SQL ignores FileMaker table relationships, allowing you to read and write data in unrelated tables without changing the current record or layout. Use SQL in scripts to access an unrelated table of global configuration or status fields.

One SQL statement can often do the same thing as multiple script steps. This is great for advanced field validation calculations where a script can’t be used and changing the layout or record would interrupt the validation.

All SQL plug-ins use FileMaker’s built-in SQL engine, so you won’t find performance or feature differences among plug-ins. 2empowerFM SQL Runner comes with a competitive price and documentation describing many quirks of FileMaker’s SQL engine.

Say you need to modify every call to a CriticalFunction(), but how can you find all the scripts that use it? Developer Assistant’s Toolbox lets you search for “CriticalFunction”, and it even opens the script and highlights the next script step matching your search.

Search in FileMaker’s Manage Database window to highlight tables or fields containing your search string. The search even includes text associated with the tables or fields, such as field auto-enter and validation calculations.

Search in almost any List that appears in a FileMaker dialog, such as lists of fields, layouts, watched expressions, and so on. The search includes all columns in multi-column lists.

Search with Perl-compatible regular expressions or use case sensitivity. Regular expressions can be used like wildcards, so searching for “Make.*” would find “MakeWidget()”, “MakeGadget()”, and so on.

You wonder what the value of Get(SystemPlatform) is on your system. Instead of searching through the help file, highlight the expression with your mouse pointer and click Developer Assistant’s Evaluate button to find out immediately. Think how much time you’ll save by highlighting and instantly evaluating any expression as you’re writing or debugging scripts.

Amidst hundreds of fields, you want to move a group to the bottom. Instead of slowly dragging them down one at a time, highlight them, then use Developer Assistant to move them anywhere. It works with almost any list of items you can drag up and down, such as lists of fields, layouts, and scripts.

J.P. says “Man, this is elegant… I’ve used many tools, but this is so far the only development helper tool that I’ve found useful.”

Try Developer Assistant and see for yourself how useful it can be.

FileMaker 10 introduced hotkey support, but Keyboard and Mouse lets you or your customers use hotkeys all the way back to FileMaker 7. Keyboard and Mouse even lets you hotkey FileMaker shortcuts that FM10 won’t let you override. Hotkey Command-Q (Ctrl-Q on Windows) so it can’t be used to accidentally quit FileMaker, make Command-N launch a script to guide users through creating a new record, or have Command-F perform the find in Find mode instead of clearing the find requests a user just finished typing in.

Unlike in FM10, there’s no need to split your functionality into multiple scripts to use hotkeys. Within one script, set up one or more hotkeys, pause the script, and the hotkeys will resume the script you left paused. When the script resumes, you remove hotkeys and check the value of a variable to determine which hotkey was pressed.

Keyboard and Mouse can also press keys. Help confused users get out of Preview mode by having Keyboard and Mouse press Command-L (layout mode) when the user clicks anywhere or types anything. You can also press keys to activate menu items from your script that can’t otherwise be activated in earlier FileMaker versions.

Keyboard and Mouse lets you pick the mouse pointer shape and determine where it was last clicked. Use any image as a set of buttons simply by testing where the image was clicked. Even things in preview mode can be made clickable. There’s no need to edit buttons on dozens of layouts whenever your database changes – Images can form a consistent menu bar across all your databases that is easy to update in a single place.

Keep users from trying to click things while your script is running by changing the mouse pointer into an hourglass (FileMaker sometimes fails to do that for you, especially when calling long-running plug-in functions). Change to the “help” pointer (an arrow with a question mark), then show them help based on what they click. Choose among pointers like the vertical bar, finger, and slashed circle.

No other printer plug-in lets you use a script to choose not just the printer, but the orientation, paper size, source, number of copies, and everything else. You can show the print dialog with options you’ve chosen and let your users make changes, or skip the print dialog entirely. Don’t worry – your system’s default printer is never changed.

Now you can use a script with dialogs to guide your users through complex print jobs like thank you letters with envelopes, telling them what paper to put in while Hands-Free Printer does the rest.

Place an image of tabs in FileMaker, then use Layout Painter to recolor and draw on the image to highlight the active tab. The same tab image can be used in many databases and you can even create multiple images for multi-row tabs. As a bonus, you’ll also get certain functions from 2empowerFM Keyboard and Mouse that let you calculate which tab was clicked and handle clicking in Preview mode.

Tabs aren’t limited to static images. Layout Painter can draw tab shapes on the left, right, top, and bottom of areas. You can change each tab’s color, location, and text. Can’t fit as many tabs on the screen as you need? An example is included which draws a clickable arrow to show when more tabs can be scrolled into view.

In a database of flowers, you can recolor the background to match the color of each flower. If a field is empty, Layout Painter can draw a button over it, or it can draw light-grey instructions inside of it.

Save money and reduce waste by using partial label sheets – let users click which labels to print on in Preview mode, then draw over the preview to indicate which labels will be printed. An example is included.

Menus show wherever the user clicked, or at the position you specify.

Save space by changing a series of buttons into a single button that pops up a menu.

Menu items chosen can return a value different from what the menu item says, so you can do things like return a customer ID when a customer Name is chosen.

A menu item name of “-“ is converted into a divider between menu items.

Menus are quick and easy to create with a simple string of text. You can use a FileMaker Value List where each menu item is separated by a new line, or use any other character as a separator. Create menus from comma or tab separated values, or use almost any format you have available.

Use dialogs to focus the user’s attention and leave what they were working on visible in the background. Add bold or colored text to highlight important instructions. If the user types the wrong thing into the dialog, a simple command shows the dialog again in the same state to allow for correction.

Create any number of floating dialogs that remain on screen while the user interacts with the database. These floating dialogs can contain helpful tips or act like tool boxes, calling a FileMaker script at the click of a button.

You can also let the user know how long a task will take by showing a special progress bar dialog. The dialog does its own time estimate, resizes to fit the text you ask it to display, and includes a button to cancel the task.

After copying FileMaker scripts, fields, tables, or layouts, you can convert them to text with Clipboard Explorer, then save the text in your database. Sort and categorize these reusable objects, then use Clipboard Explorer to put them back on the clipboard whenever you need them. Store MS Word documents, Excel data, stylized FileMaker text, and many other clipboard formats.

Have you ever wanted to replace text in a script? Now you can. Just copy the steps from your script, then use Clipboard Explorer to convert the script into text you can edit. When you’re done editing, convert the text back into script steps on the clipboard and paste them back into your script.

Note:
FMGrowler does not work as a server-side plug-in with FileMaker Server

Features:

• All available printers in a FileMaker database to manage
• Depending on the type of the expression set a default printer.

This results in many benefits when issuing documents, if several printers are available for different prints available.