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Once you have FileMaker installed and you've done a quick look at the
Preferences, it's now time to start working with the application. And the first
step is going to be to look at the interface in the different modes that
FileMaker uses. Specifically with FileMaker 10, because one
of the big improvements in FileMaker 10 is the change in the way that
you look at the files, most specifically in the Layout toolbar.
If you have worked with FileMaker Pro in previous versions, you'll notice that
on the left-hand side of each one of your files, you had something that was
called the Status Area. Additionally across the top, you used to have something
that was called the toolbar, and in FileMaker 10, those two concepts have been
merged together into something that you see on the top of the screen here,
which is called the Status toolbar. Additionally, it's got all sorts of great
new features and different ways of looking at the information on screen that
it did not have before. And it should be noted that this is the first time that
the interface has been updated in any version of FileMaker in 10 versions. So this
is pretty exciting. If you look on screen, you'll notice in the
Status Area section of the Status toolbar. You'll see that this is an area where
you can manage the different records that you've got and we'll look at
these in the various movies that we go through, most specifically when we talk
about finding and searching for groups of records. But this is where you can
use this Book icon to navigate from record to record. If you're looking for
a specific record, you can just click in here and then type in that number.
We'll work with the pie chart a little bit more when we talk about working with
found sets. Additionally, there are some default icons on screen, like the New
Record and the Delete Record icons. Those of course, are available under your
Records menu. Additionally, the ability to enter Find mode can be found here
and under Sort. Now, these aren't the only options that you've
got available to you in the new Status Area. In fact, what you can do is go
under your View menu; you'll notice that you've got similar menus from previous
versions of FileMaker. But under the View menu, you'll see that there is an
option here for customizing the Status toolbar. This is brand new to FileMaker.
You notice that in addition to the Show All, New Record, Delete Record, Find
and Sort, you've got all sorts of different options that you can use here. You
can put any one of these on your toolbar if you'd like to and you can show
just the icon or the icon and text, and it's as simple as dragging and dropping.
So for example, if I wanted to put the Manage on my toolbar, I can just drag it
in the toolbar area and release. If I wanted to take it off, I just drag it
down and you get that poof effect on the Mac, but the dragging and the dropping
are cross-platform. So as you get more familiar with some of these
features, you might want to place them up on the Status area of your file
and this is where you can actually customize each one of those.
Additionally, you'll see that there is an option for even showing the Status
toolbar. So you can hide the Status toolbar, which is sometimes common in
applications that are deployed amongst multiple users. But make sure that
you're providing that same functionality on screen. You see here you would have
the New Record, the Find Record, and Show All, in this case.
You can either hide or unhide the Status area by pressing this button down here
in the bottom left-hand corner as well. You see now that gives me more space
vertically. Finally, you'll see that under the View menu, you also have a
Layout bar and a Formatting bar, which are the two other areas of your
interface here that you should be familiar with.
But first in the Layout bar, this is where you can choose from the different
layout that you'll be seeing on screen. Simply, clicking this drop-down menu
will provide a list of all the different layouts that you've created in your
file that are available to you and allow you to toggle between each one.
One of the improvements from the previous version is since the Status area was
only 30 pixels wide, it would truncate the names of your layouts and you would
usually only get to see the first word or so. Now, you've got a lot more room
to work with and it will fit more information in a larger space.
Here are the different ways that you can view your records. You can view them
in what's called Form view, which is one record at a time, List view, which is
multiple records in a continuous list, or as a table, which makes it look a lot
like a spreadsheet. Also, you can get to your editing of the layout
by going on the far right here for the Edit Layout button, which brings you
into Layout mode. Then you see the Formatting bar which can be toggled by either
selecting this button here or de-selecting the button, which when you're
working with different pieces of texts, you can change the font style or font
color if you would like to. So that's really for your text formatting almost
exclusively. The other thing you should be familiar with
about FileMaker's interface is that there are different modes within FileMaker.
Under your View menu, you can see that there is Browse, Find, Layout, and Preview
mode. Browse mode is what we're looking at right
now and that's the mode that FileMaker uses to add and edit records. This
is what your Status toolbar will look like in Browse mode. But each one of
these modes, the Status toolbar takes on a different look and feel. Of course, it
can be customized in each one of these modes as well.
So let's quickly look at what it looks like in Find mode. Find mode allows you
to enter in different search criteria for you to create found sets of data
that's been stored in your FileMaker database. So as a result, you see the buttons have changed.
Instead of new records, you see there is one called New Request and New
Request is one of the groups of criteria that you would create and we'll cover
this more in the movie where we discuss finding data. You also see the buttons
for Perform Find and Cancel Find have been added to the toolbar as well.
The other thing to make note of is Including and Omitting, and then the
Operators, which are now added to this top Status toolbar, and we'll discuss
those in a later movie also. The next mode is Layout mode. Layout mode
is the mode that you will be in when you're creating or modifying your layouts
within your FileMaker database. So therefore, you have a lot of tools that
are specific only to creating and modifying. Like for example, the Text tool,
which allows you to select different text on screen or type different
text into your layout. And Drawing tools for anything from Lines to Rectangles
to Ovals and so on and we'll be using some of these as we go through the different
movies. Also, the ability to add the Field Control
which allows you to select a field and then add different properties to it. We'll
be covering that later as well. Adding a button, adding something called the
Tab Control or a Portal or a Web Viewer, all are going to be items that we
cover in later movies. Then these options here allow you to drag
new fields onto the layout by just selecting and dropping, and new parts, which
we'll talk about in the reporting section. You can toggle out of this layout
by selecting the new Exit Layout button that you see on screen.
This will prompt you to either save your layout or revert back to the original,
and you'll also see that there is two new buttons there to do so. The Revert
button represents the Don't Save option and the Save layout represents the Save option.
So now that we're familiar with what everything is called on screen and where
we can find it, it's time to start using some of these tools by creating some
FileMaker databases.