Over time, one collects bits and pieces of knowledge about different corners of development. Features that are a little more difficult to discover, or shortcuts that can help out in a pinch. Some of these nuggets can make developing faster, easier, or more accurate. Here are five helpful features you may or may not already know about, but which I’m thankful we have available.
Many of us who have been working in FileMaker for some time have solutions built on the Classic Theme. “Classic” sounds good, doesn’t it? Who wouldn’t want to build something “Classic?” Well, fellow FileMaker developers, in this case we do want to clear out that old classic, Classic Theme. In this article, find out about a 2-step process to update the meat of your layouts to something leaner, faster, and better-looking than the good old Classic solution you have today.
The fourth in a series on the basics of visual design for FileMaker. Colour is one of the most important elements of a design. Since vision is our most dominant sense, colour has an enormous impact on the feeling of a design. But it’s easy to overdo colour, so use it wisely! Here are some important facts about designing with colour.
When creating a design, choosing colours is one of the most important aesthetic decisions you will make, because it is one of the first things people will notice about it. You have the power to attract or repel users with your use of colour. (I hope you want to attract them, in which case, please read on!) Despite its importance, or maybe because of it, using colour well can be tricky.
Chiyoko Yoshida of chiyofm created a handy little file to help you visualize the changes to layout objects when you apply different themes. Each layout contains all the objects you could possibly style on your FileMaker layouts, such as buttons, tab and slide panels, portals, text, and more. You could use this as a base for a theme development file (see my previous post about working with themes and styles).
We’ve probably all done these at one time or other. The consequences of these mistakes can range anywhere from annoying to profound. Here they are, in no particular order.
Like any language, understanding how the visual design language is constructed helps you use it more effectively. You “know” the rules on a subconscious level already, because as a user you’ve been conditioned by all the programs and apps you’ve ever used.
But you may not be equipped to solve sticky design problems. Often, design principles compete with each other. A lot of a designer’s job is weighing all the factors to decide which ones are more important in a given situation. By formalizing your knowledge, you can better decide what is foundational, and where you can compromise.
The third in a series on the basics of visual design for FileMaker. As visual creatures, humans are very sensitive to detecting the shapes of things we see. Interpreting shapes is one of the basic ways we navigate the world around us.
It seems beyond self-evident that every object, real or imagined, has a shape. We define objects by their shape. (Um, thanks…tell us something we don’t know.) But if we dig a little deeper into this obvious statement, we discover that shape has a profound impact on our interpretation, observation, and interaction with the objects in our surroundings.