FileMaker Pro 12, FileMaker Go 12 and FileMaker Server 12 are all available for purchase today. I bought it within moments of the release and have already begun the invigorating process of updating Studio Manager to take advantage of new features. I know that you’re eager to upgrade too, but before you click the buy button, read my hands-on review here.

FileMaker 12 is a major release that changes the file format. It is easy to open an existing FileMaker 11 or earlier file in FileMaker Pro 12 and only takes a minute or two to convert even for large complex databases.

However, once you convert a Filemaker database by opening it in FileMaker 12, it can no longer be used by any previous version of FileMaker.

That means that if you have several copies of FileMaker, you’ll need to upgrade each one, including FileMaker Go, in order to access and use a FileMaker 12 database.

The last time we had an upgrade of this magnitude was FileMaker 7 released in 2004. We’ve had a nice long run without a file format change, but it is inevitable that eventually a file format change is needed to introduce really big improvements. This is such an occasion.

FileMaker Go 12 is Free

Fire up your iPhone or iPad and download FileMaker Go 12. You’ll be able to see some sample files that take advantage of the much improved user interface. FileMaker databases now look like other iPhone and iPad apps!

FileMaker Pro is $299 for a full new version.

If you have FileMaker 9, 10 or 11 you can upgrade for $179.

Key Features of FileMaker Pro 12

1. 40 high quality Layout Themes that can be applied to your existing layouts.
2. More powerful layout tools including gradients, image slicing, and alignment guides to get the design precision you need.
3. Much better container field functionality with better performance to manage images, PDFs and documents.
4. iOS design and development tools to help you develop for iPhone and iPad.
5. Window styles allow you to deliver custom dialogs in a variety of ways. Supports modal dialogs and floating “palette-type” windows.
6. Emphasis on easy, effective deployment to iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.
7. New built-in SQL capabilities that offer the possibility of much faster performance when dealing with large data sets.
8. And more. See the full FileMaker Pro version comparison list.

Studio Manager 12 Development Will Begin

We have begun to experiment with the new capabilities of FileMaker 12 and will post updates as we learn more. Janet has already opened up Studio Manager 11 in FileMaker Pro 12 and has applied a standard theme to see how it looks. We are extremely pleased to have gradients, image slicing and other more advanced design tools at our disposal to give Studio Manager a face lift in our next release.

Stay tuned for updates. It will take at least 3 months to incorporate new features, revise documentation and release Studio Manager 12. The first step is experimenting with new features. The second step will be to develop specifications. After that the heavy lifting will commence. We will keep you posted on our progress.

Now is the time for you to send in your wish list of new features and layout design ideas. Imagine the satisfaction of seeing your dreams come to life. Email or Twitter Janet today.

Studio Manager 11 Status

Can you Convert an Earlier Version of Studio Manager to FileMaker 12?

FileMaker Inc. recently released an update to FileMaker Server 11 that solves all deficiencies with web publishing and leaves only one final concern that may apply to those who authenticate using Microsoft Active Directory. If you are running or want to upgrade to OS X Lion, make sure you apply this update. Full details are available here.

Use of FileMaker 11 and FileMaker Server 11 with Lion looks pretty solid at this point. Make sure you do meet FileMaker’s minimum requirements. And, it is a great idea to have a top notch and conservative backup system in place when you do any type of system upgrade.

FileMaker Inc. has updated their support articles with a lot of Lion compatibility information. FileMaker 11 was given a qualified green light, but known issues may be deal breakers for some users. The 2 things not supported in FileMaker 11 under Lion right now are (1) The Excel xls format is not supported and (2) Lion’s resume feature doesn’t work. Two other issues noted were: “Within the Inspector, number fields are unable to set a fixed number of decimals to 0 or a negative value” and “When formatting dates, the year may show incorrect dates with Asian character”. An Update for FileMaker Pro 11 is scheduled for August 2011.

FileMaker Server also got a qualified green light from FileMaker Inc. today. However, the big feature not supported right now under Lion is web publishing. An update for FileMaker Server is scheduled for October.

FileMaker Inc. has a table showing older versions of filemaker and issues they know of.

Think about whether you can tolerate those issues before proceeding. My Studio Manager customers should not be upgrading this early in Lion’s life cycle. Let other’s be the guinea pigs.

OS X Lion is due shortly and FileMaker user’s need to know what to expect before upgrading. FileMaker 8 or lower will not run at all on Lion. Only FileMaker 11 will be certified and supported. A small upgrade to FileMaker 11 that will support Lion is in the works.

Here’s what FileMaker says about Lion as of July 8:

FileMaker is excited about the powerful features in OS X Lion and iOS 5. We are committed to be compatible with the latest Apple operating systems and the shipping versions of FileMaker products will be updated to support OS X Lion and iOS 5.

Bottom line:

FileMaker 11 needs a minor update for Lion which is not yet available (as of July 16 2011).

FileMaker 8 will not run at all on Lion. It was developed as a PowerPC app. It is not a Universal App so requires Rosetta which is not supported in Lion. This means any version of FileMaker prior to version 8.5 will not run under Lion.

You need FileMaker 11 to run Lion. We may learn in the trenches that the bugs you will encounter running a lower version of FileMaker are tolerable, but we don’t know that yet and FileMaker Inc. does not have the resources to make sure that FileMaker 10 or less will run well on Lion.

I’ll update this post as more is revealed.

We are extremely happy that FileMaker has released FileMaker Go for iPhone and iPad. How great is that?

But, we are sorry to say that because of the way iPhone works, we can’t recommend or support use of FileMaker Go with current versions of Studio Manager. Don’t stop reading, though, there’s more to this story.

You could access Studio Manager from an iPhone or iPad running FileMaker Go with just a couple tweaks, but you risk getting into trouble and having a frustrating experience.

For one thing, FileMaker Go doesn’t support Preview and the iPhone and iPad don’t yet support printing. All reporting for iPhone and iPad will have to be re-done in a way that doesn’t require a Preview. Right now, all reports in Studio Manager require previews or printing. So, if we support 5 or 10 reports from the iPhone or iPad, they will be new reports that work even though previewing is not possible. FileMaker 11 allows subheads and subtotals to appear without a preview. Previous versions don’t.

The absolute deal-breaker issue is that when you use an iPhone or iPad, hitting the Home button shuts down an app abruptly which means a script can stop before it is done. If you are running a script that happens to move data from point a to point b or even creates a new timesheet, it could be interrupted mid-script leaving loose ends and incomplete information. We are available to address this now on your behalf with your current version of Studio Manager, but it’s going to take some careful research to make sure we’ve nabbed all the scripts that would be troublesome on an iPhone or iPad.

The secondary issue is that Studio Manager layouts are built and optimized for a Mac that uses a cursor. There is a consensus and we agree with it that you should make your layouts touch-friendly if they are going to run on a touch-based device like the iPhone or iPad.

Because of these two issues, we think the way to go is to create some little layouts for the iPhone and some for the iPad. We’ve already got an itty bitty iPhone layout for login and another for task and time updating running in our lab. Some good and thorough thinking will be needed to decide what functionality will run well and will be essential on the iPhone and iPad. We will either make iPhone and iPad versions of important scripts or modify the scripts to do different things depending on the type of device that’s being used.

We plan to do three things to support FileMaker Go. First, we expect that the next major release of Studio Manager will include at least a modicum of features that can be used well with iPhone and iPad. Second, we plan to publish our work so that you can as easily as possible add compatibility to an earlier version of Studio Manager. Third, we’ll offer customization services and consulting to our customers so that they can make changes they want in their current version of Studio Manager.

We think FileMaker Go will be the very best way to access Studio Manager for people who are occasional or temporary users, have an iPhone or iPad, and don’t need absolutely full access to Studio Manager features. Better than web access. It is fun to use. It’s handy.  At $20 for iPhone and $40 for iPad, it is the cheap, thin and mobile client we’ve been waiting for.

Please comment on this post if you have some ideas. If you have a top priority, let us know. We need your input!

FileMaker Pro 8 was released on Monday. There is no data format change with 8, so Studio Manager 7 runs perfectly on 8 without modification. If you have Studio Manager 7, you can upgrade to 8 if you like. It’s faster. They’ve eliminated some of the tiny bugs in 7. It has clairvoyance (auto-complete using previously entered values) for any field on a layout that has clairvoyance checked. And you can turn this on by clicking a checkbox for any field in Studio Manager.