Category: FileMaker 2024

Better, Faster Random Text for FileMaker

by Simon Brown
Posted in All, bBox, FileMaker, FileMaker 2024, FileMaker 2025, FileMaker Server, Integration, JavaScript, Performance, Python, Testing

We often need large amounts of random text to simulate real-world data loads while building a FileMaker solution. I was looking to create a large chunks of unique data for testing — we’re talking at least millions of characters. Here, I’ll compare the performance of a few methods I tried.

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Why Fast-Growing Teams Outgrow Spreadsheets

by Paul de Hallé
Posted in All, Business, Claris Development, FileMaker, FileMaker 2024, FileMaker 2025, Performance, Reporting, Security, Web Development

In the early stages of building a team or company, spreadsheets are a gift. They’re simple, fast to set up, and familiar to just about everyone. Need to track spend, manage a process, or share information across a few people? Open a new tab in Google Sheets or Excel, and you’re off to the races.

But if your company is scaling quickly as it adds people, processes, and increasing pressure to move faster, spreadsheets can quietly become a liability.

At Beezwax, we’ve worked with hundreds of growing teams who hit the same problem. What started as a clever spreadsheet workaround slowly turned into a fragile, messy system that couldn’t keep up. In this post, we’ll break down why that happens and what comes next.

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bBox 1.06 for FileMaker enhances support for macOS text windows and Python

by Simon Brown
Posted in AI, AI with FM, All, bBox, Claris Development, FileMaker, FileMaker 2024, FileMaker 2025, FileMaker Server, FM Products, Integration, Python, Tools & Add-ons

We are pleased to announce the release of bBox version 1.06 for Claris® FileMaker®, which adds support for macOS text windows and many update enhancements, including to bBox’s support for integrating Python code with your FileMaker apps.

bBox is a free utility plug-in to extend FileMaker solutions to easily use code libraries. Supporting both macOS & Ubuntu Linux, it has functions to help you work with Python, JavaScript, PHP, Ruby, AppleScript, Bash/Zsh/sh, XPath, and DuckDB. Also included is a demo file that has over 220 examples of how you can put bBox functions to work for you.

If you’re interested in Python integration with FileMaker, also check out bzPython-FM, which uses bBox.

Continue reading “bBox 1.06 for FileMaker enhances support for macOS text windows and Python” →

Retool, FileMaker, Airtable? Picking the Right Stack for Internal Tools

by Paul de Hallé
Posted in AI, AI with FM, All, Business, Claris Connect, Claris Development, FileMaker, FileMaker 2024, FileMaker 2025, Integration, Tools, Web Development

When building internal tools, you’re faced with a tough question that many fast-moving teams don’t ask soon enough:

What’s the right platform stack for what we’re trying to build?

From prebuilt dashboards to low-code platforms to fully custom apps, there are more options for internal tooling than ever—each with its own trade-offs.

  • Retool®
  • Claris FileMaker®
  • Airtable®
  • Custom-built Web Apps
  • …and plenty more depending on the department and the problem.

So how do you choose?

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Monthly Maintenance – Care and Feeding of Linux Servers

by Rami Kanj
Posted in AI, All, DevOps, FileMaker, FileMaker 2023, FileMaker 2024, FileMaker 2025, FileMaker Server, Logging, Monitoring, Performance, Security, Server Administration, System Administration, Web Development

Maintaining the health and security of your Linux servers is more crucial than ever. With any server, you should be using real-time monitoring solutions, and performing backups every day (or more often, depending on data use). And, while you can rely on the OS to automatically install updates–especially on Windows and Mac–with Linux you benefit from a more “managed” approach to regular maintenance.

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Quick FileMaker Server Stats.log Summaries

by Simon Brown
Posted in All, DevOps, FileMaker, FileMaker 2023, FileMaker 2024, FileMaker Server, Logging, Monitoring, Performance, Python, Server Administration, System Administration

When making changes to a FileMaker file or a FileMaker Server’s configuration, it is often useful to know if the changes have helped, or made things worse, or perhaps had no effect at all. FileMaker’s Stats.log generates some data needed to summarize this, with some help from monitoring and analysis tools, or in this case, a Python script.

Continue reading “Quick FileMaker Server Stats.log Summaries” →

Beezwax Sponsors Vienna Calling 2025 – FileMaker Developer Conference

by Beezwax Team
Posted in AI with FM, All, Beezwax News, Claris Development, Community, Events, FileMaker, FileMaker 2023, FileMaker 2024, FileMaker Cloud, FileMaker Data API, FileMaker Go, FileMaker Server, FileMaker UX Design, InspectorPro, News, Performance, Techniques, Tools & Add-ons

Vincenzo Menanno Presents “Till Technical Debt do us Part!”

This week, June 5-7, we’re in Austria, at Vienna Calling 2025. The Claris® FileMaker® Developer conference feature open discussions, interactive workshops and collaborative break-out sessions. Beezwax is proud to be a conference sponsor.

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Beezwax Presents at Elevate FM 2025 – Toronto FileMaker Developer Conference

by Beezwax Team
Posted in AI with FM, All, Beezwax News, Claris Development, Community, Events, FileMaker, FileMaker 2023, FileMaker 2024, FileMaker Cloud, FileMaker Data API, FileMaker Go, FileMaker Server, FileMaker UX Design, InspectorPro, News, Performance, Techniques, Tools & Add-ons

Vincenzo Menanno Presents “Modernizing Code – Maintaining Your Investment”

This week, May 26th, we’re at Elevate FM 2025, a brand new conference taking place in downtown Toronto, Canada. The Claris® FileMaker® Developer conference features sessions by industry experts, training workshops and interactive discussions.

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Explore using REST and cURL with FileMaker Data API

Siroos Jafary by Siroos Jafary
Posted in Claris Development, FileMaker, FileMaker 2023, FileMaker 2024, FileMaker Cloud, FileMaker Data API, FileMaker Server, Integration, Performance, Security, Techniques, Tools & Add-ons

With FileMaker 2024 (v21), Claris unveiled powerful features and improvements aimed at enhancing data management efficiency and security. This blog post series covers the advancements in FileMaker’s Data API (FM DAPI), focusing on REST and cURL, which offer developers greater control and flexibility in their applications.


We’re providing a tutorial file (bzTrainer-FMDAPI) to help you learn and experiment with various REST and cURL functions using FileMaker’s Data API. Enjoy exploring!

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Using OData, Syslog or DuckDB to handle FileMaker Schema Change Notifications (via Plug-in API)

by Simon Brown
Posted in All, bBox, Claris Development, FileMaker, FileMaker 2024, FileMaker Data API, FileMaker Server, FM Products, Integration, Performance, Techniques, Tools & Add-ons

FileMaker Server v21.1 (2024) introduced functionality for plug-ins to receive notifications of changes to database schema, layout, custom functions, or scripts. Notification messaging is passed in the form of JSON. Let’s show a few examples of these JSON payloads, and how a plug-in might use external tools (Syslog, DuckDB or OData) to handle things.

Continue reading “Using OData, Syslog or DuckDB to handle FileMaker Schema Change Notifications (via Plug-in API)” →

What’s New in FileMaker Pro 21.1? Exploring AI-Powered Semantic Search, Developer Productivity Boosts, Security and More

by Russ Catanach
Posted in AI with FM, All, Claris Development, FileMaker, FileMaker & OData, FileMaker 2024, FileMaker Data API, FileMaker Server, FileMaker UX Design, FM Products, Integration, News, Performance, Security

FileMaker Pro 21.1, the newest update to Claris FileMaker 2024, introduces powerful new AI capabilities and significant quality-of-life enhancements for developers. The Beezwax team gathered to dive into these exciting updates, including Chief Innovation Officer Vincenzo Menanno, Director of Engineering Andrew “Red” Witschonke, Developer & Systems Engineer Simon Brown, and Senior Developer Fabio Bosisio. Here are the highlights from their discussion.

Continue reading “What’s New in FileMaker Pro 21.1? Exploring AI-Powered Semantic Search, Developer Productivity Boosts, Security and More” →

bBox 1.05 for FileMaker Now Available

by Simon Brown
Posted in All, bBox, Claris Development, FileMaker, FileMaker 19, FileMaker 2023, FileMaker 2024, FM Products, Integration, Python, Tools & Add-ons

We are pleased to announce the release of bBox version 1.05, which adds support for schema change notifications, a new Ubuntu ARM binary, and DuckDB integration.

bBox is a free utility plug-in to extend FileMaker solutions to easily use code libraries. Supporting both macOS & Ubuntu Linux, it has functions to help you work with Python, JavaScript, PHP, Ruby, AppleScript, Bash/Zsh/sh, XPath, and SQLite. Also included is a demo file that has over 220 examples of how you can put bBox functions to work for you.

If you’re interested in Python integration with FileMaker, also check out bzPython-FM, which uses bBox.

Continue reading “bBox 1.05 for FileMaker Now Available” →

Beezwax Sponsors EngageU FileMaker Developer Conference

by Jay Gonzales
Posted in AI with FM, All, Beezwax News, Claris Development, Community, Events, FileMaker, FileMaker 2023, FileMaker 2024, FileMaker Server, InspectorPro, News, Performance, Techniques, Tools & Add-ons

Vincenzo Menanno Presents “InspectorPro 8 for FileMaker: Investigate, Accelerate, Collaborate”

This week, November 17-19, we’re in Malmö, at EngageU. It’s the largest Claris® / FileMaker® Developer conference in Europe this year, and Beezwax is proud to be a sponsor.

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FileMaker Perform Script on Server: Episode IX – Endless PSoS Abilities

by Vincenzo Menanno
Posted in All, Claris Development, FileMaker, FileMaker 2024, FileMaker Server, Techniques

If you go looking for a FileMaker script step called Perform Script on Server on Server, you are not going to find it. Because this isn’t a new script step, but rather the same Perform Script on Server (PSoS) that we have always had, except that now it is FileMaker Server-compatible.

This capability allows FileMaker to fire off other Perform Script on Server scripts (from an existing script that is running on server), and either wait for those to complete or not. I have been thinking that with this feature one could build a main controller script and a set of worker scripts. That is just one idea, of many, I am sure.

Continue reading “FileMaker Perform Script on Server: Episode IX – Endless PSoS Abilities” →

Rome FileMaker® Week 2024: iOS Widgets & Local File Technique

by Beezwax Team
Posted in All, Beezwax News, Claris Development, Community, Events, FileMaker, FileMaker 2023, FileMaker 2024, FileMaker Data API, FileMaker Server, FM Products, InspectorPro, Integration, JavaScript, Local File, Performance, Techniques, Tools & Add-ons

A Claris Community event with presentations from Vincenzo Menanno and Fabio Bosisio, plus Beezwax as a Sponsor

This week it’s Italy for one of our favorite annual events in the developer community… formazione, condivisione e di nuovo divertimento [training, sharing and fun yet again] …covering the past, present and future of Claris® FileMaker platform development…

For Rome FileMaker Week (October 10-11, 2024), Vince Menanno and Fabio Bosisio from Beezwax have created presentations on:

  • iOS widgets using Javascript and FileMaker Data API
  • The ‘Local File’ technique… A force to be reckoned with!
  • plus a sponsored session: Analyze your solution with Inspector Pro 8

Beezwax is also proud to be a sponsor once again this year, for Rome FileMaker Week 2024.

Continue reading “Rome FileMaker® Week 2024: iOS Widgets & Local File Technique” →

Python with FileMaker®: Get Started with Analytics, Automation and AI + ML

by Beezwax Team
Posted in AI, AI with FM, All, Claris Connect, Claris Development, Community, Data Analytics, Events, FileMaker, FileMaker 2023, FileMaker 2024, FileMaker Cloud, FileMaker Data API, FileMaker Server, Integration, Machine Learning, News, Python, Techniques, Tools & Add-ons

Christos Savva from Beezwax presents at Bay Area FileMaker Developer Meetup.

Join us for an informative and interactive meetup that explores the benefits of integrating Python with FileMaker. Learn how Python can enhance your Claris FileMaker solutions by enabling data and visual analytics, IT automation, and AI + Machine Learning integration.

We’ll cover “Getting Started” with Python (using FileMaker 2024 on macOS for the demo) and briefly review various integration methods, such as web viewers, plugins and serverless options. We’ll demo an example FileMaker solution, bzPython-FM.

Continue reading “Python with FileMaker®: Get Started with Analytics, Automation and AI + ML” →

Reconnect.Brisbane – AI with FileMaker 2024 and The Collaborative Journey

by Beezwax Team
Posted in AI, AI with FM, All, Beezwax News, Business, Claris Connect, Claris Development, Community, Events, FileMaker, FileMaker 2023, FileMaker 2024, FileMaker Cloud, FileMaker Data API, FileMaker Go, FileMaker Server, InspectorPro, Integration, News, Performance, Security, Techniques, Tools & Add-ons

Katherine Russell and Vince Menanno from Beezwax present at Reconnect in Brisbane, Australia.

Beezwax is proud to sponsor and present at Reconnect.Brisbane, one of the biggest Claris FileMaker Developer conferences in the Asia-Pacific region this year. We’re excited to gather with our peers in the Claris community, and for the chance to engage in presentations and discussions on the latest development trends, especially AI with FileMaker.

At Reconnect 2024, Katherine Russell and Vince Menanno from Beezwax will kick off developer presentations with two sessions:

  • AI with FileMaker 2024: Get More Out of Your Data and Apps
  • The Collaborative Journey: Evolving Through Code, Teams, and Technology
Continue reading “Reconnect.Brisbane – AI with FileMaker 2024 and The Collaborative Journey” →

bBox 1.04 for FileMaker Now Available

by Simon Brown
Posted in bBox, FileMaker, FileMaker 2023, FileMaker 2024, FileMaker Cloud, FileMaker Data API, FileMaker Server, FM Products, Integration, JavaScript, Python, Ruby, Swift, Tools & Add-ons

We are pleased to announce the release bBox version 1.04, including improvements to text parsing, XPath and SQLite support, and utility functions for FileMaker Admin API, Data API and OData API.

bBox is a free utility plug-in to extend FileMaker solutions to easily use code libraries. Supporting both macOS & Ubuntu Linux, it has functions to help you work with Python, JavaScript, PHP, Ruby, AppleScript, Bash/Zsh/sh, XPath, and SQLite. Also included is a demo file that has over 220 examples of how you can put bBox functions to work for you.

Continue reading “bBox 1.04 for FileMaker Now Available” →

Make the impossible easy with AI and FileMaker 2024 – Claris Community Live

by Beezwax Team
Posted in AI, AI with FM, All, Claris Development, Community, Events, FileMaker, FileMaker 2024, FileMaker Server, InspectorPro, Integration, Techniques, Tools & Add-ons

Special event featuring Vincenzo Menanno from Beezwax, with Claris product team and Partners

Sharing development examples of using AI with FileMaker, Vincenzo Menanno from Beezwax will join the Claris product team and Partners in a Claris Community Live discussion about building modern solutions, making the impossible easy.

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Semantic Search with FileMaker 2024 – Claris Community Live

by Beezwax Team
Posted in AI, AI with FM, All, Claris Development, Community, Events, FileMaker, FileMaker 2024, FileMaker Server, Integration, Techniques

Special event featuring Will Miro from Beezwax, with Claris product team and Partners

Sharing research and demo examples of using AI with FileMaker, Will Miro from Beezwax will join the Claris product team and Partners in a Claris Community Live discussion about the new semantic search features in Claris FileMaker 2024.

Continue reading “Semantic Search with FileMaker 2024 – Claris Community Live” →
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