Developer’s Guide

Creating a database solution 2-13
Mac OS-only characters:
1 ≠ (not equal)
1 ≥ (greater than or equal to)
1 ≤ (less than or equal to)
1 √ (square root/check mark)
Designing text layouts for cross-platform solutions
Keep the following tips in mind when designing a text layout that
will display in both Windows and the Mac OS.
1 Leave plenty of room around a text block.
Even when FileMaker Pro is able to match fonts, there can be subtle
differences in character width and line spacing when fonts are
substituted on another platform. FileMaker Pro supports fixed text
object sizes, so that you can resize a text object to be longer than the
text within it. This allows you to anticipate changes in font size.
Resize your text objects so they are a little wider than the default size
to prevent text from wrapping to a second line when a different font
is substituted.
1 Check the alignment of the field labels and their associated
fields—they should both be aligned in the same direction.
If you put a left-aligned label over a column of right-aligned
numbers, for example, the report might look fine on your computer.
But font substitution could cause field labels to shift when the file is
opened on another computer. If a wider font is substituted on the
second computer, your column heading will shift to the right. If a
more narrow font is used, the text will display too far to the left.
1 Avoid mixing text and fields because character spacing may vary.
If necessary, use merge fields—for example, to place a field in the
middle of a sentence.
Using a common color palette
When 256 or more colors are available, FileMaker Pro will offer an
88-color palette that is virtually identical across platforms. (Close
substitutes are used for 13 colors that do not match exactly.)
Windows computers using a standard VGA driver will only display
16 colors. Some older Mac OS computers may also be limited to 16
colors. The 16-color palette in FileMaker Pro varies slightly between
Windows and the Mac OS, depending on the Windows color scheme
you are using.
If you are building your files on a 256-color computer, you might
want to use colors that will map well to 16-color systems. It also
helps to know which colors map to black and which map to white for
monochrome displays.
Using graphics in cross-platform solutions
If you’re storing and displaying graphics across platforms, be sure to
select the document preference for Store compatible graphics before
importing each graphic into your database file. (Choose Edit menu >
Preferences > Document.) Two copies of the graphic image will be
stored: the original version (for example, bitmap, metafile, or GIF)
and one in PICT file format.
Make sure fields and text objects are large enough to accommodate substituted fonts
Text bounding box
too narrow
Text bounding box too
narrow and shallow
The dotted colors are
available on 16-color
systems
This palette indicates which
colors map to black or white