Instructions and file for setting up a basic JDBC connection from Java code.

Can you handle 99 bottles of beer... in your favorite programming language? Here's a fun little challenge to stir your technical and creative juices. Over 1437 variations and counting, including this version in FileMaker. How would you do it?

How do you present rich text field data on a FileMaker layout, and allow users to scroll, select, and copy it, but not make changes? We recently had to do this, and found it more challenging than we'd expected. We discovered two very different ways to do this; both are flexible, lightweight, and will scale well as a solution grows over time.

Got white space? Here is a FileMaker custom function that hides the portal scroll bar if there are no additional records to display. This is the first post in a series on building a different kind of FileMaker-based contact management solution that looks and behaves like the OS X Address Book.

Seasoned and aspiring FileMaker ninjas will want to have this free utility in their tool belts. Syntax highlighting, code snippets, documentation, and even direct access to FileMaker's clipboard!

FileMaker DevCon 2011 is just around the corner! Make the most out of your trip and see our Top 11 Tips for DevCon '11 attendees.

One of the primary tools we have available to us when designing user interfaces is color. Adding some categorization to your data using a little color can make it much more approachable and usable. The technique presented here will give you (on Mac OS X) a polished and robust Color Picker with no other requirements than a custom function and a global field. You can even set the default colors displayed on the Color Picker.

Here are 5 top tips for successfully implementing Instant Web Publishing (IWP) using FileMaker. This is part II of a two-part series. Part I introduced IWP as an alternative to the traditional client-server deployment (FileMaker Server to FileMaker Pro). We noted that it is very easy to get started with IWP, and also very easy to get hung up on its limitations. But you can use IWP successfully if you learn to work within its constraints.

For situations where web deployment is well suited, Instant Web Publishing is often touted as the “plug-and-go” option of publishing. While IWP is indeed easy, the full truth is that your layouts and scripts will need some considerable tweaking to achieve the polish and ease of use you might be looking for. Be sure you’re aware of the following considerations and tips before committing to an IWP deployment.

Notes from Vincenzo Menanno's session at PauseOnError on FileMaker User Experience (UX) for Developers", brainstorming how to improve the tools that FileMaker developers themselves use.

"I tried to frame the FileMaker UX discussion with this notion of little things make a big difference. Two key aspect to any UI -- for end users or developers -- are the notions of finesse and refinement. These links to UX/UI resources and examples were provided to get people inspired [and] there were a number of great requests and suggestions which I captured..."