Filemaker Pro 9 [OLD VERSION]
by Filemaker Inc.
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Software Reviews of Filemaker Pro 9 [OLD VERSION]
Customer Review: Great, Simple, Flexible, Powerful!
Summary: 5 Stars
I am not a programmer, but I am a computer nerd. By profession, I am a lawyer. Databases are a very valuable asset for lawyers. In fact, there are about a dozen companies out there who sell customized database applications for lawyers. I've tried alot of them and even use one of these proprietary databases in my practice.
I am considering eventually making my office all-Mac (stability, virus-free, machines stay current and last longer than PC) so I investigated Filemaker. Filemaker will allow me to track all my data exactly how I want and mix Macs and PC's in my office.
Filemaker Pro 9 ships with alot of "Starter Applications"--these are databases already completely set up for you. You enter or import your data and for probably 80% of people who need a database, this is a great place to start--and you may never need to do anything else. Contacts, asset management, task and project management, there are dozens of starter solutions built right into Filemaker.
For us tinkerers, we want to be able to to make the database track what we want, and in exactly the way we want. You DO NOT have to be a computer programmer to do this or learn some crazy and difficult magic language as another reviewer suggests. It is hands down easier to do this stuff in FMP9 than in any other product out there. That that other reviewer would even suggest that Filemaker Pro and any SQL solution is even in the same ballpark in difficulty is ridiculous. SQL gives professional, full-time programmers nightmares. If you can figure out the train wreck that is SQL queries, you'll feel like you landed in a sunny tropical paradise in FMP9. Understand, this is not a crippled, limited tool. Its a full featured, powerful relational database with tools built into it to make it as easy for new users as possible to use. You can make about as complex a database with powerful automated features as you could ever want. BUT, if you do that, you DO have to LEARN how to do it. Complex databases take some planning and know how. Read a book or watch a training video, and tinker.
If you learn how to use FMP9, I can tell you that you will save on other software costs in the future, because you can throw together whatever you need--no buying multiple other apps to track this or that.
I'd suggest the very readable Filemaker Pro The Missing Manual as a great book. There are videos you can watch on your computer, too. You can pick up Filemaker 8 training for $10 on ebay, and that will teach you 90% of what you need to know bc the basics did not change much between 8 and 9. I also got s cheap copy of Chris Ippolite's "Beyond the Basics" training DVD and it is truly excellent.
If you are the type who might consider customizing a database, then Filemaker is hands down the best option out there. Give it a try--you can download a 30 day evaluation copy at the Filemaker web site. I think you'll be impressed.
Customer Review: Screen repaints unacceptably slow with Windows XP
Summary: 2 Stars
Filemaker Pro 9 had all the appearance of a great update; but I found it was all appearance and little performance. You would think that my application was running over a slow dial up telephone line rather than just locally on my PC. I am using Windows XP and Filemaker is incredibly slow in repainting the screen as you move from tab to tab on a form using a tab control. When forms are displayed you can literally see the objects being individually populated on the screen. I thought maybe it was my lack of experience in programming that lead to the poor performance, so I forked out for professional templates from seedcode.com and scriptology.com, both highly regarded Filemaker partners. It didn't make any difference. In fact these professionally developed applications do all sorts of seemingly random screen repaints (including on average 4 full screen repaints) before the display calms down. Sort of reminds me of TV circa late 1950 for those of you old enough to remember. There is so much to like about Filemaker; some web postings suggest that you should just accept screen flicker. Why should I; neither MS Access 2007 or Alpha Five have this problem. Customer Review: Inviting Trouble
Summary: 2 Stars
Been trying to learn Filemaker only for 1 reason. It is touted as the "Mac Friendly Database".
And I badly needed a cute and cuddly database for my Power Mac at home for use with iWork and MS Office. Hearing the words "Mac friendly" made me jump into the bandwagon and here I am writing a review so that the my mistake is not repeated by some one else.Read the words carefully though - Its technology is Mac friendly, but the database itself is not very User friendly. They cant tell that to users though... can they?
Many reviews mentioned it easier to learn and implement than XAMP (OSX-Apache-MySQL-PHP) or atleast thats what I thought. So I gave 1 star for its cool looks and Mac support. Awesome !
These days its an common business tactic to get you spend money on crappy products is The looks... We all fall for looks and later find out what's really cooking under the hood. iPhone... iKea.... iLoveU..
Once you start learning the crooked product, it tells you - FMP does not use Simple Queries, but under the hood it uses a new set of good looking UI elements called Table of occurrences. An under the hood of table occurrences are base tables. (Mind you, for a Database Pro - meaning Professionals in Engineering and Professional developers - these are minor troubles. These are people for whom "WORK" is learning new things about such databases. Unlike users like us who wants to get our work done with minimum hassle.)
You end up learning scores of FMP proprietary techniques to re-invent the wheel. Table of occurences which basically say "SELECT * from TABLE.. to create a dataset from the base table. You can then graphically connect these TOs and build a query. Sounds cool. But it gets limited for bigger queries and cannot create any dynamic queries. SQL is a taboo in this Database.
-- "We haven't got nothing with SQL, Man ! I didnt see no nuthin' about SQL "
To show or hide an object like a button, you have to add it into a "Portal", then using a Table Occurence and its graphic connections, you show or hide the object depending on whether a record is present in the table or not. I find it more easy to use (Access or Javascript in XAMP) something like Button.Visible="False"
You want to add features to the interface like Timers or A tree view of your records.. FMP Database pros will tell you - Not yet in FMP, go and learn JAVA, UNIX, Perl, Javascript and so forth. (Hmm.. May be XAMP is easier than I thought after trying Filemaker ? ). Now Filemaker supports PHP but you stilll have to learn the XAM part later !!
What if you want to see the data you store in your database as an excel spreadsheet or a powerpoint presentation. Sorry... Now FMP will say that FMP is aimed at "Niche Markets" only.. They dont care much about small businesses and common people like you... The best advice from them is to wait till your company adopts filemaker into their business and then you too can learn the contraption to impress your boss.
At times you might want to save an image or two in your database for Tracking items in your Garage sale or for a Research database I use for my studies. In Access you can save it as an attachment in a field and the field can contain multiple attachments. In filemaker.. it means more Table of Occurences and more jumbled relationship graphs. Tell that to a FMP Developer or at an FMP forum and they will start with Relational database theory, and the problems that you can get into when your database scales to contain Terabytes of data. Terabytes of data from a Garage sale or a Research Database? Will make you feel that one day you will overtake Amazon.com or become the next rocket scientist. And as usual you will not get any definite answers.
With the effort you might want put to learn FMP, I suggest you are better off learning XAMP on your Mac. Or Acess/MS SQL and VB on windows. No! you dont have to get rid of your Mac yet. Your iPhone and iTunes still need it !! I learned FMP at 5.5 and since then every year I have been learning "Powerful" ways to scratch my head. At work I still use the easy to use Access and my company uses MS SQL. I hope my company will adopt filemaker soon that I can show them a trick or two while getting my work done.
Finally, I gave it a second star for being able to trap more users into trouble while taking advantage of its "Mac friendly database banner"
Customer Review: Great and simple program
Summary: 5 Stars
I am a new user for this program. I really enjoy it and accomplish more than I expected.Customer Review: Gold Standard
Summary: 5 Stars
I've never used FileMaker Pro until I started working at my current job. They started off with FM3 and I came in under FM6 then upgraded to FM7. We now got FM9 and wow, what a difference! I'm working on the conversion from FM7 to 9 (there is really no need to convert your prior databses, I'm just adding features) and already it's looking better! Conditional formatting is a lifesaver...I have certain fields go "RED" when they are missing something that the DB user needs to see. Then for some fields I have blue or red text to indicate active or some sort of inactive status.
Further is the existing tab control and web viewer. Beautiful things you can impliment. Since we use some mandatory 'webware', I can have my DB users access from within our database so they can do what they need to do there while viewing the record (instead of toggling back and forth).
Let's not forget the export to PDF feature has been advanced to allow multiple reports/PDFs to be put together. Perfect!
I'd love to do the SQL import/connection but it's not allowed, but I'm sure this is a super feature for anyone who wants to have one super easy to use database.
FileMaker Pro is simply awesome...I was able to get a database completed in under 24 hours that was taking the place I worked for over 3 years in planning and meetings. Although it could never be the final solution (since we max out at the time 5 concurrent users and we needed unlimited), it got the job done. That's the power of FM...allowing the USERs (not IT) to get their databases up and running and the flexibility to modify as needed without IT involvement. Now IT can always be involved when you want to get complex, etc. But the power to build your own database for any project is there (I've done it for several).
If you are using FM7 or below, this is a no brainer upgrade. For those with 8, it is a recommended upgrade. For those with 8.5 it's your call. The new features make it worth it and the upgrade pricing should meet everyone's budget.