Ever have a FileMaker Pro chart “mysteriously” change its scale setting on you? Ever wonder how the FileMaker Pro chart object decides to set the y-axis scale?

The FileMaker Pro documentation doesn’t provide that level of detail, so following are the behavior “rules” I’ve deduced through experimentation:

Scaling Behavior “Rules”…
(The following assume the y-scale min-max has not been set to static values.)

• If the spread of values is less than 20%, the y-axis min-max will automatically adjust to show just the top portion of the plot.
• If the high value is more than 90% of the y-axis max, the chart draws to the next larger grid line (which has its own set of display logic, by the way).
• If the low value is less than ~14% of the visible scale, the chart draws to the next smaller grid line.

Download the demo file to experiment with settings on variously-sized charts:

Happy exploring, and stay savvy!

-Lee

Knowing how to represent data visually often draws upon quite varied skills. A data visualist ideally possesses some of the traits of information architect, graphic designer, mathematician, statistician, web designer, teacher, user interface designer, cognitive psychologist, and storyteller. One could argue that these skills are essential to thriving in our future information-rich society. Until the future arrives, however, we must manage with whatever we have. And one thing we now have is FileMaker Pro 11 Charts! Charting is the feature that will drive a new stage of success.

The demo file explores using the chart object in new ways… Read more… »

Funny how a new platform (FileMaker Go for iPad, in this case) helps you tighten your code design. While putting together the Charting on the iPad contest starter file, naturally I rewrote the subscript that checks versions at file start to include mobile devices. For each variation it can specify minimum version and whether to enforce, allow/advise, or deny any access. The script is more modular and easily extensible by app version, OS, OS version, or device form factor. It has four parts, essentially:

1. You decide your desired behavior rules:

# Whether to advise & allow, enforce version, or deny ANY access
# ( 0 or null=ignore, 1=advise but allow, 2=enforce version,
#   3=deny ANY access, 4=unsupported platform but allow )

# Min version & enforcement level of FM Go for iPad
Set Variable [ $minVersion_FMGo_iPad; Value:"1.0" ]
Set Variable [ $enforceLevel_FMGo_iPad; Value:1 ]
#
# Min version & enforcement level of FM Go (for iPhone)
Set Variable [ $minVersion_FMGo_iPhone; Value:"99" //will assure test fail ]
Set Variable [ $enforceLevel_FMGo_iPhone; Value:4 ]
etc., etc., etc.

2. Then you query the computing environment: Read more… »

Web technologies have added functionality to FileMaker solutions since the Web Viewer layout object was introduced in version 8.5. The web viewer has proven especially useful for displaying Flash-generated charts from FusionCharts, Maani, AnyChart, and others.

FileMaker Pro v11 introduced a built-in chart layout object with 5 basic chart types. Charts suddenly became much easier to implement in FileMaker Pro!

However, with FileMaker Go for iPad and Phone (separate apps) built-in charting is not supported and Apple’s iOS doesn’t run Adobe Flash. Sure, you can load static images from the Google charts API into a web viewer — but what is really needed is an interactive and self-sufficient (as in no internet connection required) charting solution.

Luckily, the potential of Read more… »

Hi all, here are links to the demo files I’ll be using in today’s webinar. I’ll write these up more properly later.

Fun with FileMaker Charts – SavvyData_ChartFun.fp7
Chart Scaling Behavior – SavvyData_Chart_AutoScale.fp7

Enjoy!

-Lee

Reposted with updated file — Sparklines demo is more interactive, with informative dynamic tooltips.

Download link for the demo file: SavvyData_ChartFun.fp7.zip

Sparklines are “data-intense, design-simple, word-sized graphics,” as their inventor Edward Tufte describes them in his book Beautiful Evidence. Due to their form and format, sparklines are most appropriate on lists and subsummary reports, and are well suited to Read more… »

The bullet graph is a horizontal bar chart on steroids. This device was invented in 2005 by Stephen Few of Perceptual Edge, as a response to dashboard widgets that take lots of screen space to provide one piece of information.

By contrast, the bullet graph can efficiently convey quantitative data such as goal & percent attainment, as well as qualitative measures such as how good or bad a score of “85” really is. The unusual aspect to this is Read more… »

Last week FileMaker Inc. announced FileMaker Pro 11 — and most early reviewers agree the most exciting new capability is charting. In the weeks to come I’ll be digging in and providing demo files for some cool uses of this important new tool.

If you already chart in FusionCharts or xmChart or 360Works Charts or AnyChart or xmChart or Maani or Google API or SimpleChart or [your unnamed favorite here], you will still find the built-in chart tool easier to use than any of those. It is amazingly convenient. And did I mention easy? If you’re not a charting fan yet, then I’m sure you soon will be.

That said, this IS the first version with charting built-in, so it would be good to keep expectations modest.

For example, FileMaker Pro 11 Chart automatically assign colors to the Y-axis data series/elements from a choice of 20 palettes. Unlike the advanced third-party charting options, you cannot assign a specific color to a particular data point.

However there are ways to get around the default color choices Read more… »

So you’re submitting a proposal to present at the FileMaker Developer Conference (aka DevCon)… awesome! Thanks for offering to share your knowledge with the developer community. The more developers share, the better DevCon for us all. As you may be aware, the deadline for submitting proposals for next year’s DevCon is almost upon us.

One requirement is a 3- to 5-minute video of yourself for each of your proposed topics. The purpose of the video is to give the FileMaker, Inc. speaker selection team an idea of your presentation style, as well as to provide a platform for you to explain the key objectives of your proposed session and how you intend to present it. Although your proposal will not be judged on the video’s technical merits, you naturally will want to present yourself in the best possible manner.

Following are some suggestions on how to record and produce a quality video for this purpose… Read more… »

Send Mail via SMTP is a feature added in v10 of FileMaker Pro, that enables sending email directly without requiring a user’s email client application. The Send via SMTP option is also available to the Send Mail script step for FileMaker Pro, and is enabled for FileMaker Server. This adds the ability to automate sending via server-side scripts, whereas prior versions required a FileMaker Pro client to send email.

As usual, with power comes responsibility. In this case, it means knowing your SMTP configuration details and correctly formatting email elements. Failure here is easy, often resulting in the general (and least informative) error, 1506: “Email(s) could not be sent successfully”. (See below for a common but unexpected condition that triggers this error.)

We’ve created a file that should help streamline the process of finding SMTP settings that work… Read more… »