FILEMAKER PRO 12

Back when the Mac first came out, when screens were only black and white, when graphics had no transparency, no gradients, not even textures, we had pattern fills. They were rudimentary tools for giving 2D, black-and-white graphical objects some flair. Phased out from just about every software product by the mid 1990s, those patterns persisted in FileMaker Pro and became emblematic of the long-neglected interface tools known as the “design surface”. With version 12, FileMaker finally ditches the ‘80s patterns and gives users the tools for making good-looking databases in no time at all.

    

The simplest way to see FileMaker’s new clothes is to try out the totally rebuilt Theme feature. FileMaker calls the screens you create for displaying your information Layouts. In past versions, Layout themes were little more than color schemes applied at the time of creation. With FileMaker 12, themes contain a full set of design elements like fonts, field shapes, and background colors for the various layout sections. The product now pays attention to whether you’re editing the header or the body of a given layout and automatically applies the appropriate formatting. Upon creating a layout, you must choose one of the 40 themes available, but should you later decide that Ocean is preferable to Onyx, you’re free to change it at any time.

                Of course, it wouldn’t be FileMaker if you couldn’t tweak your layouts in painstaking detail, and version 12 delivers many inviting new possibilities. Objects now have customizable states giving you control over how they appear when the cursor is hovering above, while being clicked, and while in focus (for example, when you’re typing in a text field, that field is “in focus”). Rather than being simply solid, transparent or patterned, items on your layouts can have gradient fills, image fills, and transparency. Rectangular objects such as fields can sport custom-rounded corners. Experience and determined FileMaker developers have dreamed up techniques for achieving, or at least simulating the capabilities above, but those workarounds generally require hopping between FileMaker and a separate graphics program.