Chapter 1. Working with a Database
FileMaker Pro databases can be as simple as a list of your antique saltshaker collection or as complex as a company-wide system for purchasing, sales, inventory, invoicing, shipping, and customer tracking. But all of them essentially work the same way. This chapter gives you a tour of FileMaker’s major features and gets you up and running on your very first database.
FileMaker’s vast assortment of tools and options can make its window as intimidating as a jumbo-jet cockpit. But the program’s menu commands, dialog boxes, keyboard shortcuts, and other options stay largely consistent across all databases, so everything you learn in the next few pages applies to almost every database you’ll ever use.
Note
Because a database usually solves a problem of some kind, some FileMaker experts call a database a solution, as in, “I can create an inventory solution for your bakery, but it’s going to cost you some dough.” Usually, database and solution mean the same thing, although the term solution sometimes implies a system of several connected databases (more on that in Part 3).
A Very Quick Database Tour
Every FileMaker Pro database has two major working parts. First, the data you’re storing. And second, the tools that help you view and manage your data. Since data can change radically from file to file, you’ll start this tour focusing on the elements you find in nearly every FileMaker database—the tools. And since the first database you create won’t have any data ...