“Details of new features in FileMaker 9 have emerged ahead of its release, as engineers continue to polish functionality and keep the database software competitive,” Think Secret reports.
Think Secret reports, “Among the changes planned for FileMaker 9 are object scaling based on window size, scripting triggers when entering and leaving fields, and significant ODBC changes. In addition, support for reading and writing to SQL databases will be added in FileMaker 9. Object scaling is rumored to be in development but may not make it into the final release due to technological hurdles, sources say. Specifically, ensuring that scaling works at multiple levels without overlapping of objects, including white space and anchored items, may prove too cumbersome to implement.”
“FileMaker 9 is expected to be ready around the second-half of 2007 at the earliest, although its release could be pushed to later in the year,” Think Secret reports.
More details in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Rainy Day” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Note: FileMaker, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Apple Inc.
> support for reading and writing to SQL databases
this is huge!
Why can’t apple just write a decent front-end for MySQL (a la Enterprise Manager for SQL Server) so OS X can have a decent relational database? All the other front-ends out there blow.
Filemaker database entry/access from iPhone, please…
(create/edit records, print invoices via wi-fi, enter time, etc.)
I can always tell when the next version of Filemaker is coming; they send me offers for half off my seats of Filemaker and a free server upgrade.
I like FileMaker, probably better than Apple. I really do want to see it in the iPhone and incorporated (lighter version, perhaps) into the coming iWork.
Somehow I am increasingly doubtful that may happen though.
Real SQL support would give me a major woody.
object scaling based on window size, scripting triggers when entering and leaving fields
Well, if they can get the object scaling in, along with the script triggers, I just might finally upgrade from 5.5 and stop learning Cocoa.
Okay, maybe I’ll keep learning Cocoa.
Meanwhile, rumors continue to persist that Apple is interested in unloading FileMaker, Inc., but no credible evidence of plans to do so exists at this time, despite the company’s awkward fit in Apple’s current and long-term strategy.
Um, no. Don’t do that Apple. Stoopid rumors.
Why doesn’t Apple leverage this property that it has? Integrate it into iWork? Advertise it? Hello…the Mac platform has been in dire need of an answer to Microsoft Access on Windows for decades. Why do they keep this product relatively unknown? They don’t even call it iFile or Apple FileMaker. I think most people who even know it exists don’t know it’s owned by Apple. The FileMaker website even lists the product as being made by “FileMaker, Inc.”, with no mention that FileMaker, Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Apple, Inc.
Not being an Apple product was a smart move years ago. Tech guys are so trained to Microsoft universe that they’re afraid/angred by anything that comes from Apple.
FileMaker isn’t as unknown as you think. It is used in Fortune500 listed companies and if I remember right, it was used in most of ’em.
But yes. Apple could use it in their marketing.