Thought I share the above freely downloadable treasure with my fellow Cyberfriends. PF-Merge supports over 20 database platforms and its utilities do not time-out.

For Beginners Only   January 31, 2004
 1 out of 4 found this review helpful

I've been a Filemaker Developer for over 7 years. My bookshelves are lined with a variety of FM titles. That said, I purchased this book solely on the authors experience (they frequently contribute to FM Advisor Magazine). The techniques shown here are pretty much available within the documentation and tutorials included within Filemaker when you do a standard install.

The examples and layouts are bland- functional but bland. I suggest spending 1/3 less $ and finding the John Mark Osbourne-Matt Petrowsky CD sets. They pack their CDs with great layouts and designs as well as very advanced scripting and calculation information. I still rely on those CD's frequently.

These gents do know Filemaker, and the text and CD do a fine job of explaining very basic database terms, expressions, and design theory. If you are brand new to databases and Filemaker specifically- this would do an adequate job.


Professional and Humorous   April 20, 2003
 2 out of 3 found this review helpful

This book is a must for the FileMaker developer, and a great study for the beginner.
It covers many developer questions and shows new angles to get more specific in designing, scripting and creating applications.
-Use it as your reference guide, technical dictionary and inspiration book.


Not for beginners   December 30, 2002
 2 out of 2 found this review helpful

If you are a developer or just a keen user who is looking at enhancing what they can do with FileMaker this is the book for you. There aren't many books of this type for FileMaker but luckily this is a really good one. A little short (at 350 pages) the first 120 pages are on relational basics and design that are applicable to any database. Some may skip these chapters but they contain a wealth of information that helps you understand the fundamental structure of your database and how to improve it.

Following chapters go over audit trail, creating a secure login system, advanced use of portals (e.g., using a portal as a selection list and "type-ahead" finds) and rollbacks.The chapter on enhancing your reports with "bucket reports", i.e., subsummary reports that run horizontally across the page instead of down, was particularly useful. Other chapters cover recursive data structures and complex calculations.

If you are not fairly literate with FileMaker you may struggle with some of the concepts as the book assumes you already have reasonable knowledge and pretty much jumps straight in. However, even if you have problems following the text the CD that comes with the book includes the databases so you can pull these apart to see how they work.

While FileMaker is easy to use for most things, there are some higher level functions that developer need that aren't necessarily straight forward to implement - even if you only get a couple of tips from this book it is worth the purchase as many of the examples covered here simply aren't easily available elsewhere