Book Review - Learn FileMaker Pro 6
Reviewed by Pierre
Lessard
Author(s): Jonathan Stars, Nonie
Bernard
Publisher: Wordware
Website: www.DataDesignPros.com
Audience: Beginner to
Intermediate
If you are new to FileMaker Pro 6.0
this book is worth its weight in gold! Why? As an advanced
developer with a decade of development under my belt I
reviewed this material and kept saying to myself "if only I
had worked through the exercises in this book. Oh the time
and frustration I would have saved!" The authors waste no
time, provide an index of nearly 2,500 listings and even
include an area in the index called "Problems" listing more
than 70 areas for potential troubleshooting.
An incredible mix of experience and
enthusiasm brought forth by authors Jonathan Stars and Nonie
Bernard make this book a must have for those that want to
reach an intermediate level of competency in record time. An
award winning Las Vegas singer, songwriter, and comedian
Jonathan began using FileMaker in 1986 to keep track of his
entertainment business. His love affair with FileMaker has
brought him success and recognition as a premier developer
and he makes every effort to condense twenty-five years of
incredible development and learning experiences into this
book. Jonathan wisely partnered with Nonie Bernard for this
project. She has an outstanding ability to develop curricula
and programs in higher education and is also the Director of
Curriculum Development for FMPTraining, and an instructor
with the Maricopa Community Colleges as well as a consultant
with Waves in Motion. Her expertise and influence quickly
shines through in a beautifully laid out publication that is
more like going to a top notch two week personal training
session than it is reading a book. You can learn more about
the authors in the early sections of the book.
You have probably already gathered
that this is meant to be a hands-on book. It takes you
through a group of exercises that demonstrate the features
built into FileMaker 6.0. It is conveniently divided into
seven parts. It will take you from first launching
FileMakerPro, to leaving this training as a confident user
with solid intermediate knowledge. Are you excited yet? You
are even provided with a CD containing files so that you are
not forced to do the early exercises if your skills are
slightly more advanced.
Your learning experience is broken
into seven parts:
* Learning the Basics
* Using FileMaker Pro
* Turning Your Data into Information
* Creating a Real Solution
* Sharing Your Database
* Protecting Your Information
* Beyond FileMaker
Each of the seven parts contains
several relevant chapters that cover a wealth of information
that I could not begin to re-iterate in this review. It is
skillfully presented in plain English and is peppered with
very helpful tips and tricks that took me ten years to
learn! It is no wonder that Nonie Bernardès students have
rated her in the top 10% of all their instructors and that
Jonathan Stars is such a well-respected contributor to
FileMaker Pro Advisor Magazine. They really know how to
present material in an enjoyable and easy to follow
format.
Every Chapter contains the
following:
* Clearly stated reference to any
new vocabulary that is introduced
* Clearly stated Objectives for the chapter
* An introduction
* A question and answer session to help you remember what
you learned
This wonderful book taught me some
new tricks and reminded me of so many of the golden rules
that most experienced developers have learned the hard way.
Here are a few excerpts from the obvious to the not so
obvious.
"Whenever you get ready to
experiment with a layout youève worked hard to create, make
a copy first." Even I break that golden rule occasionally.
It always leads to sincere regrets.
Falling into the not so obvious
category dealing with portals "If you have more than one
portal on a layout, you need to name one of the fields in
the portal before using the Go to Portal Row script step.
Otherwise, the step will attempt to work on the portal that
was placed on the layout first, which may have unexpected
results."
I firmly believe that just the
condensed information contained in the "Caution" and "Tip"
sections of this book justify its purchase. Personally I
will keep this book nearby as an excellent source for
reference and I will highly recommend it to those that I
constantly field questions from the newsgroups after they
have gone through several hours of frustration because they
have not had the benefit of this material. Hats off to
Jonathan and Nonie. You have saved me a lot of time typing
replies to questions. Now I can just respond, "Buy Learn
FileMaker Pro 6".
About the Reviewer
Mr. Pierre Lessard is the President of Software Secrets
Consulting Inc. a Canadian software development firm
providing custom solutions for business. Software Secrets
Consulting Inc. has recently entered the pre-packaged
software solutions market with Wine-File Pro, a Wine Cellar
Management software for wine collectors available at
www.buythesolution.com Pierre holds a diploma in Database
Development and Administration from Herzing College. He has
performed consulting services for companies such as Alcatel
and Media-X and has most recently provided Software Quality
Assurance services for FileMaker Canada Inc. working on the
testing and development of future releases of their product
line. He can be reached at plessard@buythesolution.com
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