really "know", or they want to do unholy things with the data, etc., etc.

Servoy TIP: Working With Record Objects

In my last Servoy Tip I explained how to assign a new record object to a variable. Once you have any record object referenced in a variable - there are cool things you can do.

FileMaker TIP: Getting Rid Of The IWP Login Page

If you use the Instant Web Publishing (IWP) feature in FileMaker to expose your database(s) via the Internet, there may be times when you want to disable the default login screen, or change the design of it, or even allow the user to "automatically" login as a guest via a web link.

Servoy TIP: How To Efficiently Create Records

There are a couple of different ways to create records when you're coding your solution:

controller.newRecord();
myField = "value";

This will create a new record as the first row, and will update the user interface. In most cases this is OK - however, there may be times when you want to add records and not update the user interface. In this case you want to use the foundset object:

foundset.newRecord();
foundset.myField = "value";

Now that's all find and good - the record will be created and the user interface won't immediately change (until you call databaseManager.saveData()). This method is much faster when you're creating a bunch of records (or related records).

Now, something that I use when I'm using the second method is to grab a record object reference when I create the record - so I can choose to commit that newly created record right away. Here's the slightly modified code:

var record = foundset.getRecord(foundset.newRecord());
record.myField = "value";
databaseManager.saveData(record);

Because we have a reference to the foundset record in the variable called "record" - we can tell the databaseManager to only save that one record (rather than all outstanding changes).

FileMaker TIP: How To Insert Tab Character In Fields or Calcs

Have you ever wanted to insert a tab into a block of text (so you can use tab stops to line up columns of text), or have you wanted to use the tab character in a calculation? If you try to just press the TAB key, the default action for FileMaker is to go to the next field... bummer.

FileMaker TIP: Copy Current/Found Record(s)

What if you're looking at a record (or foundset of records) and you want to get that data into a spreadsheet - or copy it into an email?

Servoy TIP: Referencing A Relation In Code

OK - here's the first Servoy QuickTip - and it has to do with relations. When you're using relations in a conditional statement - and especially when you're using them in calculations - make sure you test for the existence of the relation first.

New TIP Postings - Coming Next Week!

I talk to a fair number of people who either work with Servoy or FileMaker Pro (or both!). I was recently talking to a person who was evaluating Servoy and because I've worked with both tools for so long, I find myself doing things "automatically" - that are often a revelation to the less experienced.

In that vain, I'm going to be posting some Tips for both Servoy users and FileMaker users - and probably some generic Tips as well.

What kind of tips would you like to see?