Learning Claris FileMaker

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Making a Web interface behave more like a desktop interface was a major goal for FileMaker 13, FileMaker senior product manager Eric Jacobson told me, and perhaps the most dramatic example of that is the ability to drag images or other content into suitable fields in a database layout, right in your Web browser, eliminating the need to select a field, click an upload button, and navigate around a file selection dialog.

That may sound like an obvious feature, but it’s one that the company added to the desktop version of FileMaker only last year.

Even better, and more important, is that a change to data anywhere in a FileMaker database is instantly transmitted to, and reflected by, views of that database on any platform.

Edit a record at home before leaving for work, and that change is pushed right out to everyone viewing that record in the field, whether they’re accessing the source database via the FileMaker Pro desktop application at the office, a Web browser while on the road, or an iOS app on the train.

FileMaker acknowledges mobile Web support still has a way to go. WebDirect officially supports Safari, Chrome, and Internet Explorer, but not mobile browsers at this time.

The company says there’s no reason you can’t access the Web version of a FileMaker database using a mobile browser, but it has put its energy thus far into compatibility for desktop Web browsers — and iOS app support via FileMaker Go.

Full mobile browser support will come in a future release.

Similarly, FileMaker says you can use Mozilla’s Firefox on the desktop, but it’s not certified to be fully compatible.

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