Learning Claris FileMaker

Introduction to Modal Dialogs

What is a "modal dialog"?

When we talk about dialogs we’re actually talking about windows in the FileMaker sense.

They could be a card window, or they could be a regular dialog window, or even a floating window or FileMakers own modal window style.

Modal refers to a window state where the window cannot be dismissed without the user explicitly making a decision that will lead to the closing of that window.

Read more on the blog 

Today we’ll be exploring the concept of using popovers as modal dialogs in FileMaker.

A modal dialog is a type of control that forces the end user to look at something or take action before continuing.

FileMaker has had this functionality with the advanced window styles for a while now, but many users find that opening a new window is frequently undesirable.

This is especially true in Windows environments, where new windows don’t behave as nicely as they do on OS X.

A preferable control, one that’s been used on the Web for years, is to overlay your dialog box on top of the existing page.

It feels less like you’re breaking from your existing context, and you don’t run into the issues that might occur when opening a completely new window.

For the purposes of this exercise, we’ll focus on the styling to get things looking good!