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| FileMaker Pro 9 Bible | 
 enlarge | Author: Ray Cologon
Creator: Dennis R. Cohen
Publisher: Wiley
Category: Book
List Price: $39.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  33 reviews
Sales Rank: 24052
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 768
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.5
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 7.4 x 1.7
ISBN: 0470177438
Dewey Decimal Number: 005.7565
EAN: 9780470177433
ASIN: 0470177438
Publication Date: March 14, 2008
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| Customer Reviews:
 Absolutely Indispensable! May 24, 2008
14 out of 15 found this review helpful
Wow. What an extraordinary improvement this book is over the previous FileMaker Bibles! I decided to give the FileMaker Pro 9 Bible a try (even though I've been unimpressed with previous titles in the series) because there is a new author and the jacket says this edition is completely rewritten. I have not been disappointed!
After six years using FileMaker to run my business, I would have to say this is the best FileMaker book I have ever seen - no contest. Probably the best technical book I've seen, in fact. This book has opened my eyes to new possibilities and I now realise I was nowhere near using FileMaker to its full potential. Already the book has changed the way I work with FileMaker and even the way I think about creating and using databases. Almost everything about the way FileMaker works is so much clearer after reading the descriptions in this book, that I'm only sorry it was not available sooner. I am already referring back to the book constantly and I am sure I will continue to do so.
I have found that every chapter in the FileMaker Pro 9 Bible is packed with interesting, relevant and useful details. I don't think there is a single page that doesn't contain a fresh perspective, essential information or a technique I was previously unaware of. The book brings together a very practical and hands-on approach with a level of expertise and theoretical understanding that makes the descriptions and techniques very clear. Everything is explained in a straightforward and no-fuss way, with none of the usual padding and fluff that seems to take up space in many technical books, and this approach makes the book a sheer pleasure to read.
One of the things that impressed me the most is that this book does not repeat what's in the manual or the online help. Instead, it starts from the broadest overview and goes on to set out what you need to know, including many things that are not even mentioned in the user guide, nor in any of the various other FileMaker books I've read. The book is chock-full of essential details and explains a lot of things that were still not clear to me after years working with FileMaker.
For me, probably the most useful section of all was the chapter on Data Modeling in FileMaker, which has been a complete eye opener. The chapters on writing efficient code and calculations have also been a revelation. However the whole book has been immensely helpful. I did not realise how much I had to learn.
I wish there had been a book like this one available six years ago when I first began using FileMaker. If you have started using FileMaker recently, you will get a lot more out of it once you have read the FileMaker Pro 9 Bible. This book is a truly excellent resource!
Everything You Need to Know About FileMaker May 21, 2008
13 out of 14 found this review helpful
I've been using FileMaker for nearly 15 years and have seen (and read) Ray Cologon's thousands of postings on various on-line forums. In fact, I always make it a point to read every one of Mr. Cologon's postings -- even though I may skip the postings of others -- because I know Ray has thoroughly researched and tested every little thing that he writes, and he is always very clear in his descriptions.
The same applies to this book. He starts with the assumption that you don't know much about FileMaker or relational databases, and through its 700+ pages (and on-line sample databases for each chapter) he carefully explains and demonstrates concepts, techniques, shortcuts, and step-by-steps for nearly everything FileMaker.
There are many books on the market -- particularly for earlier versions of FileMaker -- that cover the Basics of FileMaker, and Ray spends 260 pages with this and with overall database concepts that prove very helpful in understanding the FileMaker model. But unlike other FileMaker books that I've seen, Ray takes it beyond the basics and covers intermediate and more advanced subjects that will provide a terrific reference as your skills grow. I consider myself to be an advanced FileMaker developer, yet have still learned something or otherwise had my eyes opened on nearly every page of the advanced chapters.
This book is NOT targeted at regular FileMaker users who just need to search, sort and export data. But I highly recommend this book for anyone who is comfortable with computers and wants or needs to become more productive with their data.
A must-have book on FileMaker May 13, 2008
21 out of 22 found this review helpful
There are three things I look for in a good book on FileMaker: (1) Does it help the beginner to bridge the gap between finishing the User Manual and that moment when they put the manual down, consider their real life database problem, and realize they still have no clue how to use what they just read and get started actually building a database. (2) Does it make it easy for the intermediate developer to find what they need for a specific challenge, and does it provide both specific guidance *and* context for understanding what you're being told. (3) Can the advanced developer pick it up, skim, and easily find more and better ways for what they've already been doing, and some great ideas for features they haven't taken the time to work out themselves. Dr. Cologon has done all three with this book, and `bible' seems particularly apt for a book you can read sequentially to get smart, dip into for immediate hand-holding, and look to for inspiration.
I especially like the insertion of Tips, Cautions, Cross-Refs and Notes as sidebars throughout the text. Dr. Cologon's mega-hours spent directly supporting developers in the various forums have paid off for us yet again: he's `been there'; he knows and shares all the typical gotchas, occasional ambiguous dialogs, possible pitfalls. He's been watching us for years, and it shows. The Tips/Cautions/Notes, and especially the Cross-Refs, are also ways to bring topics full-circle, which is not easy in a manual format - how you construct a layout (chapter 6) may impact how you write a script (chapter 13) that interacts with that layout, and Dr. Cologon will notify you as needed.
Most valuable is the wisdom, judgment and long experience shared throughout the book. This isn't just a thorough contextual explanation of FileMaker features and capabilities; it contains a lot of horse-sense advice on building databases that are well-structured, stable, scalable, secure, and intuitive to use. Bravo. This is a must-have book for anyone who uses FileMaker.
Excellent Resource May 13, 2008
14 out of 15 found this review helpful
I've been reading books about FileMaker Pro (FMP, FileMaker) for as long as I've been building databases--the first of which I built in 1992 with FMP 2--and I have to say that this is the most accessible book on the subject that I've read. The book works well on several levels: it's easy to find references to a specific subject and get answers to both general and relatively esoteric topics, there's a lot of insight into the increasingly powerful FileMaker Pro program, and it offers a great source of inspiration for those who skim the pages to see the world through the eyes of one of the FileMaker Pro community's great thinkers.
Newcomers to FMP will benefit greatly from the early chapters, which avoid the common sin of repeating what the program's manual says and instead focus on the potential to use the tools efficiently. Even better, the examples are optimized to take maximum advantage of FileMaker's calculation engine and the author provides clear explanations of what makes the example code optimal. Best of all, there are many examples that provide "best practice" solutions to problems that newer FileMaker users are unlikely to recognize in the early stages of development.
Longtime FMP developers know that many problems have more than one potential solution, and it often takes a wealth of experience working with deployed systems to identify the components that make one solution better than another in a particular situation. Too often, a calculation or scripted process works perfectly in preliminary testing and leads the inexperienced developer to conclude that further refinement is unnecessary (or impossible.) The author provides a wealth of information that will help beginning users anticipate and think about some fairly esoteric issues in the early stages of development and gives them tools that can significantly shorten their project's development cycle.
Experienced FMP developers will find interesting approaches to some common (and sometimes uncommon but very useful-when-solved) problems they may encounter when building complex systems. The format of the book provides useful encapsulations identified as Notes, Tips, and Cross-References. The Notes are worth browsing, especially for longtime FMP developers who may only now be migrating complex solutions to FMP 9. They provide contextual information and/or answer questions you've probably asked but may not have taken the time to test. (How does the Min function behave when applied to an array that contains a null value? How does authentication affect the Script Debugger and Data Viewer?)
I found the Cross-References especially useful in the early stages of reading this book because, as a seasoned FMP developer, I skimmed quite a bit to get a general sense of the author's approach to the organization, presentation, and depth of the material covered. Often finding a passage relevant to something I'd worked on or been thinking about recently, the Cross-References pointed me to sections that refined or provided broader context for the material at hand.
For anyone who spends time working "under the hood" on FileMaker databases, this book is well worth the time spent reading, thinking about, and understanding the points it contains. At the end of the day, I highly recommend this book and am hopeful that Ray Cologon will author future versions of it.
A New Era for FileMaker Books May 9, 2008
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
For any long-time FileMaker developer, books like this are a rare necessity. One usually has a specific question that needs an immediate and definitive answer. This book provides not only the needed information, but also offers added depth. Ray Cologon brings a unique prespective to his writing on the subject of FileMaker development, and often challenges the reader to do things smarter and with more forethought. It is not often I find a book on this subject that actually entices me to read on any given topic; this is one of those books -- succinctly written and thought-provoking.
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