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.

Today, FileMaker, Inc. released the update to FileMaker Pro 11 that was promised at the time of Lion’s release in July. I just downloaded the software and plan to apply the upgrade. Other Lion-related issues are bound to surface eventually but I expect them to be minor.

The update is recommended for all FileMaker 11 installations. You can download from the FileMaker site here.

FileMaker identifies the following fixes:

• OS X Lion only: Addressed an issue with some date field formats showing Asian characters.
• OS X Lion only: Addressed an issue with not being able to use zero or negative numbers in data formatting in the Inspector and in some controls in the Chart Setup dialog.

The prudent among you will take your own sweet time upgrading to Lion. I really don’t recommend upgrading to Lion as yet in a mission critical situation such as a Studio Manager installation. For one thing, the promised update to FileMaker Server 11 is not due until October and Lion itself is still Quite buggy.

Lion 10.7.1. Some bugs were addressed today with the release of Lion 10.7.1 but there are still lots of people online who’ve downloaded 10.7.1 who are saying their Lion-related problems remain.

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.

You can download the demo of Studio Manager 11 now. You’ll need an iPad, iPhone or iPod touch running FileMaker Go to see the meat of this release. If you have FileMaker Pro 10 or 11, the demo will work as well — it just won’t be very different from the FileMaker 10 demo.

Fill in minimal required fields and the demo will be yours in a couple minutes! I just took this screenshot from my iPad. Click for full size.

FileMaker Go is $40 for the iPad and $20 for the iPhone. Right now FileMaker Inc. has a deal where you can buy a copy of FileMaker Pro for 1/2 price – see below.

When you have FileMaker Go, you can get the demo on your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch directly from the download link on our site (minimal registration required). You can also download the demo to your computer and then transfer the demo to your device via iTunes. If you have dropbox and the free dropbox app on your iPad or iPhone, you can open the demo in dropbox and then send it over to FileMaker Go.

We are now turning to finishing up documentation for using Studio Manager 11 on your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch. Work continues… We are working on an eBook that will be readable in iBooks. The iPhone version is about done, so that may be up later today. The iPad version is more extensive in scope so it may be a while longer. If you have an iPad and iPhone, do try Studio Manager 11 on both.

If you have FileMaker Pro 10 or 11 and an iPad or iPhone or iPod touch, try it on everything you’ve got.

Don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions. The readme you get with the demo has phone numbers and email.

Now here is a deal if you want a copy of FileMaker Pro cheap. Normally FileMaker Pro is $299. Right now if you buy a $20 copy of FileMaker Go for iPhone or the $40 copy for iPad, you can buy a full copy of FileMaker Pro for $149. Read the full press release.

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.