Runtimes were officially deprecated about five years ago, and now, after this long “notice” period, runtimes can no longer be generated with FileMaker Pro 19. If you have relied on the runtime feature, this will be a significant barrier to adopting FileMaker Pro 19 in your organization. You may be able to wait to upgrade for a little while, but you’ll need to adjust your approach eventually. Here are some options you have to achieve similar functionality utilizing the FileMaker platform:
iOS App SDK
The iOS App SDK is very similar to runtimes in that it allows you to distribute a solution as its own standalone application without the user needing to install FileMaker Go on their device. Apps built with the iOS App SDK can be distributed via the App Store or Mobile Device Management (MDM) software. Of course, these apps are limited to iOS and iPadOS devices, and I recognize that that greatly limits its feasibility for many organizations. But if your use case could support exclusively iOS devices, it’s worth exploring this option. Click here for more information on the iOS App SDK.
Custom Web Publishing with the FileMaker Data API
You might consider building a web interface for your solution using Custom Web Publishing and the FileMaker Data API. Like runtimes, this allows you to widely distribute your solution without the user needing to install FileMaker Pro. There is some licensing cost involved with using the FileMaker Data API, and a FileMaker Server license would be required. The Data API cost is based on the amount of data requested from your FileMaker Server. Your FileMaker Server license comes with 2 GB per licensed user, per month. This limit can be increased as an additional purchase. Read more about the FileMaker Data API.
WebDirect
Similar to Custom Web Publishing with the FileMaker Data API, FileMaker WebDirect would allow you to widely distribute your application without the user needing to install FileMaker Pro. The key difference between WebDirect and custom web publishing with the Data API is that WebDirect publishes your FileMaker layouts to the web, allowing you to develop the solution entirely using FileMaker Pro. No web coding skills are necessary. However, when using FileMaker WebDirect, all users must have a license. If you have a large or anonymous user base, WebDirect may end up being too costly to implement. Read more about FileMaker WebDirect.
Purchase FileMaker Pro Licenses and Code Your Solution to Work Similar to a Runtime
Lastly, there is the option to purchase licenses for your users and install FileMaker Pro on each user’s computer. In this situation, you may decide to take steps to try to preserve the experience of using a runtime by doing things like providing a launcher file to open the solution and controlling aspects of the user interface to make the user experience as close as possible to using a runtime. You can use custom menus and hide the Status Toolbar to hide the menu options that would not be available to runtime users. You can also use scripting to emulate the single-user nature of runtimes. You can also ‘bind’ the FileMaker Pro installation to your solution by specifying that in the “assisted installer” settings, with this, your solution will open automatically when FileMaker Pro is launched.
Next Steps in FileMaker 19
This is just one of many FileMaker 19 changes our team has been exploring. If you have any questions on the platform’s new functionality, please feel free to contact our team.
I really wish one of these were a viable solution for my company, but they are not. We use runtimes to do some niche reporting. For example, we have a couple customers who want a barcoded label formatted in a very precise way. Runtimes with a little scripting made it easy for me to hand an app to a couple people to process CSVs and generate labels.
But the big one is picture packing slips, where each item on a report gets an auto-scaled image originating in a folder of PNGs. FileMaker runs these quickly and efficiently, without running out of memory. It’s the only solution we found that could do it.
WebDirect can do neither, unless they have substantially improved it in V19. The PDF support in previous versions was very poor. I could never get barcode fonts to work, so barcode labels were right out. And there was no way to insert images from a folder. Also many scripting functions were missing that I relied upon. There was no way to import a CSV via scripting like I could on the Runtime.
If I have to do custom app development, I have no reason to touch FileMaker for these use cases. FileMaker made this use case super easy. With Runtimes gone, and WebDirect still stunted in comparison, I will have to abandon FileMaker once V18 will no longer run on current versions of macOS.
Doesn’t sound like you would need to do custom app development since FM does the job for you, the solution seems to be installing a regular copy of FMP. Ever since Claris removed networking from their runtime (sometime around FM 4.1 I believe) it became clear that they wanted to get away from royalty-free use of their platform. Many FM features never made it into the runtime version over the years. Perhaps a Volume License Agreement would be a good fit for your organization to keep the overall cost down. We can help you with that if needed.
Honestly I’ll stick with FM18. The lack of runtime solutions makes FM19 useless to me.
I used FM to develop simple database applications for small veterinary clinics for free and I don’t see how any of them would ever thing or have resources to pay for a FM19 licence.
No Android support means that 70% of the mobile devices are out of of question and my apps need large screens, not a ridiculous sized mobile/ipad half-solution. Web is also not acceptable.
Webdirect would imply in extreme cost raising for my customeres and , again, not acceptable. I would never, ever make them have a nonsense extra cost.
Another critical point is that I don’t like SAAS in any of its forms, This is a money sink in the long run and I will never “rent” software.
I’m already a GeneXus user and I’m considering to kick out FM for new projects and stick with it.
100% agree
100% agree X 2
Agree!! It was the worse “update” they could have made with Filemaker.
100% agree X 20000
i too am abandoning fmaker brcause of a lack of runtime . I am going to Access, but it too has it’s runtime issues.🤷♂️ what is you runtime method???
I like the way that Filemaker makes building a usable front end easy. I don’t like that the Apple ethos has broken Filemaker for the small niche user.
The runtime suited my uses, a very small number of infequent users who don’t need to use the database often, sharing raises massive data sharing and protection issues that I am very unwilling to approach.
Ron Access is appalling, not just the runtime but a host of other reasons which I’m sure that you are aware of.
I’ve been experimenting with Livecode, so far it’s looking pretty good though data grids seem a bit of a black art but otherwise it seems to offer a nice development platform. Plus one code set can be made into a range of OS usable runtimes.
We have relied on FM for years primarily do to the ability to publish runtime solutions. Sadly we must now find an alternate application. We will regress to version 18 until the transition is complete. What a bummer.
Hi Isaac, that certainly is a bummer. To what platform are you transitioning? Can one of our developers help in any way?
– Allison