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| Special Edition Using FileMaker 7 (Special Edition Using) | 
 enlarge | Authors: Steve Lane, Bob Bowers, Scott Love, Chris Moyer
Publisher: Que
Category: Book
List Price: $44.99
Buy New: $30.89
You Save: $14.10 (31%)
New (17) Used (22) from $0.92
Avg. Customer Rating:  17 reviews
Sales Rank: 262253
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 1104
Shipping Weight (lbs): 4.1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 7.4 x 2.5
ISBN: 0789730286
Dewey Decimal Number: 005.7565
UPC: 029236730284
EAN: 9780789730282
ASIN: 0789730286
Publication Date: August 22, 2004
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Availability: Usually ships in 2 to 4 weeks
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| Customer Reviews:
 Great book, but not for beginners June 15, 2005
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
FileMaker Pro is remarkable because you can start as a beginner and get very useful results, but a more experienced user can use Filemaker to build extremely sophisticated database solutions. This book is for the second group, people who need to understand how to create complex formulas and scripts and people with Filemaker experience who are making the transition from older versions of Filemaker to version 7.
A number of reviewers complain that this is not a good book for beginners. They are quite right. For them, something like FileMaker Bible would be more appropriate. For more experienced Filemaker users, though, this is the one.
Excellent -- though perhaps not the ONLY FM book you'll need May 18, 2005
20 out of 20 found this review helpful
Like other books in the "Special Edition Using" series, the cover of this book claims it is the "only Filemaker book you'll ever need." Well, that's just some very clever marketing, and probably not correct for most users. But this IS a fantastic 2nd book to use and keep as a reference once you are familiar with the basics of Filemaker.
Folks just starting out with the program may not appreciate the absence of true, from the ground up, tutorials walking you through every aspect of the program. For that kind of approach, I whole-heartedly recommend the FM Pro 7 Bible by Schwartz and Cohen. The Bible was the book I started with back when the software was at version 4, and I actually bought a new copy covering version 7 when I came back to the software after shelving it for a few years. The Bible provides an excellent foundation for the basics+.
And then this book steps in with excellent coverage of more advanced concepts. Perhaps the most useful sections come in chapters 5-7, in which the authors write the best explanation of entity-relationship theory I've ever read. Best of all, it's all in the context of designing databases with FMP 7 -- you actually learn how to use the software to design complex, multi-table databases in a way that makes the material stick. Read these chapters once for the concepts -- then again sitting before your computer as you put FMP 7 through it's paces. You WILL learn this stuff -- and it WILL stick.
Also helpful was coverage re. the several ways to get your database on the web, which, in version 7, is quite different from your options in earlier versions. These sections are an excellent update to the authors' fine work on Advanced FileMaker Pro 6 Web Development from Wordware Press (which, by the way, is an excellent read and is still relevant, if a little dated).
I'm using all I've learned to develop a complex trial notebook db program for my law firm, and this book, and the Bible, together convince me that I can in fact do it all on my own!
 Not a good book for the real world May 13, 2005
5 out of 13 found this review helpful
This book is fine if you want a very complex application, but it does not touch on real world examples. It try's to teach how you to do data modeling but falls short on useful information, the book would be better if they got rid of the first 1100 pages and just published the script and functions references. If you need a book on Filemaker 7, buy the Filemaker Pro 7 bible instead. A much better series. In summary: If you are new to filemaker this book will only confuse you it will not teach you any thing useful.
Summary... February 22, 2005
18 out of 18 found this review helpful
There are several excellent reviews posted already so I will keep mine short:
If you want to know how to use FMP 7, buy the "FMP bible" or "Learn FMP in 24 hours" type of books, or just use the user manual comes with your FMP. It will be much more informative and enjoyable.
However, if you want to discover the true power of FMP7 and to learn the concepts and creative ideas of designing a efficient and powerful FMP DB, this book is definitely a "must have".
I will give it a 6-star rating if I could.
 Good for Filemaker Pro "Pro" Users? December 14, 2004
26 out of 28 found this review helpful
Reading the reviews spurred me to buy this book, and I realize there's different kinds of FilemakerPro users out there. I've used FilemakerPro 6, but not extensively, and I thought this book would take me through the steps to become more proficient, and learn FilemakerPro 7 at the same time.
Here's what I found: the book was written by developers for developer-type people, not the average guy (or girl) with non-software developer things on their mind. The first few chapters were boring and not informative, the next couple taught me about databases, which I found very insightful and was tremendously helpful (but didn't teach me too much about FilemakerPro 7) and then the text got way over my head. So I am done with this book, and yet I've read only half at most. A real disappointment.
I just bought Sams Teach Yourself FilemakerPro 7 in 24 Hours and I can thouroughly recommend it already! (It's definitely for those people like me who are not looking to make a lifetime commitment to FilemakerPro and want to get back to the rest of their lives!)
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