Technical Brief

FileMaker Go 1.2.1 Technical Brief
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Log Out Buttons
During testing with FileMaker Go, only the most disciplined users remember to close all open files before hitting
the Home button and closing FileMaker Go. Most users will, when finished with FileMaker Go for the moment,
immediately hit the device Home button without a second thought. If your database requires a more graceful
exit,youcannotensureorenforceadifferentbehavior,butyoumightconsiderplacingalarge“LogOut”or“Exit”
button at the top of your interface screens in the hope that users can be trained to use it.
Refresh / Request-based Processing
Mobile device users will generally be comfortable tapping a refresh icon to retrieve fresh data from a server. This is
a common element in many connected and web-based mobile applications. This opens a world of possibilities for
FileMaker developers. While many FileMaker Pro users, especially those used to working on a local area network,
would not expect refresh functions, mobile users will not only accept this user interface practice, they can benefit
from it. Users can choose explicitly when they are able to wait for data and performance-intensive processes to
complete and explicitly request them.
For example, imagine a database that shows a list of employee expense reports and a subtotal. In a standard
sub-summary list view, FileMaker Go would redraw the list and recalculate the totals each time a user viewed that
layout. This might create a performance delay for mobile or wide area network users.
Given that the idea of refreshing data on a mobile device is more familiar to mobile users than it might be to
FileMaker Pro users, a developer could create a list view that does not use live sub-summary functionality, but
rather relies on stored totals and updates those totals when the user explicitly requests new data. Note the controls
added to the top of this example for grouping data and displaying totals.