WebDirect Guide

Appendix A 
Design considerations
Although FileMaker WebDirect is very similar to FileMaker Pro, some aspects of FileMaker
solutions behave differently on the web. Keep the following considerations in mind as you design
your solution.
General considerations
1 FileMaker WebDirect does not support gestures or animations.
1 Modifying a solution while web users are connected could produce unexpected results. For
example, if you save changes to a layout that web users are accessing in List View, each web
user’s current record is changed to the first record in the found set.
1 Use fonts that are installed on all target operating systems. If a font is not available to a web
browser accessing a FileMaker
WebDirect solution, the web browser substitutes its default font
for the unavailable font.
1 Objects and grouped objects should not span multiple layout parts. If an object or group of
objects spans multiple parts, it displays only in the layout part in which it is anchored.
1 To identify the current record, style the layout body part’s Active object state to identify the
current record. The current record indicator is not supported in List View. See FileMaker
Pro
Help.
1 If you copy an object from a layout that uses the Classic theme, change the object to use a style
defined in the target layout’s theme.
1 If layout text wraps to a new line, increase the size of the text boundaries in the FileMaker Pro
layout. For example, if the text is aligned left, drag the lower right handle slightly toward the
right.
1 The highlight, superscript, and subscript conditional formatting options are not supported.
Underline, word underline, and double underline are all rendered as regular underline.
1 Tooltips are not supported with the following layout objects: text, images, fields that do not allow
entry, merge fields, merge variables, portals, charts, and web viewers that do not allow
interaction.
1 Popovers do not resize when the window resizes, so design popovers with the size of the web
browser window in mind. Resizing a browser window to be smaller than an open popover or
opening a popover that is larger than the current window could produce unexpected results.
1 Make sure that all SVG files conform to the SVG standard. FileMaker WebDirect does not
support non-standard SVG files. See FileMaker
Pro SVG Grammar for Button Icons.
1 When you print FileMaker WebDirect records, the web browser prints the records you see
onscreen. Printed pages may not match the layout you see onscreen and may contain layout parts
and objects that are not printed in FileMaker
Pro, such as navigation parts and placeholder text.