FileMaker: Explore

I’m a rarity in our office.  I’ve never owned an iPhone.  Mostly that was a decision driven by prior bad experiences with AT&T.  But I did buy a iPod touch.

As hard as I wanted to become a fanboy of the iPod touch, it mostly sat unused.  I tried, really I did.  But there was never that “Aha!” feeling.  Certainly it was an impressive piece of technology.  But I’m not a big music guy.  My car stereo has 11 speakers and mostly I listen to talk radio and discussions about the issues of the day.  I did like the ability to have my photographs, but they were small.  I’m not a big fan of pinching and swiping and such to get a decent sized view of my content.  Square peg, round hole me thinks.

In January Apple and Steve Jobs introduced the iPad.  I watched the introduction with great anticipation.  I wanted a larger device, something that would show more information and minimize finger gestures.

Well, I have to say at first glance I was disappointed.  Damn… it’s just a bigger iPod touch.  Intellectually, I just did not see how this would make a big difference.  Steve Jobs did say, “You just have to try it to see what I mean.”  But in my heart I just was not sure.

Then it happened… I had a chance to play with one.  I was intrigued.  There were some very interesting pieces of software.  I could check my mail or surf the web.  I could play a game of Sudoku or watch a slideshow of my favorite photographs.

From a functional point-of-view the iPad represented the convergence of what were separate devices in the past.  It could replace my beloved Garmin Nuvi, handheld game system, iPod touch, Kindle—even make phone calls on Skype.

I had the “Aha!” moment.  I bought one and have not looked back.  The iPad is used more than my laptop at home.  I check emails, read articles online, or text message with my kids.  It is akin to the Swiss army knife of the tech world.

So Steve Jobs was right, you do have to try it to see.  Saying that it is simply an enlarged iPod touch simply is unfair and inaccurate.  The new size and form factor create a different experience, particularly for us old guys that can’t see the little screens very well.

The iPad creates an interesting opportunity for delivering and collecting business data.  Data that is collected and memorialized at the moment—rather than trying to recollect it later—is likely more accurate and valuable.  For a manager, having instantaneous and ubiquitous access to operational information allows for greater ability to react and respond to varying business situations.

And now with FileMaker Go we have the ability to quickly and easily deliver “data to go”.  That data can either be stored on a server and accessed via a 3G or WiFi connection, or can be stored locally on the iPad itself.  Reports can be viewed, data entered and decisions made with a small, light device and a couple taps and a swipe. 

It’s a bold new world.

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Each of these classes is held monthly in our four comfortable, state-of-the-art training centers in Boston, Los Angeles, New York, and the San Francisco Bay Area. As always, they are taught by active, Certified FileMaker developers who will share real-world experiences and offer up-to-the minute advice and suggestions on how you can make better use of FileMaker.

Very simply, the classes I have taken at The Support Group were the best: Informative, invaluable and fun! I can’t wait to go back.

S. Hasenauer

This offer is valid for students taking classes through December 31, 2010. For more information, contact Greg Lekstrom at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or call him at (866) 940-8400 x225.

And… all students are eligible for a significant savings on The Support Group’s FileMaker Mentoring service, giving you one-on-one time with a FileMaker Certified Developer to help you with virtually any aspect of your FileMaker applications. Students get 4 hours of mentoring for $495, a savings of $165.  You can use the mentoring time to learn new techniques or to make your FileMaker solutions more effective. You can also use it to help map out your approach to a new application or for planning migration and conversion to FileMaker 11.

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UPDATE: Todd Geist is doing something similar.  I like that’s he’s capturing altitude…I’ll need to see what happens the next time I take a flight offering WiFi

I created a simple webpage that uses the HTML5 geolocation features used in Safari.

<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
    <head>
        <script type="text/javascript">

            function handler(location) {
                var message = document.getElementById("messageArea");
                messageArea.innerHTML="<p>Latitude: " + location.coords.latitude + "</p>";
                messageArea.innerHTML+="<p>Longitude: " + location.coords.longitude + "</p>";
                messageArea.innerHTML+="<p>Accuracy: " + location.coords.accuracy + "</p>";
            }
        
            function getLocation() {
                navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(handler);
            }
            
        </script> 
    </head>

    <body onload="getLocation();">
        <div id="messageArea">
            Location unknown 
        </div>
    </body>

</html>

With a browser that supports HTML5 geolocation services, when the location is detected the the result of that page should something like:

Latitude: 42.3028843
Longitude: -71.3770951
Accuracy: 30

with the source code now appearing as:

<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
    <head>
        <script type="text/javascript">

            function handler(location) {
                var message = document.getElementById("messageArea");
                messageArea.innerHTML="<p>Latitude: " + location.coords.latitude + "</p>";
                messageArea.innerHTML+="<p>Longitude: " + location.coords.longitude + "</p>";
                messageArea.innerHTML+="<p>Accuracy: " + location.coords.accuracy + "</p>";
            }
        
            function getLocation() {
                navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(handler);
            }
            
        </script> 
    </head>

    <body onload="getLocation();">
        <div id="messageArea"><p>Latitude: 42.3028843</p><p>Longitude: -71.3770951</p><p>Accuracy: 30</p></div>
    </body>

</html>

Notice the change following <div id=“messageArea”>.

UPDATE: Depending on what browser you use to test this, viewing the source may or may not show you the alteration in the messageArea div.  With Safari, use the Web Inspector’s Elements tab, rather than View Source; with Firefox and the Web Developer extension, use the View Generated Source option in the toolbar.

AND ANOTHER UPDATE: It appears from the comments that the web viewer behaves just a tad differently with iOS 3.2 for iPad than with iOS 4 for iPhones and iPod touches, as far as we can see.  I made a small change to the HTML page to force the geolocation JavaScript to run with an onload event, and it now works on both my iPhone and iPad.

Next, we place that same webpage source code in a FileMaker global text field.  We create a web viewer with the object name “web” and specify a calculated URL:

"data:text/html," & 
geolocation::code

Using a URL that starts with data:text/html, tells FileMaker to treat the following text as an HTML page.  Essentially, it allows us to render a page from source code without needing a server and an HTTP request.

Our script resets the web viewer, waits a small amount of time to make sure the page has had time to render, and then checks the results with the formula GetLayoutObjectAttribute ( “web” ; “content” ).  If we have a result that contains <div id=“messageArea”><p>Latitude, bingo!

Now it’s just a simple matter to use FileMaker’s text functions to parse out the latitude and longitude.  We’ll need to do a little extra work to handle Apple’s data detectors—Mobile Safari sees the latitude and longitude numbers as possible phone numbers, and places <a href=“tel:...”> tags around them (UPDATE: We’ve updated the sample file to account for Mobile Safari not always detecting latitudes and longitudes as possible telephone numbers; our script sometimes gave us double negatives).  Once we have the latitude and longitude stored, an additional simple script can open a map to show us our location:

Open URL [No Dialog; "http://maps.google.com/maps?q=" & geolocation::latitude& ",+" & geolocation::longitude]

Log in or register to download the sample file.

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