We’ve been using FileMaker 11 with Studio Manager 10 every day since FileMaker 11 was released in mid March. Initially we were a bit reticent to give a full go ahead in case a new feature or change in FileMaker might conflict in some way with Studio Manager. But, things are going very well, so feel free to upgrade one or more of your client machines to FileMaker 11.
What about earlier versions of Studio Manager and FileMaker 11? Glad you asked. The only hitch is that Studio Manager 8 and 9 don’t know about FileMaker 11, so you’ll need to have me do a quick modification to the startup script for you. I’ve been charging $50 for the change. These days we are using the excellent Dropbox online service + application to share files. We’ll edit your file and return it to you in a jiffy. Contact us by email to schedule your upgrade.
We are currently busy at work on a minor upgrade: Studio Manager 10.1 that will boost your use of new features in Filemaker Pro 11 should you choose to upgrade. We started by reformatting the underlined “links” to improve the look of these buttons. FileMaker 11’s user interface is based on Cocoa now and text handling is different – scrunching the text vertically which makes underlined text look cramped. We found through experimentation that you can simply increase the height of single line text box by a pixel to eliminate the issue. Anyway, we went through all of Studio Manager 10 and have increased heights of text blocks everywhere to eliminate that minor font display glitch.
FileMaker 11 lets us add charts. When you’ve lived with a product for as many years as we have and been prohibited from charting, your mind draws a blank at first. After stalling on this initially, we are coming up with some good ideas and will not only include a few chart drawing buttons in our upcoming Studio Manager 10.1 release but will blog about it.
Charts are very easy to add. You don’t have to wait for Studio Manager 10.1 to be released. If you have FileMaker 11 on any of your machines, feel free to create some charts for important data. If you try your hand at a Studio Manager chart of any kind, drop me a line and I’ll be glad to help. I’ll provide a little free support for you so I can learn too.
Also, we are long overdue for a new Studio Manager demo, so plan to release the SM 10.1 demo very shortly after the release of Studio Manager 10.1. If you have ideas for us or things you would like to see in Studio Manager or questions about anything, please let me know.
Contact me at this email address.
I ran into an important piece of advice today and thought I better get it up for your information. Since I expect more FileMaker 11 tips to come my way, I plan for this list to expand. Feel free to add your own comments if you have something to add.
The first tip is about FileMaker 11 Server. Run the FileMaker 10 Uninstaller before Installing FileMaker 11 Server. One of FileMaker’s system engineers, Alexei Folger presented at the DIGFM FileMaker User Group Meeting on FileMaker 11. FMBiotech made a good blog post about Alexei’s presentation that is worth your while if you want to learn more about FileMaker 11.
We are testing versions of Studio Manager to see if there are any gotchas to running the brand new and fabulous FileMaker Pro 11. Initial testing shows that running Studio Manager 10 unmodified will entail some misbehavior. Until we’ve tested Studio Manager 10 extensively under FileMaker 11, we recommend against upgrading. We typically take 30-45 days to do this testing.
If you are as eager to check out FileMaker 11 as we are, we recommend you get FileMaker 11 or the trial version and play with it, even test a copy of your version of Studio Manager with it as long as you have Studio Manager 7 or higher. The charting feature alone may prove invaluable for your business. We’ll be very interested in your discoveries and will document and publish what we learn. What we don’t recommend is taking your production version of Studio Manager and running it under FileMaker 11 before some serious testing has been done. This is your valuable, mission-critical data after all.
You need OS X 10.5.7 Leopard or higher to run FileMaker 11 and 10.6 Snow Leopard is recommended. Keep an eye on this blog for breaking news relative to both FileMaker 11 and Studio Manager. The Look and feel of the product has a major yet very subtle upgrade going on. End-user charting is there.
Expect a quick release of Studio Manager 10.1 to quickly take advantage of new feature low-hanging fruit and nip any problems in the bud.
I’m tweeting my initial impressions and thoughts on tokerud.
I will be posting at least one article to my FileMaker Fever blog today on FileMaker 11 new features.
Hi folks. Just a quick note. We are still getting requests for upgrades to Studio Manager 10. And, we are offering a 15% off discount from our posted prices both new purchases and upgrades. You can take 15% off anything you see on our Pricing and Upgrades price tables.
Just a few minutes ago, we decided to extend the 25% off sale to January 15. We were a little late getting Studio Manager 10 out the door, releasing it on December 22nd. A little too close to Christmas for a lot of people. When we sent out notifications, we got a lot of gone for the holidays notices. Under the circumstances, we are really happy with the response to our sale.
And, we are pretty sure more of you want to upgrade to Studio Manager 10 but need a little extra time to evaluate the demo which didn’t come out until December 23. Some of you may want to deduct this expense in 2010 rather than the less than stellar 2009. Whatever the reason, contact us by phone 415 789-5219 or email Janet to discuss your questions or place an order.
The Studio Manager 10 Demo is up and available on the Demo tab above at the far right. If you have any problems, questions at all, please let me know. You will find good help in the ReadMe document that is included in the demo folder that you download and unzip. Things like what’s the user name and password are included there.
It will take some time to update all the screenshots here on our site and also in the Demo Manual and Getting Started Manuals. Probably mid-January. Sorry, but we can’t start them until the product is done and these are serious and hopefully very good manuals. We trust that the Studio Manager 9.2 versions of the manuals will tide you over. And, if you find something confusing, don’t hesitate to call or email me personally.
One more thing, if you put Studio Manager or SM in the subject line, it turns red for me in Apple Mail and makes it easier for me to see your request.
Janet Tokerud
415 789-5219
My Email
