Since many people were impressed with my named parameters article, I decided to write up another post about the dictionary functions. Actually in all fairness I think three people actually liked it. Vincenzo Menanno, Chris Wack and Sam Barnum this post’s for you!
The Secret Life of Find Mode: Omit
Today’s Find mode article is short-and-sweet. If you ever feel it would be easier to tell FileMaker what you *don’t* want it to find, the Omit checkbox is your friend. In fact, you can use this esoteric Find mode widget to create incredibly complex queries that target exactly what you want.
Importing Records to a Backup – Brute Force
Your FileMaker Server loses power. All your files have crashed. What do you do now? The safest practice is to go to a backup. Sure, this sounds like a daunting task, but it is surprisingly manageable. The best part is that you won’t lose any sleep worrying about how long your baling wire and bubble gum files will last.
Limiting Checkbox and Radio Button Choices
Did you know that if you shift-click on a field formatted as radio buttons, you can select more than one choice? Even if *you* don’t know this, chances are some day some *user* will figure it out. Yuck. Here’s a short-but-sweet technique to deal with the problem. And you’ll see how to apply the same concept to do some cool stuff.
Detecting Related Records
If you have a relational database (one with several connected tables) and you do any scripting at all, you’ll almost certainly ask yourself a question at some point: How can I tell if the record I’m on has related records? This article explains the scenarios you may run in to, and how *best* to deal with them.
The Secret Life of Find Mode: Dates and Times
Date values (and to a lesser extent, time values) are exceptionally common in database applications. And it isn’t at all unusual to want to ask you database interesting date-related questions, like “How many orders do we get on Tuesdays?” or “What was our total enrollment for the first quarter?” In fact, it is probably more common to look at ranges of dates than any particular date. Of course, if you’ve read our [previous articles](http://sixfriedrice.com/wp/the-secret-life-of-find-mode-requests/) on Find mode, you know how to find whole ranges of dates easily using find symbols. But FileMaker Pro’s Find mode has several date-specific tricks up its sleeve. Using some not-so-obvious syntax, you can easily search for *date slices* like every tuesday, or the 5th of every month, or every January. This short article will explain how.
FileMaker Pro 9: The Missing Manual Now Available
We’re thrilled to let you know that FileMaker Pro 9: The Missing Manual is now available for sale. This sequel to the best selling FileMaker book out there was written by yours truly (Six Fried Rice co-owner Geoff Coffey), and the amazing Susan Prosser. You can read more about it [here](http://sixfriedrice.com/wp/products/filemaker-pro-missing-manual/) where you can also find a free sample chapter.
The Secret Life of Find Mode: Symbols
Once you’ve mastered [multiple requests](http://sixfriedrice.com/wp/the-secret-life-of-find-mode-requests/), you’re ready to move on to the next Find Mode gem: Find Symbols. Using these bits of punctuation, you can tell FileMaker, when it goes about matching records to your find criteria, to be a little more flexible, or a little more strict. In this article, you’ll learn about each one.
Dealing with Damaged FileMaker Files
One of the most asked questions about FileMaker is how to deal with damaged files. There is a glut of choices when attacking this problem and there doesn’t seem to be one single answer. Compact, Optimize or Recover… Maybe `Save as Clone` which one works and why? Hopefully, this will answer a lot of your questions.
FileMaker DevCon Day 2
DevCon Day 2 featured two sessions by a couple of FileMaker insiders. Andy LeCates showed off some really slick implementations of Conditional Formatting and some innovative ways to use tab controls. Jon Thatcher eliminated a lot of the confusion about File Maintenance and Recovery practices.