TidBITS#721/15-Mar-04
=====================
FileMaker Pro 7 arrived last week with significant changes to the
popular database application. In this super-sized issue, William
Porter reviews the new version and explains why it's such a big
deal. Then Joe Kissell revisits the FireWire data loss problem
that has affected some people upgrading to Panther. Matt Neuburg
covers the releases of DEVONthink 1.8.1, Affrus 1.0, StyleMaster
3.5, FaceSpan 4.0, and NoteTaker 1.8; we also spotlight a few of
Adam's recent radio interviews and note that the iTunes Music
Store has hit 50 million downloads.
Topics:
MailBITS/15-Mar-04
Revisiting Panther's FireWire Data Loss Problem
FileMaker Pro 7: Can You Say Paradigm Shift?
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/15-Mar-04
<http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/TidBITS-721.html>
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Copyright 2004 TidBITS: Reuse governed by Creative Commons license
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MailBITS/15-Mar-04
------------------
**Apple Releases Mac OS X 10.3.3** -- Just as we were about to go
to press, Apple released the latest free update to Mac OS X 10.3.
Version 10.3.3 offers a long list of enhancements (see Apple's
Knowledge Base article), but one we're pleased to see is the
inclusion of network-mounted volumes in the list of volumes shown
in the sidebar of Finder windows and Open/Save dialogs. The update
also incorporates other networking fixes and improvements for
cross-platform compatibility and AppleTalk; improves .Mac iDisk
synchronization performance and behavior; provides fixes for
Finder, DVD Player, iPhoto, Mail, Address Book, and Image Capture;
and improves start-up time for some computers that were slowed
down by the 10.3.2 update. Mac OS X 10.3 Panther owners may
upgrade via Software Update (58.8 MB) or download a standalone
installer from Apple. [MHA]
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25711>
**The Devonian Age Continues** -- Hard on the heels of last week's
review of DEVONthink 1.8 comes version 1.8.1, offering the
capability to index a document on disk without also importing it
into the database; this meets my criticisms that the database is
unnecessarily large and that deleting an original document to save
disk space risks losing the data. Also, DEVONthink now displays
the contents of linked files if the format allows (e.g. text, RTF,
image); unfortunately this removes a feature I liked (you could
edit the database "text" of a linked file), and searching in
comments is broken, so this is actually a step backwards in my
view. It's a 2.7 MB download and is a free update for registered
users.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07575>
<http://www.devon-technologies.com/products/devonthink/editions.php>
<http://www.devon-technologies.com/download.php>
At the same time, DEVONtechnologies introduced DEVONthink's
"little brother," DEVONnote. It is limited to the basic two-pane
view of the database, with a list of documents in one pane and
the contents of the current document in the other. It lacks
display of images and PDF files; however, it still functions
as a text and RTF editor (and images can be included within
an RTF document), it can include links to files on disk, and
it can display Web pages. DEVONnote lacks DEVONthink's new
capability to index without importing, and the advanced search
tools such as finding similar search terms, displaying word
lists, and supplying keyword lists. But it still has DEVONthink's
extremely fast basic searching, along with searching for
similar documents and classifying based on similarity of grouped
documents. It could be a bargain at $15 until the end of April
($20 after that). [MAN]
<http://www.devon-technologies.com/products/devonnote.php>
**iTunes Music Store Tops 50 Million Songs Sold** -- Apple
announced today that the iTunes Music Store had hit its 50
millionth song sale, and was averaging 2.5 million songs sold
per week, about half in the form of albums. In an interview this
morning, Apple vice president Rob Schoeben said, "The milestones
that we're hitting are not just the passage of time," but the
store has been ratcheting up with major events, such as adding
the Windows iTunes software, Christmas sales, the iPod mini
launch, and the Pepsi promotion.
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2004/mar/15itunes.html>
Schoeben noted that the band Green Day released an exclusive
single on iTunes, which shot to the number one position on the
store within a day and stayed in the top three for three weeks.
(Pepsi's use of the song in a commercial for the iTunes promotion,
which ran during the Super Bowl, no doubt helped spread the word.)
Radio stations picked up the song without any other form of the
single's release. [GF]
<http://www.apple.com/itunes/pepsi/ads/>
<http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?
playlistId=5305681&selectedItemId=5305679>
**The New Face of FaceSpan** -- After a long hiatus, FaceSpan
has returned in a new version completely rewritten for Mac OS X.
FaceSpan 4.0 is an application construction kit with AppleScript
as the programming language: you "draw" your interface, you write
AppleScript code in scripts attached to the interface items, you
compile, and presto, you've got a stand-alone application. Like
Apple's AppleScript Studio, FaceSpan is written in Cocoa, it
builds Cocoa applications, it can call Cocoa (Objective-C)
methods, and it uses the AppleScriptKit dictionary.
<http://www.facespan.com/facespan/pagespeed/url/features4.0/>
<http://www.apple.com/applescript/studio/>
Of course, AppleScript Studio has the advantage of being free
(see "AppleScript's Studly Studio" in TidBITS-610_). But FaceSpan
is small (less than 8 MB), self-contained, and easy to use - so
easy that I wrote my first application without even reading the
manual. (Okay, so all it did was add two numbers together, but
that's a start.) One reason for its simplicity is that the
interface is remarkably intuitive; another is that a script
can be attached to an individual control, and stands in an
inheritance relationship with the container of that control -
for example, a button in a window has a script that can "see"
the window's script, similar to HyperCard. Optionally, FaceSpan
also integrates with Late Night Software's Script Debugger 3.0.8
for much better debugging than Apple provides. FaceSpan comes
in two versions: the full version is $200; the "lite" version
is $90, and limits any compiled applications to running on a
computer where FaceSpan is installed. Owners of previous versions
can upgrade for $100. [MAN]
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06667>
<http://www.latenightsw.com/sd3.0/updateDownload.html>
**Perl Made Easy with Affrus 1.0** -- Late Night Software has a
history of picking up where Apple leaves off. Mac OS X includes
AppleScript, but Apple's own Script Editor isn't all that great
as an editing environment, and it can't debug at all. Late Night's
Script Debugger makes up for this, making AppleScript easily
editable and debuggable. Late Night Software has continued in
the same vein with the announcement of Affrus, which does the
same for Perl. (Conflict of interest disclaimer: I wrote the
manuals for both programs.)
Perl is a popular Unix scripting language; Mac OS X includes Perl,
but has no native application for easy editing and debugging of
Perl scripts. Affrus meets this need. You can step through Perl
scripts, or run to breakpoints that you set, evaluating
expressions and examining variables in their runtime context.
Syntax coloring clarifies the script's meaning; a pop-up menu
lets you navigate to a subroutine's definition, even if it's in
an external module. Affrus costs $100 and requires Mac OS X 10.2
Jaguar or higher; a 30-day demo is available as a 4.9 MB download.
[MAN]
<http://www.latenightsw.com/affrus/>
**Style Master 3.5 Works Web Site Wizardry** -- Western
Civilisation's Style Master has long been my favorite application
for creating, editing, and previewing Cascading Style Sheets
(CSS) in Web pages (see "Precision Web Pages with Style Master"
in TidBITS-501_). It encapsulates a difficult language in an
easy interface; put another way, it knows CSS so you don't have
to (although you can certainly use it to edit your CSS directly
if you wish). And now, you _really_ don't have to know any CSS,
because the version 3.5 includes "wizards".
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=05602>
<http://www.westciv.com/style_master/product_info/>
A wizard is a dialog sequence; it guides you through choices about
how you want your Web pages to look (font, margins, borders, and
so forth), and then generates the corresponding CSS and some HTML
to illustrate those attributes. And, beyond the level of general
page layout, wizards are also included for such common page
elements as site navigation bars and "breadcrumbs" (links showing
where the user is located within your site). If even wizards are
too much trouble, you can just use one of a dozen included pre-
built CSS page templates (provided under a Creative Commons
license). There is also now built-in page previewing, along
with CSS validation within Style Master or online using W3C's
validator. Now anyone can set up great-looking, valid CSS-based
Web sites in about a minute. Style Master requires Mac OS X 10.0
or higher, and costs $60; this update is $40 for existing owners.
A 30-day demo is available as a 5.8 MB download. [MAN]
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/1.0/>
<http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/>
**NoteTaker 1.8 Hits More High Notes** -- AquaMinds has released
version 1.8 of their flagship notebook/outliner program, NoteTaker
(see "Take Note of NoteTaker" in TidBITS-677_). This version
introduces the capability to export to XML, using a new markup
specification called NTML (Note-Taking Markup Language); such
export can apply an XSL transform on the fly, and as a proof
of concept, a transform to Keynote format (APML) is included.
Other new features take advantage of technologies in Mac OS X
10.3 Panther: there is import/export to Word (.doc) format, and
NoteTaker can now be used as a Web browser - including the ability
to type into a search field to do Web searches using any online
engine (like Safari's "Google" field on steroids).
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07157>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07224>
Hovering the mouse over a link to a page or entry and pressing the
Option key brings up a floating window displaying the contents of
the target, so you can read the linked material without actually
going there (who says you can't be in two places at once?); if the
link is a Web URL, the page's title is fetched and displayed. You
can now designate any folder as a "library": NoteTaker will list,
in a drawer or dialog, every page of every NoteTaker document
found there, for easy access. Many other existing features are
improved or tweaked, various speed and efficiency improvements
have been incorporated, and the first draft of a nice-looking PDF
manual is included. NoteTaker 1.8 is $70, and is a free upgrade
for existing users. A 30-day demo is available as a 14.7 MB
download. [MAN]
<http://www.aquaminds.com/introducing1_8.jsp>
**Adam's March Radio Shows** -- I've done guest spots on a pair of
radio shows recently, so if you'd like to hear my conversations
regarding Wi-Fi security, the recent worm plague, our move to Web
Crossing, Take Control, and what's happening in the Mac industry,
listen to Gene Steinberg's Mac Night Owl show from 05-Mar-04 (you
may need to load the show URL directly into QuickTime Player, and
I'm in the second half), and Scott Sheppard's Inside Mac Radio
show on 13-Mar-04 (again, I'm in the second half). [ACE]
<http://www.macradio.com/friday/>
<http://www.osxfaq.com/radio/03-2004/03-13.html>
Revisiting Panther's FireWire Data Loss Problem
-----------------------------------------------
by Joe Kissell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
When Apple released Mac OS X 10.3 Panther last October, many
people (though by no means all) had serious difficulties with
their FireWire hard drives. Affected users found that, after
restarting their computers under Panther with the drives
connected, the drives become completely inaccessible - unable
to mount on any operating system, and so badly damaged that
even disk recovery applications could not retrieve their data.
Not long after the problem surfaced, Apple acknowledged an issue
affecting FireWire 800 hard drives that use the Oxford 922 bridge
chipset with firmware version 1.02 or earlier. Manufacturers of
such drives quickly released firmware patches, and Apple took
steps to resolve the problem from their end as well. The Mac OS X
updates (beginning with 10.3.1) provide "improved reliability"
with FireWire 800 drives, though Apple still recommends that you
update the firmware on such devices. (See "Fixes Available for
Some Panther FireWire Troubles" in TidBITS-704_ and "Apple Updates
Panther to 10.3.1" in TidBITS-705_.)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07420>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07425>
**Data Loss with FireWire 400 Drives** -- All this is old news to
most TidBITS readers. But for the past several months, users of
FireWire 400 drives have wondered whether they can safely upgrade
to Panther yet. Neither Apple nor hard drive manufacturers ever
officially acknowledged a data loss problem with FireWire 400
drives, yet a number of users, including at least one Take Control
author, have experienced exactly the same symptoms with some
FireWire 400 drives. Although the root cause appears to be
different - and the problem less widespread - the data loss,
when it occurs, is no less serious.
Whereas the FireWire 800 problem was easily reproducible, failures
of FireWire 400 drives seem to be random. A given drive model may
work correctly on one machine and fail on another that appears to
be configured identically. In general, the reports I've read show
a higher tendency for problems to occur on systems with multiple
FireWire devices chained together or attached to a bus-powered
hub, especially if one device is an iSight camera. (Apple's iSight
1.0.2 update may fix this.) Also, drives that support both
FireWire 400 and 800, or FireWire 400 and USB (1.1 or 2.0) appear
to experience problems more frequently than drives that support
only FireWire 400. Lastly, computers that support FireWire 400
but not FireWire 800 are typically less likely to experience
this problem.
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93705>
I've laced my description with fudge words such as "seems,"
"tendency," and "typically." Unfortunately, none of the experts
I consulted knew what causes this problem. Drive manufacturers
have spent countless hours testing without reaching any conclusive
results. And thousands of users - including me - never had
a problem with their FireWire 400 drives (from a variety of
manufacturers). Even so, the iPod is the only FireWire 400
device I know definitively to be immune to this problem.
**Recommendations for FireWire 400 and Panther** -- In version
1.1 of "Take Control of Upgrading to Panther" last November,
I recommended against using FireWire 400 drives with Panther
until more was known - or failing that, to be sure the drive
was never connected when the computer started or woke from
sleep. Given the relatively infrequent occurrence of this
problem, I feel comfortable tempering my suggestions somewhat.
If you want to upgrade your computer to run Panther while
continuing to use a FireWire 400 drive, follow these guidelines:
* Back up everything on the drive to DVD, CD-R, tape, or some
other medium other than another FireWire hard drive before
installing Panther.
* Check your drive manufacturer's Web site to see if a firmware
update is available. If so, apply it (preferably before installing
Panther) - even if the manufacturer does not mention whether the
update addresses this issue.
* If you are not installing Panther on the FireWire drive itself,
disconnect the drive from your computer until after you have
installed Panther and updated it to version 10.3.2 or later.
* Avoid chaining FireWire devices together, especially if a
chained device lacks its own power supply. If you have more
FireWire 400 devices than your computer has ports, use a powered
hub - or better yet, if you have a PowerBook or Power Mac, add
a second FireWire bus using a PCI or PCMCIA card.
If you must use a FireWire 400 drive but cannot back it up or
avoid chaining devices together, consider these additional
precautions:
* Be sure the drive's FireWire cable is unplugged when you turn
on your computer.
* Before shutting down, restarting, or putting your computer to
sleep, unmount any volumes from the FireWire drive and unplug
the drive's FireWire cable.
* If your computer is set to sleep automatically, temporarily
disable this feature in the Energy Saver pane of System
Preferences.
* Plug in the drive only when Panther is running. Again, be sure
to unmount the disk and disconnect the FireWire cable when you
finish using the drive.
**What If My Hard Drive Is Already Fried?** Conventional disk
repair applications such as Disk Utility, Norton Utilities,
TechTool Pro, and even DiskWarrior cannot repair drives that
have encountered this problem or recover data from them. Quite
a few users have reported success using Prosoft Engineering's
Data Rescue X, however. If even that fails, you may need to send
your drive to a data recovery service such as the highly regarded
(but not inexpensive) DriveSavers.
<http://www.prosoftengineering.com/products/data_rescue.php>
<http://www.drivesavers.com/>
**"Take Control of Upgrading to Panther"** -- Advice for users of
FireWire 400 hard drives is just one of the topics I expanded
greatly in the latest edition of "Take Control of Upgrading to
Panther." Now at version 1.2, this 89-page ebook covers all the
steps you need to follow for a worry-free upgrade to Panther from
any earlier version of the Mac OS. Most of the new content comes
in direct response to inquiries I received from readers. Even if
you've already upgraded your computer to run Panther, you will
find extensive troubleshooting tips, suggestions for storing
frequently used files somewhere other than your startup volume,
and information to help you understand and cope with some of
Panther's most surprising changes. I hope you find the book
helpful!
<http://www.tidbits.com/takecontrol/panther/upgrading.html>
[Editor's note: As is our policy, anyone who purchased an earlier
version of Joe's ebook may receive this update for free. To that
end, we notified all purchasers of the new version last week via
email (and nearly half of our readers have downloaded the update
already!). However, a number of messages bounced due to changed
email addresses and spam filters, so if you didn't receive
notification, please use the form at the bottom of our Ordering
Tips page to ask me for help. Also note that we've started a
referral program for readers; click the button on the cover page
of this update to Joe's ebook to send a 10 percent discount coupon
to a friend and receive 10 percent off your next order as well.
Thanks for helping to spread the word about Take Control! -Tonya]
<http://www.tidbits.com/takecontrol/ordering-tips.html>
[Joe Kissell is a writer, consultant, and Mac developer living
in San Francisco.]
FileMaker Pro 7: Can You Say Paradigm Shift?
--------------------------------------------
by William Porter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
I wouldn't describe the last several versions of FileMaker Pro as
ho-hum, but I wouldn't exactly call them exciting. The addition of
XML support in FileMaker Pro 6 was so revolutionary an enhancement
that most developers still don't know what to make of it two years
later. Otherwise, version 6 felt like a maintenance release, with
a few new status functions, the capability to import photos
directly from a digital camera, a Find and Replace command, etc.
As a result, many people who aren't already in the know will be
surprised - no, scratch that - _shocked_ to discover that the
just-released FileMaker Pro 7 is dramatically, profoundly and
comprehensively different from its predecessors. Different and,
I hasten to say, better.
<http://www.filemaker.com/products/fm_whatsnew.html>
Now, the difference is not primarily a matter of new or changed
features, although there are more of those than I can mention
here. It's more a matter of a new way of thinking. Experienced
FileMaker developers learning to work in FileMaker Pro 7 may feel
like Texans accustomed to attacking their food with steak knives,
now forced to eat noodles with chopsticks. Chopsticks are not just
a different tool for picking up food: they're designed for a
different cuisine, behind which there is a different conception of
what constitutes a meal. The same applies to FileMaker Pro 7.
We're not just going to be building databases differently, we're
going to be building fundamentally different kinds of databases.
**To Upgrade or Not to Upgrade?** FileMaker Pro 7 and FileMaker
Developer 7 are available immediately. New licenses for FileMaker
Pro 7 cost $300, and a special upgrade offer available through
17-Sep-04 makes upgrades available for $150 for previous versions
of FileMaker all the way back to FileMaker Pro 2.1. After
17-Sep-04, only FileMaker Pro 6 owners will be eligible for
the upgrade pricing. FileMaker Developer 7 costs $500, with
a $100 rebate available to previous owners. Special deals are
available for some buyers, so be sure to check FileMaker, Inc.'s
Web site.
<http://www.filemaker.com/upgrade/>
If you are already using FileMaker Pro, this upgrade is something
you will want at some point. But you should proceed deliberately,
particularly if you're an end-user or are involved on the IT side
of hosting and maintaining database solutions.
The main reason not to install FileMaker Pro 7 on all your
computers tomorrow is that it's hard to predict whether any given
solution will come into FileMaker Pro 7 singing "Hallelujah!" or
kicking and screaming. Some (perhaps many) old solutions will
convert with relatively little effort. But many will not. In my
limited experience, any moderately complex solution is likely to
require some effort before conversion, and perhaps afterwards,
too. FileMaker, Inc., has a wealth of information on the subject
of conversion on its Web site. Read it, or weep. And in the
meantime, you can eat your cake and have it, too, because
FileMaker, Inc., has adjusted its license to let upgraders get
started with version 7 while continuing to run old solutions under
version 6; both versions can run simultaneously without trouble.
<http://www.filemaker.com/upgrade/migration.html#techbriefs>
<http://www.filemaker.com/legal/licensing_faq_us.html#1>
If your solution is shared on a network, you need to consider
something else: you can't share FileMaker Pro 7 databases under
the current FileMaker Server 5.5, and FileMaker Server 7 won't
be out for a couple of months.
<http://www.filemaker.com/products/fms_home.html>
FileMaker Pro 7 requires Mac OS X 10.2.8 and later (or Windows
2000/XP). If you are using an older operating system, you may
need to upgrade your operating system, or even your Mac, before
installing FileMaker Pro 7.
**What's in It for End Users?** You museum curators and small-
business managers, secretaries and paralegals, salesmen, doctors,
engineers, teachers, accountants, and publishers - you folks are
FileMaker Pro's principal customers. You may not get your hands on
FileMaker Pro 7 for weeks or months, but there are improvements to
look forward to.
In FileMaker Pro 7, you can view the same data in multiple
windows. This means you will be able to view the same found set of
records in both form and list view, or view lists of two entirely
different found sets.
When you finish editing a record in FileMaker Pro 7, you may now
be asked if you want to save your changes. Have you ever made a
bunch of changes in a record, then changed your mind? Or, worse,
realized you had edited the wrong record? In FileMaker 7, click
Don't Save to restore the record to its former state.
What if you need to edit a record urgently, but Jenkins in
marketing got there first? With FileMaker Pro 7, you can send
Jenkins an instant message asking him to put down the record and
back away from the database. Now it's more fun to be the boss.
Is your budget tight? FileMaker Pro's built-in Instant Web
Publishing feature is now actually useful. Turn it on and share
the database over your workgroup's intranet. What your colleagues
will see in their browsers looks very close to what they'd see
sitting in front of a client copy of FileMaker Pro. Instant Web
Publishing is good for up to five concurrent users; FileMaker
finally eliminated that old 10-different-IP-addresses-in-a-
rolling-12-hour-period silliness.
I'm not sure whether this is something that end users have been
clamoring for, but container fields can now store almost anything
except lunch leftovers. We are not just talking photos and
QuickTime movies here, but Word and Excel documents, PDFs, MP3s,
even other FileMaker Pro databases. Click on a container field
and use the appropriate command in the Insert menu. This gives
FileMaker Pro the capability to become a real document management
system. Files stored in a FileMaker Pro 7 database do not have to
be accessible to users on a shared network drive. And you can use
FileMaker's security to control the access users have to stored
files.
Speaking of security, the security model in FileMaker Pro 7 is
entirely new. End users who must login to shared databases are now
asked to provide an account name as well as a password. There is
really important news here but it's technical and a bit premature,
since the new security features won't come into their own until
FileMaker Server 7 is released. Suffice it to say that managers,
IT/IS staff, and developers working together will be able to make
access to your valuable data simpler and safer than ever before.
<http://www.filemaker.com/downloads/pdf/techbrief_security.pdf>
<http://www.filemaker.com/downloads/pdf/whitepaper_fm7_security.pdf>
I could go on, but in all honesty, the most radical changes in
FileMaker Pro 7 are not obvious on the surface. A few cosmetic
changes in the status area and dialogs have been implemented, and
Mac OS X users get the toolbar back. But otherwise, if you have
never defined a relationship or written a script, FileMaker Pro 7
will look very familiar. End users are the ultimate beneficiaries
of everything good in FileMaker Pro 7, but those benefits will be
indirect.
**So What's In It for Developers?** If you are a developer, you
may find FileMaker Pro 7 a mixed blessing. On one hand, you have
been given a new tool that's an order of magnitude more powerful
than what it replaces. On the other hand, almost everything you
knew a week ago is obsolete.
There are scores of new functions, including an Evaluate function
that can perform a calculation based on the contents of a field,
and a Let function that lets you define and use variables on the
fly inside a calculation formula. Buttons can pass parameters to
scripts; for example, the same button, placed on different
layouts, can pass the current layout name to the script it's
calling and produce a different result in each case. If you work
inside FileMaker Developer, you can now define custom functions
and store them in the file so they can be used when the solution
is opened in FileMaker Pro. Text in the middle of a field can be
formatted via calculation, for example, to highlight a search
string. You can add comments to calculation formulas using either
C or C++ formats. And there are even more improvements along the
same lines.
But, important as these enhancements are, they aren't the big
news. The big news in FileMaker Pro 7 has to do with file
structures and relationships.
**One File, Many Tables** -- FileMaker Pro 7 now distinguishes
between database files and tables, and more important, a single
database file can now store multiple tables. How many tables?
A million, which is more than you will ever need. And now that
FileMaker has something that can properly be called "tables,"
we're finally free to use the word "database" more or less
the way the rest of the world uses it.
Multiple tables in the same file, combined with new features like
script parameters and some of the new functions, mean that it's
possible to write more generic, more modular scripts than ever
before. In one 14-file solution that I wrote, a whole slew of
scripts in each of the 14 files do essentially the same things:
go to list view, perform a scripted search with input from the
user, etc. In the FileMaker Pro 6 version of my solution, each
of these scripts must exist in each file separately. If I decide
to improve the find-records script in one file, I have to edit
it in the other 13 files as well. In FileMaker Pro 7, much of
this duplication of effort is unnecessary.
You do not have to store everything in one file. Files can refer
to one another and access one another's tables. FileMaker Pro 7
takes advantage of this fact when it converts your existing multi-
file solutions: each individual file in the old solution becomes
an individual, one-table file in the new solution. These files are
related in a group of small, file-to-file relationships, pretty
much the way they were related before. In many cases, this is a
benign but undesirable consequence of the solution's origin in the
earlier version of FileMaker Pro. If you want to consolidate these
individual files, New Millennium's FM Robot utility can do the job
automatically. But in many cases, if you or your client can afford
it, rebuilding old solutions from scratch will be desirable.
<http://www.newmillennium.com/Product_Overview.htm?pid=P77YJCFQ66NXQYB0LCXW>
**The Separation Model** -- When one file references another file,
it references everything in that file. In other words, if one
file, called "My_Data.fp7" has 22 tables in it, another file
called "My_App.fp7" can access every one of those tables as if
they were stored internally rather than externally. What does
"reference" mean here? It means that My_App.fp7 can contain
layouts that provide form and list views of each of the tables
in My_Data.fp7. Not list as in "portal" - a limited interface
element familiar to current FileMaker users - but list as in a
_real_ list, a list that can print nicely on page after page,
a list that can be displayed with subsummary totals. My_App.fp7
can do this even if it does not contain a single table itself.
It might contain nothing but layouts and scripts, all taking
advantage of the tables in My_Data.fp7.
Can you see where this is going? In FileMaker Pro 7, it's possible
to put the data in one file, and all the programming resources -
layouts, scripts, value lists, summaries - into a separate file.
Separating data (and the data structure) from the stuff you do
to analyze and display the data brings an enhanced clarity to
the development process. It's also a huge boon for any client
whose developer is working remotely. When it's time to update
that solution with 6 million records, the IT guy takes the
solution off line, throws out the old front-end file, puts the
new front-end file in its place, and places the solution back
online. Downtime: five minutes, tops.
FileMaker developers have been talking about "The Separation
Model" for years, but it was more of a dream than a reality, due
to the limitations on the ways in which one file could access,
manipulate, and display another file's data. Line-item reports
can't be printed effectively from portals, so you usually had to
jump to a data file to print line items (like invoices or class
rosters). And that usually meant you had to include scripts in the
data file to sort the records and display them on a report layout.
But in FileMaker Pro 7, since one file can logically incorporate
all the tables in another file and make use of them as if they
were stored internally, these impediments to true separation
no longer exist. The main remaining obstacles to The Separation
Model are the need to deal with unanticipated fields and user
modifications to accounts and passwords, but a lot of smart
developers are working on these problems. I have a solution
on my PowerBook right now that implements The Separation Model
completely. It's somewhat modest, but it works.
The Separation Model won't be adopted by every developer. Many
developers will be so thrilled to be able to put everything in a
single file that they won't want to think about the alternative,
at least not for a while. Even those who embrace it may not use it
in every solution, in part because it may unnecessarily increase
the amount of data that needs to be backed up regularly. But the
sky's the limit now as far as file size goes. FileMaker Pro
database files can balloon to 8 terabytes (if you have an Xserve
RAID to store it on). As FileMaker Pro databases grow ever larger,
the advantages of The Separation Model may become more obvious and
more compelling.
**Can You Relate?** I think the capability of one file to
incorporate another file's tables is the most significant single
change in FileMaker Pro 7. But the change that many developers so
far seem to be most excited (or confused) about is the change in
the way that relationships are defined and managed.
FileMaker Pro 1 was a flat-file database. Everything went into one
file containing only one type of record. In FileMaker Pro 2, it
became possible for one file to lookup data in another file and
copy it. This wasn't real relationality, but we didn't care. We
hugged lookups in our arms tightly and ran toward the goal post
with them, screaming all the way. Ah, 1993!
In version 3, FileMaker Pro became relational, sort of. It was
certainly more relational than version 2. The sharing of data
from one file to another was automatic (whereas lookups had to be
triggered), related data wasn't stored twice (as it had been with
lookups), and you could edit one file's data directly in another,
related file. Developers took this new capability and did some
truly amazing things with it.
But this was an idiosyncratic kind of relationality. For one
thing, relationships were unidirectional. You could relate
INVOICES to LINE ITEMS, but that just meant you could see line
items from the invoices file. If you wanted to see invoice data
(such as the invoice date) from the line items file, you had to go
to the LINE ITEMS file and define the relationship a second time.
It was a bit like needing to conduct a wedding twice: once for the
groom and once for the bride. Worse, if you wanted to display a
value from PRODUCTS in the portal in INVOICES that displayed line
item records, you had to create a calculation field in the line
items file to capture that value and pass it up the relational
line. It was like being unable to borrow sugar from anybody but
your next door neighbor. The old relational model was a cool
kludge, but a kludge nonetheless. And it remained virtually
unchanged for almost a decade.
Until last week. Relationships in FileMaker Pro 7 are always
bidirectional and they reach as far as you want them to. If
invoices are related to line items, line items to products, and
products to companies, a portal in the INVOICES file can display
the company name for each product in each line item, and you won't
have to create a single calculation field. And in FileMaker Pro 7,
you can, in one file, define relationships between tables in
another file, even if the tables are not related in the file in
which they are stored.
Moreover, tables can now be related in scores of new ways. In
FileMaker Pro 6 and earlier, relationships always involved a
simple match between data in a field in one file and corresponding
data in a field in another file. In FileMaker Pro 7, however, you
can define relationships with a variety of operators and multiple
match fields. Before, we had to create complex calculation fields
to achieve results that can now be achieved entirely by means of
relationships.
One of the quirkiest things about FileMaker Pro versions 3
through 6 was that a program with a solid graphical interface
used a text-based dialog to define relationships. For crying out
loud, even Microsoft Access defined relationships graphically!
In FileMaker Pro 7, relationships are defined in a special
dialog called the relationship graph. You place instances or
"occurrences" of the various tables on the graph, and relate
them by drawing lines between them.
In some technical ways, FileMaker Pro's implementation of
relationality is still idiosyncratic. We used to have to create
redundant relationships to sort data in portals in different ways.
We don't have to do that any more, but in FileMaker Pro 7, for
various reasons, you may still need or want to relate the same
tables more than once. You won't read about this sort of thing
in the standard guides to relational design. Even so, those guides
are far more relevant to FileMaker Pro 7 than they were to earlier
versions. All in all, the new relational model is powerful,
flexible and extremely well implemented.
**What's Not to Like?** Given the ambitious nature of this
release, it shouldn't be too surprising that FileMaker Pro 7
has a few blemishes.
The Sort Records and Export Records dialogs, which weren't
resizable at all, are now resizable, but only on the right side
of the dialog. The field list on the left side of each dialog is
still too small to display long field names fully, although, after
you move a field from the list on the left side to the list on the
right side, you can confirm on the right side that you moved the
correct field.
There seems to be a significant problem with fuzzy (badly anti-
aliased) text in FileMaker Pro 7 for Windows. This matters even
to Mac OS developers, because Windows users make up the lion's
share of FileMaker's market.
It looks like the powerful new Let function mentioned above
creates variables limited in scope to the calculation in which
they are defined. You may still need to use global fields as
pseudo-variables, for example, to pass values from one script
to another.
Alas, in FileMaker Pro 7, it is _still_ not possible to trigger
a script when the user exits a field. This is my one major
disappointment with the new release.
**Conclusion** -- FileMaker Pro has been widely touted as easy to
use. This claim has always been a half-truth at best. FileMaker
Pro version 6 was and still is a great product. But like playing
the guitar, FileMaker Pro is easy only for beginners. Advanced
FileMaker developers in the past have spent a lot of their time
compensating for FileMaker's limitations. In other words, in the
past, if you stuck with FileMaker Pro and extended your skills
and knowledge, you reached a point of diminishing returns, where
it actually became harder to do things in FileMaker that could be
done more easily in development systems that were ostensibly more
difficult. Frankly, it was frustrating at times. Most of us stuck
with FileMaker Pro because the results were worth the effort.
But it wasn't "easy."
For end users and beginning developers, FileMaker Pro 7 is
neither much easier nor much harder than it was before, while
for developers, it's a bit of both. Many tasks have gotten harder
for developers in the short run, because the program is an order
of magnitude more complex than it was before. But I am confident
that development will become easier in the long run because we
won't hit that point of diminishing returns that dogged previous
versions. Instead, at that point, we will be able to create more
interesting solutions in more efficient, more intelligent, and
more satisfying ways. And that's an exciting prospect, both for
us and for our clients.
[William Porter is a former classics professor who, in 1998,
gave up academic tenure to pursue "other interests," including
developing database applications. An Associate Member of the
FileMaker Solutions Alliance, Will is currently working on a
book about FileMaker Pro 7 for No Starch Press.]
PayBITS: Did Will's review of FileMaker Pro 7 give you the data
you were looking for? Consider sending him a few bucks via PayBITS!
<https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=wp%40polytrope.com>
Read more about PayBITS: <http://www.tidbits.com/ paybits/>
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/15-Mar-04
------------------------------------
by TidBITS Staff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
**FileMaker Pro 7 Released** -- Readers look at what the new
database software offers, and how it differs from previous
versions. (6 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2190>
**Front ends to SQL databases** -- The discussions of what's new
in FileMaker Pro 7 morphed into the question of whether or not
there were graphical front-ends to powerful (but usually
difficult) SQL databases. (4 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2191>
**Synchronization Software?** -- The large number of these
utilities for the Mac illustrate that effective synchronization
is more difficult that one might think. Readers suggest more
options and share their experiences. (20 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2181>
$$
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