Technical Brief

FileMaker Go 1.2.1 Technical Brief
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This may be commonsensical, but use the excuse of less screen real estate to remove items from layouts. Scrutinize
how many unstored calculations and related fields your layouts require, and be judicious with summary fields. All
of these considerations are as true for solutions deployed to FileMaker Go as for those deployed to FileMaker Pro
on a wide area network. This technical brief will not dwell further on WAN optimization except to remind you that it
is important.
Tailoring an Interface for FileMaker Go
While you can simply open any existing FileMaker Pro database with FileMaker Go, the smaller screen and the
touch interface of the iPhone and iPad will lead you to build layouts and workflows optimized for iOS.
JustasdevelopersneedaccommodatethesubtledifferencesinhowtextandobjectsarerenderedonMacOS
and Windows, they will need to make sure to leave space for fonts and objects on iOS as well. There is some
scaling that occurs, and you will want to test the appearance of your layouts on iOS just as you would for desktop
platforms. This is particularly true for FileMaker Go as layouts are zoomed in single integer increments—for
exampleyourscreenmightbezoomedto64%—totonmobilescreens.Becauseofthis,objectsandparts
maynotlineupascleanlyastheydoinFileMakerProat100%zoom,72dpi.Testingdemonstratedsomeminor
aesthetic differences. For example, you might see a thin line appear between list view rows, depending on their
pixel row height, on your iPhone that you do not see in FileMaker Pro on your desktop. The key here, again, is to
test your solutions for all platforms you intend to support.
FileMaker Go does support some gestures such as double-tap for zooming, pinch, and swipe to move around
a zoomed screen. Since FileMaker Go also needed to ensure compatibility to existing FileMaker Pro databases,
extensive use of new gesture-based features was avoided. One of the core strengths of the FileMaker platform
has always been cross platform fidelity. With the introduction of FileMaker Go, experienced developers will need
to learn the subtleties of the new platform, but FileMaker takes care of most of the differences automatically. For
these reasons, developers do not have access to some of the touch interface gestures available on iOS.
Apple’sHumanInterfaceGuidelinesforiOSarerecommendedreading.Whilemanyguidelinesdonotapply
specicallytoFileMakerGo,reviewingthemcanhelpfocusadeveloper’sthinking.YoucanndtheGuidelineshere:
http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/MobileHIG/Introduction/
Introduction.html
Iconography
While no special restrictions exist for databases accessed with FileMaker Go, some standards do exist. These are
bothformal—fromApple’spracticesandrecommendations—andinformalontheiOSplatform.
Forexample,itisacommonpracticetouseaplus“+”icontosuggestaddingsomethingtoadatabaseorto
displayapickermechanism.A“>”icon,oftenfoundinacircle,denotesdisplayingadetailview.Trashcans,along-
timestapleofFileMakerdevelopers,usuallyindicatedeletionasdocircleswithslashesor“x”icons.Amagnifying
glass suggests search functionality, and a curved arrow pointing upwards usually implies sending data to someone
or something else.