Customer Reviews

Scriptology: Filemaker Pro Demystified

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I wasn't sure anyone could write a book worth nearly 90 smackers. Well, these two have done it. They've broken ranks with the Usual Computer-Book fodder: you'll find no Manual rehashing. When they DO cover familiar topics, they do so using fresh examples with imaginative twists. Instead of trying to be all things to all people they focus on Scripting, Functions, Relationships and how to integrate these parts into good Database Design. Intelligently, they give a careful nod to Database documentation (how many hours have YOU spent trying to retrace unwieldy DBs?) The accompanying CD - which is brilliantly integrated with the book - providies additional rich, searchable, documentation. Definitely the best use I've seen of the Book-CD formula. Most importantly, I think I've learnt more in a few weeks with this book than in 4-plus years of working with Filemaker.

After using a customized filemaker pro solution for two years at work, which the company had outgrown, I decided to start from scratch and create my own. I have purchased several filemaker books over the past few months and this is the only one which supplemented the filemaker pro manual. It says it covers Filemaker Pro 3.0 and 4.0 but everything applies to Filemaker Pro 5.0 also.

Absolutely every technique I was trying to do was described in detail here. This book explains some of the workaround techniques that are not instantly built in to Filemaker but are possible with a little work. The supplemental CD has each technique as a seperate database file making it easy to analyze and adapt to your own database.

Filemaker Pro is much easier to use than Access and superior when creating both an interface and printed reports, especially graphic intensive reports such as catalogs.

Read the Filemaker Pro manual, then buy this book. The high price of the book is completely covered in the fact that it is so comprehensive and covers advanced techniques in such easy to understand language.

I got a lot of ideas for my own databases from reading this book and was highly impressed by such detailed content.

If you are deciding between Visual Quickstart's Filemaker Pro (it only covers what is covered in the Filemaker manual), Filemaker Pro Bible (hardly comprehensive enough to be called a bible), Automating Filemaker Pro (more theory and description than how to automate it), and Scriptology, ONLY buy Scriptology. It will save you a lot of time and money (unless you are stupid like me and buy all the other books first).

When I first started doing database development back in 1995, I searched long and hard for a good book that'd teach me all about many of the "hard to get your head around" features of FileMaker Pro such as advanced scripting, understanding calculation formulas, dealing with related data and portals, and how to build killer user interfaces. At the time, there were no good books (to my knowledge). Later, after I'd finished my first subcontracting gig as a FileMaker developer and started my own company, I stumbled across Scriptology. I don't even remember where I found it (it was some unlikely place like a mall bookstore or something.)

I have to say that the book helped a great deal in my efforts to become a professional Filemaker developer, an advanced scripter, and a careful database planner/architect. I had already learned many of the techniques illuminated in the book by the by...from colleagues or by surfing the Web, but never before had all the greatest tips and techniques been collected in one place. Enter Scriptology.

One point, though. While I'm sure John and Matt are putting together a new edition as we speak, the book is dated in some respects (it doesn't cover FileMaker 5's new features). It also doesn't cover some very advanced FileMaker topics such as ODBC connectivity, Web development, or the use of plugins. For these reasons, the book seems pricy, but it'll still add a great deal to any developer's FileMaker database-building arsenal.

This is a compilation of Filemaker techniques for the intermediate to advanced user. The layout of the book makes it easy to use. References to the illustrative material on the CDROM let you tinker with the examples immediately - without having to type it in. Good presentation technique makes it even more helpful. It's clear that a lot of attention was given to the structure of this book and its CDROM. For example, each chapter ends with an Overview, a Quiz (with answers), a list of "Highlights" and a section on "What you should have learned". Finally, there's a list of files on the CDROM that show the techniques discussed in that chapter. The authors should be congratulated on their committment to the reader-learner.

I've been training people on advanced FileMaker techniques for years, and my students are always asking me for recommendations of good books about FileMaker scripting and calculations. Since there was nothing out there to recommend, I figured I should write a book myself.

As soon as I got my copy of the Scriptology Book and CD and saw what you had accomplished, I gave up. You beat me to it, guys. This is the book I wish I had written.

This is the perfect book to have on hand once you get past the stage of learning how to create layouts and relationships. All the other books seem to brush over scripting quickly or make the assumption that the reader somehow instinctively knows what a vested If statement, loop, or set field is, when each might be used in a script and why. For weeks I understood none of this. After an evening with this book it's finally starting to all come together. This book explains everything very clearly and intelligently, is extremely well organized and I believe perhaps the best computer book I've ever purchased. I, too, was afraid I might regret paying ..., but I have no regrets at all (and I certainly have no affiliation with the author). Two thumbs way up!

This book is still the #1 tool for serious Filemaker Pro Developers. If anything, it opens the reader up to endless possibilities. The next step after this book is learning to create plug-ins

I think this book is easy to understand and is awesomely powerful. I have used some of the suggested scripting techniques in my custom applications and have been very pleased with how helpful they have been. Often times they have lead me to new and better solutions. If you are a serious FileMaker Pro Developer, then this is a 'Necessary Reference Book' for you!

This is an amazing tool! The terminology is so simple and easy to follow with screne prints to help you visualize the process. It's got to be the best tool available for Filemaker.

I'm developing FileMaker applications since 1988. No other book paid for itself in a shorter period of time. I advice everybody who is serious with FileMaker to buy this collection of technique files you find in the accompaigning CD. The first FileMaker book I didn't feel cheated.