FileMaker® Pro Design & Scripting For Dummies®

Chapter 9. Your Programming Toolbox

In This Chapter

• Making good comments

• Organizing scripts for easy access

• Documenting changes made to an application

• Centering your layout

• Calling external scripts

• Accessing your library of external scripts and value lists

• Interfacing with Google Maps

• Sending error messages via e-mail

I remember an old TV show about a doctor who would visit his patients. He always had words of wisdom for helping to resolve the situation that the patient was facing. What impressed me the most was his little black bag. Regardless of what problem the patient was facing, the doctor always had some medicine or a special tool in his black bag. I'm sure that years of wisdom and experience helped the doctor to decide just what to put into that bag.

Being a software programmer is very similar. During the years of programming and writing software, programmers gradually develop what is generally referred to as their bag of tricks. It is in this bag of tricks that the programmers keep their best tools, tricks, and techniques for writing software applications. It isn't a literal bag that the programmer carries around; rather, it's usually just stored in the programmer's head. And for those who can't seem to hold everything in memory (this author included), the programmer keeps a library of files and programs that contain the routines that the programmer wants to keep at hand. Therefore, I present to you a sampling of some of the tricks and tips of FileMaker programming that I have created, ...