Developer’s Guide
Table Of Contents
- Chapter 1 Getting started
- Chapter 2 Using FileMaker Developer features
- Chapter 3 Using the Developer Utilities
- Overview of preparing your solution files
- Modifying database solution files
- Considerations for a runtime database solution
- Binding databases into runtime database solutions
- Saving and reusing Developer Utilities settings
- Converting and upgrading solution files
- Removing full access privileges from databases
- Chapter 4 Distributing runtime database solutions
- Chapter 5 Customizing database solutions
- Chapter 6 Creating custom layout themes
- Chapter 7 Developing third-party FileMaker plug-ins
- About external functions
- About the example plug-in
- Installing, enabling, and configuring the example plug-in
- Description of the FMExample plug-in’s external functions
- Using the example plug-in
- Customizing the plug-in example
- Requirements for writing external function plug-ins
- FileMaker messages sent to the plug-in
- Avoiding potential Mac OS X resource conflicts
- Providing documentation for your plug-in
- Registering your plug-in
- Appendix A Feature comparison of the runtime application with FileMaker Pro
- Index
56 FileMaker Developer’s Guide
Themes use 6-digit color hexadecimal (hex) values to describe colors
(for example, #CC9966), which can be found in most graphics
programs that use a color palette.
Themes should use web-safe colors for databases that will be
accessed by multiple platforms, displayed on monitors with varying
resolutions, or displayed on a network. However, when your
databases will be displayed on a single platform or at a high
resolution, the full RGB color spectrum gives you a much larger and
richer color set.
The FileMaker Pro and FileMaker Developer color palette contains
only web-safe colors. For information on using the color palette, see
Help. For more information about using patterns and colors in a
layout, see Help.
Adding comments to theme files
You can add additional information to your XML theme files by
enclosing the information in comment tags:
<!- - my comment here - ->
FileMaker Pro and FileMaker Developer will ignore any unknown
(but syntactically correct) XML elements you may choose to
include. This allows your theme files to be backward and forward
compatible with other versions of FileMaker Pro and
FileMaker
Developer.
Checking theme files for errors
FileMaker Pro and FileMaker Developer cannot parse an XML
theme document that is not well-formed, and they do not validate the
XML in your documents. If one required item is missing or wrong,
FileMaker
Developer will ignore the entire document.
Here is a list of things to check for if your new layout themes don’t
appear in the New Layout/Report assistant as expected:
1 The theme filename has the .fth extension.
1 The theme file is in text format.
1 The theme file is located in the Themes folder inside the
FileMaker Developer application folder.
1 All required elements are there, including their start and end tags:
<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes" ?>
<FMTHEMES>
<FMTHEME>
<THEMENAME VALUE="Purple and White Screen" />
</FMTHEME>
</FMTHEMES>
Pattern attribute values begin at the top left corner of the fill pattern palette
with number 1 and end at the bottom right corner with number 64
2 3 4 5 6 7 81
57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64