FileMaker Pro 9: The Missing Manual

Chapter 19. Developer Utilities

FileMaker Pro takes you from your first simple database all the way into power-user territory. It lets you create complex relational databases with ease, design virtually any layout imaginable, and add features of your own invention with buttons and scripts. With it, you can create any database you may need for a small business or organization. Once you have more than a handful of people using your database, you may eventually outgrow even FileMaker Pro’s abilities and need to buy another FileMaker product. In Chapter 18, for example, you can see how File-Maker Server lets more than five users work in a database at once—something FileMaker Pro simply can’t handle. FileMaker offers another upgrade, called File-Maker Pro Advanced. This version doesn’t make your database run better, or accept more users, or hold more data. Rather, with Advanced, you can be a more productive developer.

For a couple hundred dollars more ($299 for Pro versus $499 for Advanced), you get a whole raft of developer tools that will make your life easier and your data-bases better. If you find yourself troubleshooting long, complex scripts, Script Debugger may save your sanity and your valuable time. The analysis tools are indispensable if you’re in a consultant role, working on databases that other people created. And most FileMaker developers have longed for an easy way to keep their more adventuresome users away from potentially destructive menu commands (including but not ...