What is Claris FileMaker Pro 4.0?

FileMaker Pro 4 is a relational database software for Mac and Windows platforms. It was released in 1998 and offers an intuitive interface for creating and managing personal and business databases.

It includes features such as creating custom forms, managing data easily and efficiently, generating reports, and sharing information across multiple platforms. FileMaker Pro 4 is designed to be easily used by users with little or no database experience.

 

FileMaker Pro addicts will welcome the latest upgrade from Claris as this popular and versatile database program gets Internet savvy in a serious way. At first pass, FileMaker Pro 4.0 appears quite familiar. Even though it sports a new version number — implying a major upgrade — there are new database-building features to be found. Sure, FileMaker Pro 4.0 offers a few token additions — users may now set Sort preferences for portals, rotate text and fields (which is cool), apply more precise Find commands, and a couple of other minor tweaks — but the big news in store for database mavens is in the program’s Web publishing tools.

No longer is it necessary to learn arcane scripting commands (CGIs, PERL) or use other tools (BlueWorld’s Lasso, Everyware’s Tango, or Web Broadcasting’s WebFM) to publish a FileMaker Database online. You now have two options — one easy, one hard — for getting that killer comic book collection onto the Internet. The path of least resistance takes care of all your HTML, layouts, and so on. Simply turn on the Web Companion plug-in in the Application Preferences dialog box, then enable a database for sharing via the Sharing menu command. Open your favorite browser, type in your IP address (the funky number in your TCP/IP control panel that serves as your Mac’s address on the Internet), and — bang — you’ll see your database. It took us all of five minutes to get our first database shared on the Internet, without looking at the manual first. Before FileMaker Pro 4.0, you were looking at a day’s work, easy, and it wasn’t an intuitive process.

The drawback of taking the lazy way is that you have virtually no control over layout FileMaker Pro sets up a generic home page listing shared databases on your machine and uses a template for your database’s user interface. This is great for someone who thinks HTML should be left to propeller-heads, but for those who want more control, there’s the hard way.

Claris created a pseudo markup language for working with FileMaker Pro databases. Added into your Web pages, CDML tags (Claris Dynamic Markup Language) make the appropriate calls to a referenced database. Using these tags, it’s up to the Webmaster to build the user interface for the online database, but they do offer great flexibility and total control over presentation, including the ability to launch scripts in FileMaker Pro. CDML syntax is easy to pick up and includes a wide variety of Internet specific fimctions that otherwise never would have applied to FileMaker Pro. For example, email commands in CDML make it possible to set up mail lists and the like. CDML tags really apply the strength of posting FileMaker databases online and give Webmasters the tools they need at a massive savings.

FileMaker Pro 4.0 isn’t without faults, however. One glaring frustration is that setting up databases to be shared online requires a constant Internet connection. If you’re working from home through a modem, this can be a hassle.

Finally, FileMaker Pro 4.0 fails to deliver for users who don’t want to post to the Web. There are a few token improvements, but not enough to justify the steep $99 upgrade. The ScriptMaker alone has needed an overhaul for years yet remains untouched.

The bottom line on FileMaker is that it is the best database program on any platform. The bottom line on version 4.0 is that it adds extra- ordinary power for Web work, but not much for those who already own FileMaker and don’t need to post online.

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Shimizu, Tomoko. (February 1998). FileMaker Pro 4.0. MacAddict. (pg. 56).

Download Claris FileMaker Pro 4.0 for Mac

Architecture

68K + PPC (FAT)

System Requirements

From Mac OS 7.1

Compatibility notes

Emulating this? It could probably run under: SheepShaver