RUCKSACK Texnology

This post assumes you're using CMAssistant 8.1. Not too many of our licensees have upgraded to 8.1 yet, so I'll make a note where you might need to make adjustments for versions of CMAssistant going back to 6.5 or so. So, here's the problem. You want a list simply of the location names and addresses for a route in your current delivery system. Here's how you do it. 1. Find the route's current deliveries I am assuming you want to get location info for a current  route. There are several ways to do this. Perhaps the easiest way to do it is to start in ROUTES. Find the route you want by name and go to form view. In the Run Dates tab of the details box on the right, click on the go-to-related-records (">") button in the Delivs column for the first row. Note the delivery date. That ought to be the most current delivery set for that route. The run dates tab of the details box in ROUTES (CMAssistant 8.1). This button (circled in the scree...

FileMaker Inc announced today the release of an update for FileMaker Server 12 (standard and advanced) that brings the version to 12.0v6: more info here . The main benefit of this update appears to be compatibility with Mac OS X v10.9 "Mavericks". If you're using FileMaker Server 12 on a hardware running Mac OS X v10.9, you should download and install the update. (1-21-14)

I spend a lot of time in my FileMaker Pro databases, and I know many of my clients do, too. When you're opening and closing the same databases a dozen times a day, it's nice to have time-saving shortcuts to those files. There are basically two ways to create a shortcut. You can save the file as a "Favorite" inside FileMaker Pro; or you can save it as a shortcut or alias on your operating system desktop. FileMaker "Favorites" To save the file as a Favorite inside FileMaker Pro, first open the database. Then, in FileMaker Pro 13's menu, go to File > Open Favorite > Add Current File to Favorites . From that point on, the file will be in your favorites list and you can open it by using the same "Open Favorite" menu. Favorites are terrifically handy and I encourage you to give them a try. Creating a shortcut/alias on your desktop or in your OS X Dock It's just a little trickier to save the file as an alias on your desktop or ...

In my family, we decided to do Secret Santas this year. My wife and I have three daughters, and the two older daughters got married in the last year, so there are seven of us in the immediate family. We all agree that Christmas is really about something rather more important than shopping or gift-giving, and we agree that keeping it simple is a good idea. So somebody said, How do we do this? Although we're all in Dallas, we weren't together on the day that this decision was made and weren't going to be all together until Christmas day, so writing names on paper and drawing them from a hat wasn't going to be practical. Without thinking, I said I could build a database that would make make the Secret Santa assignments and email them out anonymously. My wife looked at me like I was crazy (which, as it happens, she knows me to be). The first concern she voiced had to do with security. She worried that I was going to know who all the Secret Santas were. I assured here th...

My review of FileMaker 13 is finally live at Macworld.com . Macworld/FileMaker 13 Review This is a big release, as you will see from the review. Should you upgrade? There are two possible answers, the easy one, and the hard one. The easy answer is, yes — yes, you should upgrade. The hard answer is, of course, more nuanced. As a technologist I more or less have to live near the bleeding edge. But for most of you, it may be reasonable for you to ask, Is what we've got now broke? And if it ain't, then don't "fix" it by upgrading. I understand that. Just one reassurance for those already using FileMaker 12: FileMaker 13 uses the same ".fmp12" file format at its predecessor. So if you need to add a seat to your current network, and if you're already using FileMaker 12, then by all means, buy a copy of 13 and throw it into the mix. And if you are still using FileMaker 11 (or earlier) and you've been thinking about upgrading, jumping to 13...

As of mid-December 2013, the latest version of CMAssistant is 8-point-something. Somewhat confusingly (to me, anyway) we're working on two tracks here: There's still a version that runs in FileMaker Pro 11 and I've made a few improvements to it. But there's a different version that runs in FileMaker Pro 12 (or 13) which has more — but somewhat different — improvements. I can't keep this up for long. I'm about to cease further development of the FileMaker 11 version. As soon as I finish adding support for adding locations via iPhone to CMAssistant 8 for FileMaker Pro 12, I'm also about to cease work on that line of development — in order to work on a complete, from-the-ground up rebuild in FileMaker 13. It'll probably take a month or two to complete this rebuild. But when I'm done it's going to be fantastic.  DELIVS list in CMAssistant 8 for FileMaker Pro 12. Click to view full size.

FileMaker 13 was released today (December 2, 2013). There are new versions of all the products in the FileMaker product line: FileMaker Pro and FileMaker Pro Advanced Filemaker Server FileMaker Go for iOS Much more can be found on FileMaker's website . One bit of good news: FileMaker Pro 13 uses .fmp12 file format that was introduced with the previous version, so if you have some computers on your network using a FileMaker 12 database and you need to add a seat, you can buy a copy of FileMaker 13 and just add it to the mix. You won't have to upgrade everybody immediately. But you may want to. I've been working with version 13 for a while as I work on a forthcoming review, and it seems a solid and impressive upgrade. I'll have much more info after my review is released. In the meantime, clients of Rucksack (or Polytrope) who have a question, should feel free to contact me directly.