FileMaker® Pro Design & Scripting For Dummies®

Introduction

With over 10 million units of FileMaker software sold around the world, FileMaker has become the diamond in the rough when it comes to creating and managing data. After over 20 years of use, today's FileMaker Pro 8 has matured from its humble beginnings to become the hottest cross-platform database-development environment available.

Though I hate to admit it, when I first took a look at FileMaker in the early ’90s, I wasn't impressed. The database tables were flat (no relationships), and aside from being able to quickly throw together some forms, I couldn't see how or why this application had any appeal. Needless to say, I was blinded by my experiences with dBASE and Superbase. Yes, I was being narrow minded. I took another look with version 5.0, and though I was impressed with the improvements to the database structure and the ability to write programming scripts, I still felt that it was underpowered as a software development tool.

Then FileMaker 7 came out, and I was blown away! My socks rolled up and down! I was impressed with the ability of FileMaker to be utilized as a full-blown application development tool — not only for Mac OS X but Windows as well. Now with the release of version 8 (the current version as I write this book), the FileMaker folks have provided a serious, relational database design and development system. After being in the computer industry since 1982 (yeah, I'm showing my age), I am finally excited about a programming environment again. By the ...