Tag: FileMaker

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?

Continue reading “Retool, FileMaker, Airtable? Picking the Right Stack for Internal Tools” →

FileMaker Semantic Search – Part 3: Advanced Fun

by Will Miro
Posted in AI, AI with FM, All, Beezwax News, Business, Claris Development, Community, FileMaker, FileMaker 2023, FileMaker 2024, FileMaker Go, FileMaker Server, Integration, News, Techniques

Semantic search is a bit like LiDAR: it penetrates the data’s lexical canopy to reveal underlying meaning. In “Part 1: Fundamental Power” and “Part 2: Key Details” we covered the basics of FileMaker semantic search. Now let’s consider some more exotic ways this new feature can put a spotlight on our data.

We’ll show an example of “unified search” across multiple tables, using natural language to construct a semantic search. Then we’ll extend this to a second example, showing “unified search + actions”. A downloadable demo/tutorial file is provided for each of these two examples.

Continue reading “FileMaker Semantic Search – Part 3: Advanced Fun” →

FileMaker Semantic Search – Part 2: Key Details

by Will Miro
Posted in AI with FM, All, Beezwax News, Business, Claris Development, Community, FileMaker, FileMaker 2023, FileMaker 2024, FileMaker Go, FileMaker Server, Integration, News, Techniques

In “FileMaker Semantic Search – Part 1: Fundamental Power” we discussed how to configure your Claris FileMaker 2024 app to support semantic search. Here in Part 2 of this three-part blog series we’ll dig deeper into the details of this awesome new functionality, including embeddings and cosine similarity, with a demo tutorial file for exploring AI Call Logging.

Continue reading “FileMaker Semantic Search – Part 2: Key Details” →

FileMaker Semantic Search – Part 1: Fundamental Power

by Will Miro
Posted in AI, AI with FM, All, Beezwax News, Business, Claris Development, Community, FileMaker, FileMaker 2023, FileMaker 2024, FileMaker Go, FileMaker Server, Integration, News, Techniques

FileMaker 2024 delivers native semantic search, and it’s awesome. Now you can search records whose text is similar to the semantic meaning of your search term, even if those records don’t include your exact search term. Using natural language, users can be freed from trying to recall exactly how data was input. Let’s dive in to see just how powerful FileMaker’s semantic search is.

Continue reading “FileMaker Semantic Search – Part 1: Fundamental Power” →

The Art of Code: FileMaker’s Integration into ‘Problemista’s’ Plot

by Julian Nadel
Posted in All, Beezwax News, Business, Claris Development, Community, FileMaker, FileMaker 2023, News

Throughout the new A24 indie film from Julio Torres, there is an ongoing dialog and deep drama about … Claris FileMaker Pro. Yes, FileMaker Pro is featured in a movie. Good news?! Well, based on initial press coverage and a clip on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, we thought perhaps not. In those brief seconds of national television coverage, our beloved software was called a “harder-to-use, not free” version of Google Sheets.

So, is this big screen debut a major problemista for all of us who love FileMaker?!

Continue reading “The Art of Code: FileMaker’s Integration into ‘Problemista’s’ Plot” →

Handling Historical Data with FileMaker and AWS Athena, S3 & Serverless

by Fabio Bosisio
Posted in All, AWS, Claris Development, Data Analytics, FileMaker, FileMaker 19, FileMaker 2023, FileMaker Data API, FileMaker Server, Integration, Logging, Reporting, Software Design, Techniques, Tools & Add-ons

In this blog post, we will explore a solution for optimising a FileMaker app that handles large amounts of data. We will address the challenges of data storage, file corruption, and performance degradation when dealing with historical data.

By leveraging cloud storage and serverless computing, we can offload and query this data efficiently, ensuring better performance and scalability.

Continue reading “Handling Historical Data with FileMaker and AWS Athena, S3 & Serverless” →

FM-DiSC: Handling Historical Data with FileMaker, AWS Athena, S3, Serverless

by Beezwax Team
Posted in AWS, Claris Connect, Claris Development, FileMaker, FileMaker 19, FileMaker 2023, FileMaker Data API, FileMaker Server, Integration, Techniques, Tools & Add-ons

Fabio Bosisio from Beezwax demonstrates handling historical data in a Claris® FileMaker® solution, utilizing a combination of AWS services including AWS Serverless, AWS S3, and Amazon Athena’s Interactive SQL. Use cases include archiving, data mining, and reporting.

Continue reading “FM-DiSC: Handling Historical Data with FileMaker, AWS Athena, S3, Serverless” →

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.

Continue reading “Q Foundation – Increased Agility For Social Services” →

FileMaker Performance on Apple silicon | 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 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.

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

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

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.

Continue reading “OData for FileMaker – Examples, Tips and Nuances” →

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 2023, FileMaker 2024, FileMaker Cloud, FileMaker Data API, FileMaker Server, Integration, Techniques

This blog post is the first in a 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” →

Show me external vs. embedded containers in FileMaker

by Beezwax Team
Posted in FileMaker 17, FileMaker 18, InspectorPro

Dear InspectorPro: Can you show me a report on the container fields used in my FileMaker solution, with a list of all externally-referenced vs. internally-stored (“embedded”) fields? Sincerely, Thanks in Advance-d.

Continue reading “Show me external vs. embedded containers in FileMaker” →

Using Siri with FileMaker, via iOS Shortcuts

by Fabio Bosisio
Posted in All, FileMaker, FileMaker 17, FileMaker Cloud, FileMaker Data API, FileMaker Server, Integration, Mobile Development, Techniques

“Hey Siri…Ask FileMaker…”

This story started when we explored iOS Shortcuts to the FileMaker Data API. As we continue to automate tasks by mixing together iOS apps, content on mobile devices and web APIs plus FileMaker, let’s add to our workflow using one of the most powerful functions available to iPhone and iPad users: Siri.

Continue reading “Using Siri with FileMaker, via iOS Shortcuts” →

Creating Your Own SSL Certificates For FileMaker

by Simon Brown
Posted in All, FileMaker, FileMaker 16, Security, Server Administration

Typically, you buy an SSL certificate for a server from a SSL vendor. However, some companies may decide that they want to issue their own SSL certificates. Often this is because the domain is only used internally, and most vendors don’t easily allow (if at all) the signing of server certificates for non-public domains. Additionally, issuing your own certificates can remove complications caused by the certificate verification process used by most vendors, and there are no fees needed for each certificate.

Continue reading “Creating Your Own SSL Certificates For FileMaker” →

Speeding FileMaker Performance with Truncate Table

by Jud Wolfskill
Posted in All, FileMaker, FileMaker 15, FileMaker Server, Performance, Techniques, Testing

Managing Data You Use and Throw Out

We develop FileMaker applications because we want a place to store information for the long term. We track events, tasks, contacts, finances—FileMaker can track almost anything. To update information, the application might ingest a spreadsheet.

Continue reading “Speeding FileMaker Performance with Truncate Table” →

Version 0.82 of bBox Now Available

by Simon Brown
Posted in All, bBox, FileMaker, Integration, News, Python, Tools & Add-ons

We are pleased to release another update to bBox, v0.82 of our free FileMaker utility plug-in.

Continue reading “Version 0.82 of bBox Now Available” →

Run PHP code with FileMaker & bBox

by Simon Brown
Posted in All, bBox, FileMaker

For quite a while, the documentation and product information for bBox has mentioned it as a way to run PHP scripts, but I only just recently realized that we never had any examples of how to do this.

Here are two methods to try.

Continue reading “Run PHP code with FileMaker & bBox” →

bBox 0.80 Now Available

by Simon Brown
Posted in All, bBox, FileMaker, Python, Tools & Add-ons, Uncategorized

Its been almost a year since we’ve mentioned bBox on this venue, but we are now pleased to announce that version 0.80 is publicly available.

Continue reading “bBox 0.80 Now Available” →

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