http://www.filemaker.com/products/fmp/features.html

In article <1h22s8z.chwniwvcoe1aN%borgobello-NO (AT) SPAM-adriacom (DOT) it>,
borgobello-NO (AT) SPAM-adriacom (DOT) it says...
Bloody hell.

What an interesting mess... at least there is finally an upgrade path
from FM6U to FMS8A.

Do FM7 and FM8 interoperate like FM3/4 and 5/6? Can FM7 connect to FM8
servers, what about FM8 connecting to FM7 servers?

What exactly is FMS8 going to do?

Seeing as FMS8 isn't even available yet, is it too early to really adopt
FM8 for anything beyond a few toy or forward looking projects? (Although
FM8A's table import and relationship graph might make FM7 development
immediately cleaner.

Wow, cool calendar popup!

"Aladino" <borgobello-NO (AT) SPAM-adriacom (DOT) it> wrote

In article <8sLQe.3915$Cc5.1480@lakeread06>, news (AT) TAKEOUToldbranch (DOT) com
says...
Yeah... that's worth $180/user to upgrade. ... er... no its not.

Still the feature list has its high spots... and low spots:
None of the low spots are 'bad', they just aren't terribly interesting
or worth getting excited about.

Create Adobe PDF Files - low spot - its was already built into OSX, and
you could get in windows (and it supported all your apps not just
filemaker) with software from free to $10.00. (Only the clueless
purchase acrobat if all they need is rudimentary pdf creation.) Its a
nice touch, but its about 3 years too late to be worth getting excited
about.

Create Microsoft Excel files - low spot - between .mer, .sylk, and html
tables we really already had all the xml export we needed... I guess its
nice to have it export an actual .xls, PHBs everywhere will be able to
open their own exports... but really - not a big deal.

Fast Send! Email the contents of any field isntantly - middle spot - ho
hum. Definately a nice touch, plug-ins have filled that niche nicely,
and are likely more robust. But this will definately come in handy.

Fast Match! Search databases easier - low spot - just another 'feature'
to disable in highly customized, scripted, and locked down solutions.
Maybe I'm being to down on it, and I'm sure it will be welcome in the
more casual personal-use database creations.

New! Layout alignment tools -low spot - bit of a time saver, but I
really wasn't having problems aligning thing before.

New! Email merge - middle sport -more ho hum... this potentially useful,
but its looking very limited too. Html? Multipart? Embedded images?

New! Table Import - high spot - A very welcome and much needed addition.
This should have been backported to 7 in a free patch though.

Improved! Relationships Graph - high spot - Another very welcome and
much needed addition for working on complex projects. I'm so optimistic
about it I gave it a high spot even though I don't know what they've
really done. Anything they do is a welcome change, but did they do
enough?

New! Tab Control - high spot - A very welcome addition.

Auto-complete - high spot - if this was done well it will be a real
plus.

Calendar drop-downs - high spot - These are a pain to 'simulate' its
nice to finally have them.

Script Variables - high spot - cleaner easier to maintain code is a good
thing.

Mouse-wheel support - middle-spot - Its about time, but this is pretty
fundamental hardware support. I'm glad its there but i refuse to get
excited that Filemaker 8 supports the modern mouse.

Overall, there is enough to really interest me in the product. I see a
fair bit of value in the feature set. They've already announced pricing
for FMS8/SA8... but haven't said what they now do.

Lastly, what is the point of a 10-user(or more) FM8 VLA ... it supports
5 user concurrency, and there is no FMS8. From this can I assume it will
connect to FMS7? What do I lose? Can I use tabs? Calendars? If I can
whats the point of server 8? If I can't whats the point of buying FM8
today?

Good overview, 42. Overall, I'm underwhelmed with 8.

Here is some info about the server question from FM's site:

Note: For optimum performance, it is recommended that you upgrade your
FileMaker Server license when you upgrade your clients. While it is
possible to host FileMaker 8 files with FileMaker Server 7, it is not
recommended due to new features that are not supported with previous
versions of FileMaker Server

Here is the whole story:
http://filemaker.custhelp.com/cgi-bi...PSZwX2N2PSZwX3

Nice link, Filemaker!!

Now, for one of my major complaints for only about 8 years, I still see
no way to copy a script step and paste it elsewhere in the script, or
--gasp-- another script. However, I did see a screen shot where I swear
I saw a copy button on the scriptmaker, but upon downloading the demo,
no such luck.

Oh but wait, it looks like the feature lives in the Advanced product
(no demo for me to test it). Nicely done, Filemaker. Take a feature
that should have been implemented in 1998 or earlier and make it a
premium product-only feature in 2005.

It is one of the strangest things for me...I work so much in this
product and I love so many things about it, but for some reason, so
many things that the company does annoy the hell out of me.

But on the bright side, aligning layout objects is now easier than
ever!!! Woooo!! Let me break out $179 times 60 licenses for that!!

7 and 8 seem to share the same format, much like 5 and 6 did. Check the
Server Advanced pages for details.

On 30/8/05 00:28, in article
MPG.1d7d3a13faa6b89b989cd1 (AT) shaw....shawcable.net, "42"
<nospam (AT) nospam (DOT) com> wrote:


I've been beta testing FM8 Advanced and Pro for the last three months and
can say without any worry that it's wonderful. For a start it is stable,
which is why I suspect the turnaround between 7 and 8 was so quick, 7 was so
buggy there was too much to do in a point release. Anyway, the quick saving
and emailing of PDFs and Excel files is great, as is the calendar. The
built-in tab option is fucking wonderful, and with advanced you get Tooltips
(pop-up rollovers previously available with the 24U SimpleHelp plugin) and
Custom Menus (previously available with Menu Magic plugin).

It will run files served by 7, and vice versa, but 8 files running on 7
won't display the calendar, tooltips etc. If you make a layout using the
inbuilt tabbing system and run it on 7 it will seriously screw up.

And the best thing: You can copy and paste fields! Wonderful, wonderful
thing. If you need a field or many fields in lots of tables for
relationships or just want to move old fields to a new database, you can
just select the fields you want to move, Ctrl (or Cmd) + V, move to the
other table, and Ctrl + V, and there they all are, with all definitions
still in tact. And an old file made in 7 will work too, just open it in 8
and you can move all the fields across to a new file.

It is ludicrous that they always release the client software before server
(should be out in about 40 days if memory serves), and possibly the most
important change to the whole of FM is that FM8 Mobile will sync with
Server, which means it now actually has a use! It gives us great opportunity
to expand our software so people can take their databases with them without
it being a completely separate DB from the one at their offices or whatever.
I'm just now waiting impatiently for them to send me my copies :-)

The move from 6 to 7 should have been the most important for FM, but truth
is 7 just didn't work like it was supposed to. 8 does, and this is a
seriously big jump, although I can't help feeling that 7 should have done
all this stuff in the first place.



Zo


PS Sorry if this is written in some alien language, I had two hours sleep
last night and looking over that I think my grammar's way off for most of it
but I'm too tired to concentrate!

How did you get FM8 advanced?

In article <4H%Qe.23674$k_1.10528 (AT) blueberry (DOT) telenet-ops.be>, pol (AT) pol (DOT) com
says...
1) Just to clarify in case it wasn't clear - FM8A is the successor to
FM7 Developer. (not FM7 Server Advanced)

2) First line of his post: he was a beta tester.

I still have an old complaint : ie the impossibility to address the
function keys from a script line.
Those functions keys have been existing for 10 years or more ... Why
ignore them ?
Remi-Noel

"Aladino" <borgobello-NO (AT) SPAM-adriacom (DOT) it> a écrit :