fmAutoMate

Towards a FileMaker IDE

Look out FileMaker Developers!

fmAutoMate is here and now!

A new tool from MrWatson to automate your Filemaker Script Workspace.

It's a Proof-of-Concept - showing that we CAN usefully turn FileMaker into an IDE (integrated Development Environment)

You are a few clicks away from a more productive day:

1. Download it from GitHub https://github.com/mrwatson-de/fmAutoMate !
2. Open fmAutoMate.fmp12
   
3. Press the [fmAutoMate] button
   
4. Open a Script in the Script Workspace
   
5. Right Click on a script step
6. Enjoy the power at your fingertips
   

It's open source, open to edit ... and open ended.

Let me know the great things you do with it / want to do with it.

Happy fmAutoMating!

MrWatson

The Homepage and Download pages have been revamped to make it easieer to find the information you need. Download the latest fmWorkMate Bundle (Mac) straight from the home page, or jump directly to the fmWorkMate YouTube channel! On the download page you can now find various versions of fmWorkMate for older operating systems.

The fmCheckMate Layout Analyser finds your FileMaker layout errors - FAST!

Broken Buttons

Broken Calculations

Floating objects

Objects lost inside containers

Quoted or copied object names

Local CSS

Problem anchoring

and more

and more

and more

and more

Check it out here.

Get fmWorkMate + fmCheckMate XSLT from the downloads page

Hi folks,

hm ... something went wrong with the last release .... it seems like runtimes with FM 15.0.2 may have a problem starting, so I have created the fmWorkMate runtime again using FileMaker 14.

Please let me know (at the conference) or using the contact tab on this website, if you have further problems.

Happy & Smiling 

MrWatson

A Just-In-Time-Update ready for the start of the german FileMaker Conference in Salburg!

fmCheckMate Improved

• The fmCheckMate text result is being improved with search + replace functions and search-term highlighting as in the XML editor (work in progress).
• fmCheckMate Layout Analysis has been improved - find objects lost in sliders and tab controls.

FMK 2016

Check out my sessions today at the FMK 

• 11:00 - 12:30 "Surviving the Themes and Styles Jungle” / Überleben im Design- und Stil-Dschungel
• 14:00 - 15:30 Ein serverseitiges Script (SSS-)Framework

I wish everybody at the FMK 2016 a great experience! 

MrWatson

Prettier, smarter, more useful than ever before!

After two years since the last official release, the new fmWorkMate doesn't just have a pretty face, but is packed with powerful, unique and indispensable tools to make your daily File-Making more joyful, make you more productive and make your product more polished.

Layout Analysis

The new fmCheckMate Layout Analysis function is the king of analysis tools for instant layout analysis!

Find broken field references, commented out calculations, duplicate object names, floating objects, anchoring errors, editable value lists, and much, much more!

Find more errors in layouts than you can possibly imagine - almost instantly with a copy and a paste!

What's the difference?

 The revamped fmTextDiff tool compares your code more easily and intuitively than ever.       

- Compare text or FileMaker objects directly from the clipboard
- Drop files to compare their contents automatically.
- Diff fmxmlsnippets, or analysis results directly from fmCheckMate.

...and a pile more stuff!

The Mac version is online now; I hope to get the windows version ready for my presentations at the Developer Conference in Salzburg.

Happy Making FileMaker Work!

MrWatson

This release of fmWorkMate has a whole bunch of new stuff including support for fm13 themes!

Here is a summary of the recent improvements:

2 brand new tools!

• fmClipboardViewer - lets you browse the contents of your clipboard
• fmTextDiff - compares two files using an online service - for those of us who don't use TextMate ;-)

fmCheckMate now supports Themes!

• 4 new XSLT Transformations let you inspect, analyse and compare your themes.
• The XSLT Chooser has been REALLY simplified:
  
  
  
  
  
  
• With XSLTs categorized into Analysis / Change / Transformation, it is MUCH easier to find and identify the transformation you need.
• The object types are now named in plain english, and the function names are clearer (instead of CamelCase).
• You can also create your own XSLT Library! (or someone you know who knows a little XSLT 1.0)
  
  
• Just create a neighboring folder called "fmChekMate.YourNamespace.com", 
• add an xsl folder to it, 
• copy an XSLT over from fmCheckMate and 
• rename the file using the following format:
  
                       {InputType}_{OutputType}_NameOfTheFunctionUsingCamelCase.xslt
  
  You can see the existing xslt files for examples
  
  
• modify the XSLT // good luck ;-)
• Save the XSLT file
• In fmCheckMate open the XSLT Chooser and reimport the XSLT.
• For example:
  
  The file: ~/Documents/fmCheckMate.mrwatson.de/xsl/XMSS_Text.List_UnusedVariables.xslt
  
  Would display as:    Analyse   |   Scriptstep   |   Unused variables   |   mrwatson.de

fmSyntaxColorizer has had a major overhaul, is more dynamic and now has quick-switching between palettes. Enter f: to check out the function list!

And and handfull of other small improvements:

• fmTextConverter has a button to swap the Search and Replace fields
• fmPluginMate (fmp12) displays the plugin data more clearly & has clearer menus and shortcut-keys
• Simple Calculator has some new functions (UTF-conversion and (q:)oute function to convert an FM-calculation into a string)

To read about ALL the changes: please read the fmWorkMate_Changes.txt file when you download fmWorkMate

One more thing ...

All tools now have a built in online help function (at last!) - now I just have to fill out the help pages ;-)

Happy File-Making :-)

MrWatson

P.S. I've at last published my blog article "fmLogAnalyser - never miss another bug!" (from January) - Don't miss it!

A new release of (Mac version) fmWorkMate and the fmCheckMate XSLT library is available. :-)

2 new tools, and LOADS of improvements

More about it later...

Getting set up and started with fmCheckMate is now super-easy-peasy with new defaults, a new settings menu, and an improved XML Editor menu.

For a start fmCheckMate now starts up in Internal XML-Editor mode, so that newcomers can get to grips straight away with their fmxmlsnippets.

And with the new XML Editor Settings menu you get a great overview of your settings - and changing them is A SIMPLE SINGLE CLICK - with your mouse or with an easy-to-remember shortcut key.

Moreover, the XML Editor menu has been revamped:

• Functions are much more logically grouped,
• The new Clipboard menu shows all functions that interact with the clipboard,
• The Find and Replace Menu has also been reorganised to make it even easier to find the functions and remember the keys.

One final snazzy touch: each tool file now has its correct icon in the Finder.

New Release of fmWorkMate (Mac) is available, as ever, on the Downloads page.

Happy Checking Mate! ;-)

MrWatson

Hallo Deutschland! Hej Stockholm! Hej gutter i københavn!

How ya doin' San Jose / Cupertino / Los Altos?

All right down under?

How's it going? Well, thank you! Busy.

In the meantime, interest in fmWorkMate and fmSyntaxColorizer is on the rise:

Lots of you guys have been looking in, web visits rose significantly in october; can you see yourself in the city-list?

Two tweets about us to date.

A couple of links here and there.

One accidental imitation.

One contact.

Some mentions over at the FileMaker Technet developer community site.

And at least one 'happy customer':

"[fmSyntaxColorizer] is one of the most time saving tools I use, [....] Work with the colors on a day or two, and you will almost not be able to live without [it]....

... I encourage you engineers to take a look at this and try for yourself. It is really great."

                                                                    Claus Lavendt

And hopefully a lot more that I don't know about yet.

Happy and colorful discovering!

MrWatson

I'm doing some very intensive FileMaker code transformations at the moment - porting masses of Mail-Sync code from FileMaker 12 back into our old FileMaker 11 solution, so the focus for this release has been getting things transformed fast and efficiently with fmCheckMate (on Windows).

Thus, in this release the XSLT chooser has been pepped up: 

• New shortcut keys for selecting one of the top 5 transformations quickly
• Your favourite transformations remain at the top, even after an update, because the usage statistics are now stored in user preferences!

AND, most importantly, the Windows version works better.

SO: fmWorkMate for Mac and Win released - get it on the Downloads page 

Good night!

MrWatson

New Versions of fmSyntaxColorizer, and of Mac AND WINDOWS Versions of fmWorkMate are available on the Downloads page

What would software be without bugs? What would I hunt?

Greets from Germany

MrWatson

As the folks over at FileMakers fmdev Technet Site noticed,

Copying and pasting Scripts or Script lines from Mac to Remote PC is not easy and does not always work.

Apple Remote Desktop, TeamViewer, Remote Desktop Connection, Cord, et al can copy text cross-platform (usually), but often stumble when trying to copy FileMaker objects directly across the divide.

Well, here we know the answer to the problem, and it's called fmCheckMate, the heart of the fmWorkMate toolbox.

The solution is VERY EASY:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Install fmCheckMate on the local computer                 2. Install fmCheckMate on the remote computer

3. Copy FM objects here       4. CLICK here       -^v->      5. CLICK there      6. Paste FM Objects in the remote DB

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ONLY TWO EXTRA CLICKS in fmCheckMate (one local + one remote) are necessary.

:-)

fmCheckMate has bridged the divide and the FileMaker objects have jumped the gap!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But of course, fmCheckMate is only a fraction of the story: In the forum thread you can read my original comments, as to: Why fmWorkMate the ideal toolkit is to help FileMaker developers support & develop bug-free remote solutions.

Happy remote supporting!

MrWatson

There's some great new stuff in the new releases of fmWorkMate, fmCheckMate and fmSyntaxColorizer!

fmSyntaxColorizer

now ships with a CampSoftware color palette (see last blog entry), and has greatly improved palette-import & export functionality to support easier community palette-swapping.

fmCheckMate

has been honed again to provide a much smoother interface experience, with more intuitive menus and shortcut keys. A vastly improved text result editor now supports search & replace, and provides the ability to save the text to an external file in the much more useful UTF-8 encoding, as does the XML editor.

fmWorkMate

has seen some subtle development in the simple calculator, making it possible to do away with the mouse and operate it entirely via the keyboard.

Good to know:

• You can define your own functions in the settings page for the simple calculator.
• You can now start the simple calculator with a keypress (SHIFT+Command+0)
• All fmWorkMate tools have been equipped with a structured arsenal of shortcut keys so you can perform repetitive tasks easily and efficiently.

BETA 'n' BETA

Actually, it's the other way round: fmWorkMate is getting better and better, and thus, as more and more functions are 'rounded off',  it's getting less and less BETA.

Downloads

Releases, as ever, are to be found on the Downloads page. 

Happy work, mate!

MrWatson

There is a new version of fmWorkMate on the downloads page, with some nice goodies in the fmCheckMate tool.

I'm working on a huge conversion task at the moment; porting FileMaker 12 stuff back onto old FM 11 versions, which means that the focus of this release is on improving the pace of the work flow, that means

• improved menus, 
• useful keyboard shortcuts and 
• more intuitive flow through the data.

 Both the XSLT Chooser and the Text Result Viewer have been honed into efficient tools:

XSLT Chooser

Text Result Viewer

The text statistics really help to find problem characters in your code - or even in any text: just paste it in the text viewer and press command-8.

Have fun. New XSLTs should be coming soon.

MrWatson

In this and recent versions:

You can now elegantly access fmWorkMate's new home, fmworkmate.com, directly from the fmWorkMate start page - just click the slider at the top right!

The Simple Calculator has been considerably improved:

• you can add your own functions via the preferences page
• useful _HexRGB and _HexRGBA functions have been added

The XSLT Chooser now keeps track of usage, so you can access your favourites quickly and easily.

...and, of course, fixed various bugs.

It's all on the downloads page.

:-) Happy programming!

MrWatson

A new beta release of fmWorkMate is available on the downloads page.

fmWorkMate now has a built in ((slightly) intelligent) XSLT Transformation chooser (thanks for the good idea Peter! :-)

I guess I had better get round to publishing the XSLT Library soon, so that the chooser has something to choose!

>watch this space< ! (or the next one ;-)

MrWatson

Here is the presentation from pauseOnError Berlin 2013: fmWorkMate_Overview.fp7.zip.

fmWorkMate and it's 10 tools are presented in a 5-minute FileMaker presentation, showing a typical day in the life of a typical FileMaker programmer.

The presentations fully automated, at least on a mac; just press the play button and let your mac present you the information you need!

Note 1: If you don't have the MBS plugin, you may have to dismiss the odd error message here or there.

Note 2: The presentation was optimied for a MB-Pro Retina 13" monitor - if yours is too small, you may wish to zoom out using the view menu

Now there is a place to discuss and learn more about fmWorkMate, fmCheckMate, fmSyntaxColorizer et al.

Ask questions, swap tips, discover more :D.

Just go to http://www.fmworkmate.com/apps/forums/.