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New features in FileMaker Pro 14

FileMaker Pro 14 includes the following new features and improvements.

New user interface for creating scripts and calculations

•	The new Script Workspace window allows you to:

•	create and manage FileMaker scripts in a unified workspace

•	add script steps by typing or choosing the script step’s name (as you type, a list of matching script steps appears along with a brief description)

•	edit many script step options inline

•	work with multiple scripts in the same window

•	run or debug scripts from the Script Workspace window

See Creating and editing scripts.

•	Redesigned Specify Calculation dialog box – As you type function, table, and field names, a list of matching items appears along with a brief description. See Defining calculation fields.

•	Improved Script Debugger – A description of the last error encountered is displayed along with the error number. See Debugging scripts (FileMaker Pro Advanced).

New Launch Center window for opening files

•	Launch Center window – Open local and remote FileMaker Pro solutions, convert other files, and manage favorite files and hosts all in one place. See Opening files, Opening shared files as a client, and Working with favorite files and hosts.

•	Solution icon – Choose a predefined icon or provide your own icon to represent your solution in the Launch Center window. See Setting file options.

Improved layout design tools and controls

•	Improved button labels – Define buttons to have a text label, an icon, or both. Choose from predefined icons or use your own. See Defining or changing a button.

•	Button bars – Define button bars to group and format buttons and popover buttons uniformly. Add a text label, an icon, or both for each button or popover button. You can assign actions — a single command or a script — for each button to perform. See Defining or changing a button bar.

•	Placeholder text in fields – Display a label or instructions within a field until you enter data or search criteria. See Adding and changing field labels.

•	Enhanced scroll bars in portals and fields – Display a scroll bar in a portal or field always or only when you’re scrolling. See Creating portals to display related records and Adding scroll bars to fields.

•	Layout parts for navigation – Add a navigation part to the top and bottom of a layout to help you easily build navigation for your solution. See About layout part types.

•	Improved color palette – Add or change custom colors, set specific color values, and enter or paste hexadecimal values. The palette includes colors that coordinate with the predefined themes. See Setting the fill, line style, and borders for objects, layout parts, and the layout background.

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Additional support for object components’ display-state styles – Use the Inspector to define display states for pop-up menu, drop-down list, drop-down calendar, checkbox set, radio button set, button, and button bar components. Define Hover and Pressed states for portal rows. See Specifying the display state for an object.

•	Apply the same style to all tab panels in a tab control – Specify that tabs share a single style when creating or modifying tab controls. See Adding a tab control.

•	Tooltips for badges in Layout mode – Badges in Layout mode display tooltips about an object, such as the placeholder text for a field or the condition on which an object is hidden. See Identifying badges on layout objects.

•	Choose a custom device size – You can change the width and height values of layouts you create for custom devices in the New Layout/Report assistant. See New Layout/Report (New Layout/Report assistant).

•	Check mark in checkboxes – Choose the symbol you want displayed in checkboxes (a check mark or x).

New themes and improved style handling

•	New minimalist themes – Use the Minimalist and Minimalist Touch themes, which have no custom styles, when you're making many changes to styles and intend to save them as a custom theme. See Best practices for designing layouts.

•	Copying and pasting custom styles – On the same layout, you can copy and paste a custom style between objects of similar types. See Copying formatting attributes between layout objects, parts, or backgrounds.

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Improved style handling in the New Layout/Report assistant – When you create a new layout or report using the New Layout/Report assistant, FileMaker Pro applies an appropriate style to objects created through the assistant. For example, when you create a report, the appropriate part text style is applied to any merge fields created in the header or footer part. See New Layout/Report (New Layout/Report assistant).

•	Automatic custom theme updating – Updates to FileMaker Pro software that include formatting changes for the predefined layout themes, or certain file recovery options, may update your custom themes. See Changing the theme of a layout and Setting advanced file recovery options.

Improved performance and usability

•	Redesigned security interface – In the new Manage Security dialog box, you can create accounts and edit basic settings in a single view. You can continue to manage privilege sets, extended privileges, and file access as in previous versions of FileMaker Pro. See Creating and editing accounts.

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Improved gesture support – If your device supports gestures, you can use gestures to move through records, zoom in or out, scroll inside portals and web viewers, and move through slide panels. See Changing a slide control, Creating portals to display related records, Moving through records, Navigating in web viewers, Using the zoom controls, and Working with panel controls on layouts.

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Media playback in container fields – For FileMaker Go, you can create scripts that control options, including playing the media in full screen or as embedded; playing, pausing, or stopping the media; disabling user interaction; showing or hiding playback controls; or choosing the position to start the playback from. See AVPlayer Play script step, AVPlayer Set Playback State script step, AVPlayer Set Options script step, GetAVPlayerAttribute function, Get(TriggerExternalEvent) function, OnObjectAVPlayerChange script trigger, OnFileAVPlayerChange script trigger, and OnExternalCommandReceived script trigger.

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New options for saving passwords – Windows users can choose to save their account names and passwords for solutions in their credentials. Solution developers can control whether users can save account names and passwords in credentials (Windows) or keychain (OS X and iOS). See Opening files protected with passwords and Setting file options.

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Run FileMaker Pro as a 64- or 32-bit application – For Windows, you can install FileMaker Pro as a 64- or 32-bit application in supported 64-bit versions of Windows. For OS X, FileMaker Pro is installed as a single application bundle containing both 64- and 32-bit versions; in the Get Info window, you can choose which version to run. See Installation and New Features Guide for FileMaker Pro and FileMaker Pro Advanced.

Script steps, script triggers, and functions

Script steps

Enhancements to script steps

•	Insert from Device – Specify a title, message, and prompt for the signature capture screen. See Insert From Device script step.

•	Show/Hide Menubar – Lock the menubar in FileMaker Go. This script step is now compatible with FileMaker Go in addition to FileMaker WebDirect. See Show/Hide Menubar script step.

•	Insert From URL – Automatically encode special characters and verify SSL certificates for HTTPS URLs. See Insert From URL script step.

•	Set Zoom Level – Enlarge the image on the screen up to 200% in FileMaker Go. See Set Zoom Level script step.

New script steps

•	Set Allowed Orientations – Controls the orientation of FileMaker Go and layouts displayed in FileMaker Go. See Set Allowed Orientations script step.

•	Get Directory – Prompts the user to select a folder, then sets a variable to the fully qualified path of the selected folder. See Get Directory script step.

•	Refresh Portal – Refreshes the relationship and contents of the named object. Refresh Portal script step.

•	AVPlayer Play – Plays audio, video, or image files from a container field, layout object, or URL in FileMaker Go. See AVPlayer Play script step.

•	AVPlayer Set Options – Changes the settings for a media file that is playing or is paused in FileMaker Go. See AVPlayer Set Options script step.

•	AVPlayer Set Playback State – Pauses, resumes, or stops playing a media file that is playing or is paused in FileMaker Go. See AVPlayer Set Playback State script step.

•	Enable Touch Keyboard – In FileMaker Go and Windows 8, enables or disables the touch keyboard. See Enable Touch Keyboard script step.

Changed script steps

•	Set Script Animation is now Set Layout Object Animation. See Set Layout Object Animation script step.

•	Open Manage Scripts is now Open Script Workspace. See Open Script Workspace script step.

Script triggers

New script triggers

•	OnObjectAVPlayerChange – In FileMaker Go, triggers a script to run when the state of the media in a layout object changes. See OnObjectAVPlayerChange.

•	OnFileAVPlayerChange – In FileMaker Go, triggers a script to run if a media file is playing from a field or URL, and a user or a script step setting changes the playback state. See OnFileAVPlayerChange.

•	OnExternalCommandReceived – In FileMaker Go, triggers a script to run when the user presses a playback button on the lock screen or on an external device. See OnExternalCommandReceived.

Changed script triggers

•	OnGestureTap – Adds compatibility with FileMaker Pro in Windows 8. See OnGestureTap.

Functions

New functions

•	Get(MenubarState) – Returns a number for the current menu bar state. See Get(MenubarState) function.

•	Furigana – Converts Japanese text to Hiragana, Katakana, or Roman text. See Furigana function.

•	Get(ApplicationArchitecture) – Returns the current application architecture. See Get(ApplicationArchitecture) function.

•	Get(ScreenScaleFactor) – Returns the scale factor of the screen in which the current file is open. See Get(ScreenScaleFactor) function.

•	GetAVPlayerAttribute – In FileMaker Go, returns the setting of the specified attribute for the audio, video, or image file in a container field. See GetAVPlayerAttribute function.

•	Get(TriggerExternalEvent) – In FileMaker Go, returns a number representing the event that activated an OnExternalCommandReceived script trigger. See Get(TriggerExternalEvent) function.

•	Get(TouchKeyboardState) – In FileMaker Go and Windows 8, returns 1 (true) if the touch keyboard is set to display automatically when needed; otherwise, returns 0 (false). See Get(TouchKeyboardState) function.

Changed functions

•	Get(ApplicationVersion) – Returns version numbers in the format 14.X.X instead of 14.XvX for all FileMaker applications. See Get(ApplicationVersion) function.

•	Get(TriggerGestureInfo) – Adds compatibility with FileMaker Pro for Windows. See Get(TriggerGestureInfo) function.

•	Get(WindowContentHeight) – Adds compatibility with FileMaker Go. See Get(WindowContentHeight) function.

•	Base64Encode – Adds support for encoding text in Base64 format. See Base64Encode function.

•	TextFont and TextFontRemove – The fontScript parameter has been removed. See TextFont function and TextFontRemove function.

Changed and removed features

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Predefined iPhone layouts and stencils – To accommodate the larger menu bar in FileMaker Go, predefined layouts and screen stencils for 3.5-inch and 4-inch iPhone have been replaced by the iPhone options, which are 20 pixels shorter. See Best practices for designing layouts, Creating a layout, and Sizing layouts for different devices.

•	Insert QuickTime – The Insert QuickTime command and script step have been removed. Use the Insert Audio/Video command and script step instead. See Working with audio and video in interactive containers and Insert Audio/Video script step.

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Fonts options – The Fonts tab has been removed from the Preferences dialog box and replaced by a new Inspector option, Synchronize with field's language. This option changes the input method based on the default language set in the Options for Field dialog box. See Setting the text input method for fields.

•	New Default Script – The New Default Script option has been removed from the Specify Script dialog box. To create a new script in the Specify Script dialog box, use the + button. See Specify Script dialog box.

•	Importing Bento data – FileMaker Pro no longer imports Bento data. For more information, search the FileMaker Knowledge Base available at http://help.filemaker.com.

•	Classic theme – The Classic theme is no longer available to choose in the Change Theme dialog box. However, when you convert a file created with versions earlier than FileMaker Pro 12, the Classic theme is still applied to layouts.

•	FileMaker Pro Advanced Features Guide – This guide has been removed. The information from this guide is now in Help and FileMaker Pro User's Guide.

•	FileMaker Quick Start Screen – The Launch Center window replaces the Quick Start Screen. See Opening files and Learning more about FileMaker Pro.

FileMaker Pro 14 Advanced

•	Microsoft .NET requirement for runtime solutions – Runtime installers for Windows must install the required version of Microsoft .NET if it is not present. See Distributing runtime solutions (FileMaker Pro Advanced).

Related topics 

FileMaker Pro features by version