• A System of Integrated Tools
  • Solve Problems
  • Plug gaps
  • Work Together
  • Work Consistently

A System of Integrated Tools

Developed over many years to solve real-world problems, MrWatson’s tools have come to cover a wide range of tasks and problems that I and many other FileMaker developers encounter regularly during their daily routine.

Solve Problems

The tools solve problems at all stages of the development process

• during setup of a FileMaker workplace computer
• throughout all aspects of the development process
• when analysing and debugging databases
• during deployment and patching
• with integrating documentation

Plug gaps

The tools plug gaps in FileMaker functionality

🤒 Medicine for where it hurts!

• While FileMaker Pro logs some pasting errors, in the most complicated and error-prone area of FileMaker - layouts - paste errors are not logged at all!
  • Layout Analysis with fmCheckMate is designed specifically to plug that hole!
• While FileMaker does not (yet) support deep linking into the FileMaker GUI
  • fmIDE allows you to get where you want fast.
• FileMaker’s Assisted Install file can only go so far in setting up your FileMaker environment
  • fmSetupAssistant goes the whole way and can not only setup your FileMaker settings, but also some operating system settings too.

Work Together

MrWatson’s Tools are designed to work together

Here are some examples:

• When you use fmTextDiff to compare FileMaker code, fmTextDiff uses fmCheckMate to transform the code into the best format to recognise the differences
  • You can even choose to automatically perform a conversion on one of the files using mTextConverter
• In fmTextMultiplier entering 1..10 in the replacement field will automatically fire up fmTextSeries to create a series to multiply.
• In fmCheckMate
  • entering multiple lines in the replacement field will automatically switch to use fmTextMultiplier to multiply the code.
  • entering multiple lines in both the find and replacement fields will automatically switch to use fmTextConverter to convert the code.
• As evident from the Case Study Backporting an e-Invoice Solution for GBS GmbH.

Work Consistently

MrWatson’s Tools aim to be consistent

• have common navigation
• speak a common language
• have a (kind of geeky) look and feel