Category: FileMaker

System for Success: Atomic Design for Google Display Ads

by Jinal Shah
Posted in All, Design, Front-end Design, Marketing, Techniques, UX

Jinal Shah is a UX Designer at Beezwax. She shared the process for creating Google Display ads, using a system to optimize collaboration between Design and Marketing teams.

Our design team wanted to implement a design system that could quickly generate different variations of Google Display ads in multiple sizes. This system had to balance creative freedom and brand adherence. We wanted a user to be able to change content, colors, backgrounds, buttons and other visual elements without further involvement from a designer. However, it was important to create a controlled environment so the ads would stay on brand and follow a conceptual and visual pattern.

Continue reading “System for Success: Atomic Design for Google Display Ads” →

The Metadata-verse: FileMaker Server Save as XML

by Vincenzo Menanno
Posted in All, Claris Development, FileMaker, FileMaker 19, InspectorPro, Integration, Performance, Tools & Add-ons

As Claris gets further into an Agile groove, there are product releases more often, always with new features and improvements. Claris FileMaker 19.5 is no exception. It includes many new features, expanded extensibility, performance enhancements, and reliability improvements. I want to bring attention to one simple thing that promises to change the world for many of us in the FileMaker developer community: Save a Copy as XML…and the performance improvements running this on FileMaker Server.

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dotfmp.berlin Claris FileMaker Developers 2022

by Beezwax Team
Posted in All, Claris Development, Community, Events, FileMaker, FileMaker 19, FileMaker Cloud, FileMaker Server, News, Techniques, Tools & Add-ons

BERLIN, Germany – Our senior developer Christos Savva attended the dotfmp.berlin 2022 “Unconference” held in June in Berlin. The conference was the first in-person opportunity in over two years for leading Claris FileMaker developers across Europe to meet, share their work, and explore what’s happening in the developer community.

At dotfmp.berlin 2022, more than 70 developers from eighteen countries talked through tools and techniques from their Claris playgrounds. Adding to that excitement was participation by Claris’s engineering and product management teams.

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bBox v0.99 Integrates Claris FileMaker with JavaScript, Python 3 and Supports M1 Apple Silicon

by Simon Brown
Posted in All, bBox, Claris Development, FileMaker, FileMaker 19, FileMaker Server, Integration, JavaScript, Node.js, Python, Tools & Add-ons

We are pleased to release bBox version 0.99 for Claris® FileMaker® on macOS and Linux with new NodeJS and Python 3 integration, and M1 Apple silicon support for GraphicsMagick image processing and JQ JSON parsing functions.

About bBox Plug-in For FileMaker

bBox is a free utility plug-in to extend Claris FileMaker solutions to easily use macOS and Linux code libraries and functions from Python, JavaScript, PHP, Ruby, AppleScript, C/C++, Bash/sh, XPath, and SQLite. Also included is a demo file with more than 210 examples of how you can put bBox functions to work for you.

bBox is available on macOS and Linux, and runs with either FileMaker Pro or FileMaker Server. Here’s what FileMaker Magazine had to say about bBox version 0.99:

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Custom Functions For Today’s FileMaker Devs Of Tomorrow

by Beezwax Team
Posted in FileMaker, FileMaker 19, FileMaker Go, Software Design, Techniques, Uncategorized

While working from home, and continuing to hone one’s FileMaker skills, it’s important for developers to stay active with ongoing learning pursuits. Claris® FileMaker®, as the world’s leading Workplace Innovation Platform, supports both the rapid creation of new custom apps, as well as the practical application of solutions to solve real-world business problems. Here, creative ideation is critical.

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Claris Connect integrates Eversign, FileMaker and more

by Beezwax Team
Posted in All, Claris Connect, Claris Development, Events, FileMaker, FileMaker 18, FileMaker 19, FileMaker Cloud, FileMaker Server, Integration, Techniques, Tools & Add-ons

Let’s talk about Claris Connect as the way to orchestrate data-driven workflows involving Eversign digital signatures, Claris FileMaker, Slack and a range of other possible platforms! Fabio Bosisio from Beezwax will walk through details for setting up these types of integrations.

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Beezwax Wins Claris Excellence Award

by Jay Gonzales
Posted in All, Beezwax News, Claris Connect, Claris Development, Community, FileMaker, FileMaker 19, FileMaker Cloud, News

Beezwax Recognized for Advocacy Excellence, Sharing Expertise and Passion with Customers and Developers In the Claris Community

CUPERTINO, Calif. – Dec. 15, 2021 – Claris International Inc., an Apple company, named Beezwax Datatools Inc. as winner of the Advocacy Excellence Award as part of the Claris Excellence Awards for 2021, which honor Claris Partners and Claris Community members who have made outstanding contributions and accomplishments around the globe in 2021.

Partners and community members are selected for their award-worthy achievements using the Claris platform. The Advocacy Excellence Award recognizes a Claris partner for sharing expertise and passion while increasing awareness of Claris products and expanding the Claris Community of users and developers.

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A fast, flexible Tableau Connector for FileMaker

by Vincenzo Menanno
Posted in All, Claris Development, Data Analytics, FileMaker, FileMaker 18, FileMaker 19, FileMaker Data API, FileMaker Server, Integration, Performance, Tableau, Tableau FM, Techniques, Tools & Add-ons

Building a custom Tableau® Connector for Claris® FileMaker® enables faster, more reliable and more flexible connections between Tableau and FileMaker datasources, compared with the legacy Web Data Connector.

For a number of Beezwax client projects, we’ve installed and deployed a Tableau Connector (aka “TACO”) for FileMaker. The TACO was built using the Tableau Connector SDK (provided by Tableau) to connect to datasources on FileMaker Server. The TACO method uses JDBC rather than the FileMaker Data API for the connection between FileMaker and Tableau, and in our testing the performance of data extracts was up to 10 times faster.

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The Value and Benefits of Transactions with Claris FileMaker

by Beezwax Team
Posted in All, Claris Development, Events, FileMaker, FileMaker 18, FileMaker 19, FileMaker Server, Performance, Techniques

Let’s talk about Claris® FileMaker® and transactions! Vincenzo Menanno discusses what transactions are, how they relate to FileMaker data operations (creating, updating, and deleting records), database normalization, and how to use transactional concepts to improve FileMaker performance, especially over a wide area network (WAN).

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bBox for FileMaker v0.98 with M1, GraphicsMagick & Sips

by Simon Brown
Posted in All, bBox, Claris Development, FileMaker, FileMaker 18, FileMaker 19, FileMaker Server, Tools & Add-ons

We are pleased to release bBox version 0.98, with with new image file functions and M1/Apple Silicon support.

bBox is a free utility plug-in to extend FileMaker solutions to easily use code libraries and macOS-based functions from Python, JavaScript, PHP, Ruby, AppleScript, C/C++, Bash/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.

Some of the changes in version 0.98 are:

  • M1/Apple Silicon binary
  • Ubuntu compatible version (in addition to CentOS)
  • updated to libxml2 version 2.9.12
  • added bBox_GraphicsMagick function & script step
  • added bBox_Sips function & script step
  • modifications to several functions & script steps to add parameters
  • fixed template text used in several functions & script steps to better describe parameters
  • limit POSIX commands to 3 cores
  • new mode to combine stderr with stdout

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Q Foundation – Increased Agility For Social Services

by Beezwax Team
Posted in All, Beezwax News, Business, Community, FileMaker

Beezwax helped the Q Foundation get ahead of a persistent pandemic and quickly pivot to decentralized operations to support a remote workforce.

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FileMaker Performance on Apple M1 | Astounding!

by Vincenzo Menanno
Posted in Claris Development, FileMaker, FileMaker 19, FileMaker Server, News, Performance, Server Administration, Tableau FM, Testing

When the Apple silicon Macs with M1 chips came out, I read and watched many of the reviews. Most of them had great things to say about the promise of Apple’s new M1 chip…I was impressed. When I finally received my Apple M1 MacBook Pro, and started to use it…I was amazed.

Back in 2020, FileMaker Pro 19.2 wasn’t optimized yet for Apple silicon processors, but ran fine under Rosetta emulation. On my M1 MacBook Pro, it already felt much faster than running FileMaker “natively” on an Intel-based MacBook…I was astonished.

Today, I’m running the just-released Claris FileMaker® 19.3, with native support for Apple’s M1 chip, on a new MacBook Pro. It is, in a word: Astounding!

Continue reading “FileMaker Performance on Apple M1 | Astounding!” →

InspectorPro 7.2 for FileMaker – Faster on M1!

by Vincenzo Menanno
Posted in All, Claris Development, FileMaker, FileMaker 19, FileMaker Cloud, FileMaker Server, InspectorPro, Performance, Tools & Add-ons

Everything about the M1 Apple silicon leaves you simply delighted and surprised. It’s like the first time you drive a super-charged Tesla and feel the rush of powerful acceleration OR I imagine it’s like when Han Solo first blasts the Falcon into light speed: it must be experienced to be believed.

Continue reading “InspectorPro 7.2 for FileMaker – Faster on M1!” →

OData for FileMaker – Examples, Tips and Nuances

by Steve Senft-Herrera
Posted in All, Claris Development, FileMaker, FileMaker 19, FileMaker Cloud, FileMaker Data API, FileMaker Server, Integration, Techniques

This blog post is the second of a three-part series about the FileMaker OData API, introducing a demo file with more than 40 examples plus helpful tips, along with Q&A. Part one of the series highlighted some of the key features of the API which make it an exciting addition to the FileMaker platform. As a follow-up, this post will cover the basics and dig into the nuances of using OData with Claris FileMaker.

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Integrating FileMaker’s Data API and Ruby with the fmrest-ruby gem

by Pedro Carbajal
Posted in Claris Development, FileMaker, FileMaker 18, FileMaker 19, FileMaker Data API, Integration, Ruby, Ruby on Rails, Software Design, Tools & Add-ons, Web Development

We often work on projects that intersect two technologies near and dear to us: FileMaker and Ruby. This allows us to build robust web applications in Ruby on Rails, integrated with data sources from FileMaker solutions. When Claris introduced the FileMaker Data API we were naturally curious to try it out. At the time there was no off-the-shelf Ruby library for us to simply gem install, so we decided to roll up our sleeves and build one. Thus, fmrest-ruby was born.

This article will walk you through setting up and using fmrest-ruby in a Ruby on Rails project. Some level of familiarity with Ruby/Rails and FileMaker’s Data API is advised, although much of the content covered here is applicable to any Ruby project, Rails or not.

Continue reading “Integrating FileMaker’s Data API and Ruby with the fmrest-ruby gem” →

OData for FileMaker – New Player in an Old Game

by Steve Senft-Herrera
Posted in Claris Development, FileMaker, FileMaker 19, FileMaker Cloud, FileMaker Data API, FileMaker Server, Integration, Techniques

This blog post is the first in a three-part series about the FileMaker OData API, highlighting key features that make it an exciting addition to the Claris FileMaker platform.

Continue reading “OData for FileMaker – New Player in an Old Game” →

bBox for FileMaker v0.96 with JSON processing, Python 3 and more

by Simon Brown
Posted in bBox, FileMaker, FileMaker 18, FileMaker 19, Python, Ruby, Tools & Add-ons

We are pleased to release bBox version 0.96, with JSON processing via jq, Python 3 compile/run,  and improvements supporting Zsh, cURL and Ruby.

bBox is a free utility plug-in to extend FileMaker solutions to easily use code libraries and macOS-based functions from Python, JavaScript, PHP, Ruby, AppleScript, C/C++, Bash/sh, XPath, and SQLite. Also included is a demo file that has over 210 examples of how you can put bBox functions to work for you.

Continue reading “bBox for FileMaker v0.96 with JSON processing, Python 3 and more” →

Using REST and cURL with FileMaker’s Data API

by Beezwax Team
Posted in Claris Development, FileMaker, FileMaker 19, FileMaker 2023, FileMaker Cloud, FileMaker Data API, FileMaker Server, Integration

FileMaker 19 introduced a couple of important new features related to using the FileMaker Data API. Here, we’ll cover an overview of the new authorization endpoint, Validate Session, API versioning updates, as well as a new script step, Execute FileMaker Data API.

At the end of this article, you’ll find the demo file for learning more and trying out various REST and cURL functionality with FileMaker’s Data API. Enjoy!

Continue reading “Using REST and cURL with FileMaker’s Data API” →

Math in a FileMaker field, for Inputter’s sake

by Christos Savva
Posted in All, Claris Development, FileMaker, FileMaker 18, FileMaker 19, UX

Editor’s Note: An often-ignored reality of data management is that entering data, correctly and cleanly, into all of these database apps we build can be a royal pain in the…
Assumptions can be dangerous, like assuming that your office manager-doubling-as-bookkeeper wants to manually calculate tax on every Invoice row. Or even has the time to.

Not many job titles (anymore) are simply “Data Entry Manager,” and yet entering data is a task that continually must be managed, by one or by many, in the role of “Inputter”. Just entering data can be tedious enough — so, let’s not make it harder. In fact, let’s strive to make it easier. With that in mind, Beezwax Senior Developer Christos Savva provides an example of performing math in a FileMaker field, using a custom function. This is designed to improve data entry user experience, for the sake of Inputters everywhere.

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Dark and Light Modes: 3 Simple Paths to FileMaker UX

by Christopher Edwards
Posted in Claris Development, Design, FileMaker, FileMaker 19, Front-end Design, Front-end Development, Techniques, UX

FileMaker 19 introduced support for Dark Mode. Not only does the application’s chrome support Dark Mode (like many applications), but developers now have the ability to detect the OS Dark Mode setting.

Let’s look at three easy techniques to give FileMaker Pro users a choice between Dark Mode and Light Mode, plus an option to automatically adapt modes based on OS settings.

Continue reading “Dark and Light Modes: 3 Simple Paths to FileMaker UX” →
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