FileMaker Pro 17 Advanced includes the following new features and improvements.
•FileMaker Pro Advanced includes features that help you develop and deploy FileMaker Pro Advanced custom apps faster and more efficiently. These features are available when the Use advanced tools general preference is selected. See Using advanced tools.
•Use the new Create window to create custom apps based on Starter apps for many common business tasks. Also, explore the Sample apps to see more of what’s possible to create with FileMaker Pro Advanced. See Creating a FileMaker Pro Advanced file.
•You can add Add-on Tables to your custom apps to track many common types of related information—for example, action items, people, and attachments. See Adding Add-on Tables to custom apps.
•Redesigned Layout mode – Create and edit fields, work with multiple objects at a time, and use the Inspector without opening separate windows and dialog boxes as you create and edit layouts. See Defining and changing fields in the Fields tab, Using the Objects tab to work with objects, and Using the Inspector to format objects.
•Portals for master-detail layouts – Portals can now display records from the current found set, making it easier to create master-detail layouts. See Creating portals for master-detail layouts.
•Selecting objects in a group – On a layout, select, resize, move, and format individual objects that are in a group without ungrouping them. See Selecting objects.
•Universal Touch theme – Used by Starter apps and Add-on Tables, this new theme includes several sets of styles in a single theme, so you can more easily combine various styles in the same layout. The neutral color palette makes customizing this theme easy—just add your own colors to a few styles. And for localized custom apps, the default sizes of field and text objects work well across all supported languages. See Changing the theme of a layout.
•Improved file management – Easily open files and manage your favorite files and hosts. See Opening and managing files and Working with favorite files and hosts.
•Multiple email attachments – When sending email, you can now use the Attach Files option to attach multiple files to each message. See Sending email messages and Send Mail script step.
•Default fields – When you create a table, several commonly used fields are now automatically added. See Defining database tables.
•Copying and pasting custom menus – You can now use standard keyboard shortcuts to copy custom menu sets, menus, and menu items and paste them into another FileMaker Pro Advanced file. See Defining custom menus.
•Improved responsiveness while reconnecting – If you lose a network connection to a host, you can continue working with files that don’t depend on that host while the connection is being restored.
•Account lockout – After trying unsuccessfully to sign in to a hosted file several times within a few minutes, you are not permitted to try again for several minutes.
New script steps
•Configure Local Notification – Queues or clears a local notification for an iOS device. See Configure Local Notification script step.
•Open Hosts – Opens the Hosts dialog box. See Open Hosts script step.
•Open My Apps – Opens the My Apps window. See Open My Apps script step.
Changed script steps
•FileMaker Data API support for performing scripts – Most script steps supported by Custom Web Publishing are now supported by the FileMaker Data API. See the Compatibility table for each script step in Script steps reference.
•Create directories option – Some script steps that save and export records and data now include a Create directories option, which allows creation of new directories that you specify in the output file path. See Export Field Contents script step, Export Records script step, Save Records As Excel script step, Save Records As PDF script step, Save Records As Snapshot Link script step, and Save a Copy as script step.
•Insert From URL – You can now force data that’s returned in a variable to be stored as container data. See Insert From URL script step.
•Open Launch Center – This script step is now Open My Apps; it opens the new My Apps window. See Open My Apps script step.
•Open Remote – This script step is now Open Hosts; it opens the new Hosts dialog box. See Open Hosts script step.
•Perform Script and Perform Script on Server – By using the new Specified option, you can select a script from a list or specify the script name by a calculation. Perform Script on Server no longer requires an account with the fmapp extended privilege. See Perform Script script step and Perform Script On Server script step.
•Send Mail – You can now attach multiple files to each message. See Send Mail script step.
•Show Custom Dialog – You can now use variables for input fields. See Show Custom Dialog script step.
New functions
•Get(ActiveRecordNumber) – Returns a number representing the record that has focus in the current found set. See Get(ActiveRecordNumber) function.
•Get(UUIDNumber) – Returns a number representing a large Universally Unique Identifier (UUID) value. See Get(UUIDNumber) function.
•GetSensor – Returns the value of a specified sensor for an iOS device. See GetSensor function.
•When sending email, the Collect addresses across found set option is no longer supported with the Multiple emails (one for each record in the found set) option. See Sending email messages and Send Mail script step.
•Support for connecting to a host through LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) has been removed. See Opening shared files as a client.
•Support for the JPEG 2000, MacPaint, Photoshop, SGI, and TGA image formats has been removed. See Using data in container fields.