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| Learn FileMaker Pro 9 (Wordware Library for FileMaker) | 
 enlarge | Author: Jonathan Stars
Publisher: Wordware Publishing, Inc.
Category: Book
List Price: $39.95
Buy New: $26.37
You Save: $13.58 (34%)
New (27) Used (12) from $21.45
Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 315007
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 550
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 6 x 1.3
ISBN: 1598220462
Dewey Decimal Number: 005.7565
EAN: 9781598220469
ASIN: 1598220462
Publication Date: November 25, 2007
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
 Beginners Only? December 9, 2008
This book seems to present everything in a tutorial project. Unless you follow the project along it is difficult to just look something up and fix a small problem.
I am a new Filemaker user and consider myself to be an intermediate database user. On the other hand I found Filemaker to be very intuitive and found I had a fairly complex database up and running in a few hours. I bought this book hoping to be able to solve a few small problems as well any new ones that arose. I found it very difficult to do so. I could not situate myself inside the project presented and figure out what I needed. While everything seemed very clearly written and easy to understand, a topic was spread out over so many pages and situated in a large project that it was too much work to figure out what turned out to be simple problems.
If you are trying to learn Filemaker and willing to go through the tutorials then I would look at the other reviews. It seems clearly written and easy to understand to me. I would also add the caveat that I have only tried to look up 5 or 6 things. I ended up reading what seemed like a hundred pages and could not find my answers. Perhaps with more work I could make the book work but I found other resources that work better for my learning style. I would give this book one star for what I needed and my learning style but I wish I would have had a book like this when I learned Access and SQL Server. For a beginner to databases and Filemaker my initial take is this book is deserving of 5 stars.
 Stars Does a Great Job June 25, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Learn FileMaker Pro 9 is a great book for the beginner to intermediate user. I actually reviewed this book for a FileMaker newsletter, and I was extremely pleased with the content.
Jonathan has a knack for explaining technical tasks in a conversational tone. If you are just beginning to learn FileMaker his friendly explanations will be a breath of fresh air.
Jonathan also knows when to turn to others for advice on some of the more technical topics and brings in other FileMaker experts to fill in the gaps.
This book will definitely help provide jump start for anyone beginning FileMaker.
Best book for beginner-to-intermediate January 11, 2008
32 out of 35 found this review helpful
Stars quickly introduces the concepts you need to design a truly useful database. Most other books (including the three mentioned at the end of this review) discuss each module of FileMaker separately and in the abstract, similar to the FileMaker User Guide, leaving you wondering how to get started designing your own database. For example, most books defer "related tables" until halfway into the book because relationships are considered a difficult topic, but Stars introduces related tables in a very basic way in chapter 2.
Perhaps the best feature of Stars is that he offers far more practical tips, including pitfalls to avoid, than any other book I've read.
Stars explains how to design a database the way you'd do it in real life. He initially designs an elementary database, then adds more sophisticated features. (One of the beauties of FileMaker is that you don't need to design an all encompassing database in one fell swoop. You can start simple, then add features a little at a time, and adapt existing features to your evolving needs.) He uses many brief examples throughout the book, so there is no problem understanding the examples if you jump in the middle of the book.
I agree with Stars' philosophy that it is hard to learn FileMaker by reading a book cover-to-cover away from your computer. His book is designed to be read while you are near your computer so you can experiment with his examples. FileMaker is well adapted for learning by experimentation. (If you are beyond the neophyte stage, the book is self-explanatory without requiring access to a computer.)
The downside of Stars is that he is not the most articulate writer, so a few explanations are too vague. However, you almost always can understand him by context or by briefly experimenting with his examples.
Stars is much better for beginning-to-intermediate FileMaker users than the FileMaker Bible, FileMaker Missing Manual, or Que Special Edition. Stars has far more practical advice than the first two. The Que book is too difficult for a neophyte and covers only selected topics in depth. Although the Missing Manual is thicker than Stars, it actually conveys less information because it consumes too much space with the mechanics of pressing each button in a series of dialog windows. Stars presents the same info more concisely, yet is even more approachable for a neophyte.
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