FileMaker 15: Improved Script Workspace

The newly improved script workspace in FileMaker 15 comes with some great enhancements. In this video, Jeremy Brown explores the error color coding conditions, general UI tweaks, and the much-requested undo/redo feature. We will look at these features as well as some things to watch out for as you use them.

Video Transcript:

Hello, my name is Jeremy Brown and I am with Soliant Consulting. In this video, we’re going to take a look at FileMaker 15’s updated script workspace.

The script workspace was introduced in FileMaker 14. In just one year, it has undergone some great changes. There are a lot of features that have been added. We’ll take a look at the error color coding conditions. Then we’ll look at some general tweaks that they’ve made and at the much-requested undo and redo feature. We’ll look at specific enhancements for each as well as a few things to watch out for. I’m excited about these changes. Let’s get started.

The first feature, error color coding conditions, allows us to find the errors in a script. Its purpose is to allow beginner developers to see the script steps that could cause errors. It allows more experienced developers to find script steps easily without resorting to other tools.

In this script, I have an error, but it’s not very visible. I’m going to go click on the name of the script. I’m going to right-click on it and choose “Check for Problems.” This scans each line of the script and finds the errors. There’s one right there. It has highlighted the script step in a color of my choosing, and it has highlighted the parameter that is causing the error. Notice over in the scroll bar, there is a little red indicator. That is very useful for long scripts that contain multiple errors. This is telling me the approximate location that the error is in my script.

So, I have an error here, and I can simply go and fix it. I’m going to just change it to any old field there, and you notice that the error highlighting has been removed. I don’t have to worry about rescanning.

The second way that we can check for problems is by importing scripts. I’m going to go ahead and do an import. I’m going to import a script.

I’ve imported four scripts from another solution. You can see that it has caused 174 errors in my import summary. When I click “OK,” FileMaker script workspace will open up all four of these scripts into separate tabs and allow me to go through and fix them. Notice that the errors are already highlighted. It’s very easy as I scan through my script to find all of the errors.

And, again, if you look at the scroll bar, you can see that there are red indicators throughout the scrollbar, pointing me to the approximate location where the error occurs. So, all four of these have some errors. I could go through each one of them and I can fix them.

Now, this error highlighting is available when I have a script workspace open. But, if I were to close the script workspace and then reopen the workspace, I would find that the error highlighting has gone away. This one, even though it is in red, it’s not highlighted like it was. So, I would have to check for problems again to identify those errors. As soon as I fix the error, the problem goes away; the highlighting goes away.

When we are working with scripts in a button, we do not have this option of being able to see the errors. If I attach this to one of those error-filled scripts and then look at it in the edits area, I do see some red here, but I don’t see the highlighting of error color coding conditions. And, when I’m debugging a script, I will not see this highlighting either in the debugger. The error color coding is very useful. Notice this calculation is empty. It’s bringing up an empty red space that points to an error.

The second feature of FileMaker 15’s updated script workspace just includes some general UI tweaks. The first one that people will find very useful is the expanded script named panel. In FileMaker 14, the panel on the Mac OS side was limited to a smaller size. But, now in 15, we can make it as large or as small as we need to. Obviously, with a hundred-character script name limit, we’re not going to need to get that large. But it’s possible.

We have some other tweaks. We have a new script workspace preferences. This includes the syntax coloring that was part of FileMaker 14. Here it is in a separate tab. We have another tab that is just some general preferences about the script workspace. We have some simple UI changes. This button, next to the “gather data” tab changed.

It makes more sense in 15, the picture as well as the script compatibility. The icons have been updated to better represent the kind of compatibility we are looking for at the moment. Then, a final small little change. If I have some favorite script steps and I click on that script step outside of the favorites, I’ve got a blue star, indicating it’s part of my favorites. If I click on something else that is not in my favorites, the star is gray. I can click on that star to add the script step to my favorites. I can also unclick it to remove it from my favorites.

By far, the biggest change in FileMaker 15’s script workspace is the much-requested undo and redo feature. This will save some much time in working with scripts. Rather than doing a bunch of stuff and then finding that you need to go back a couple steps, you don’t have to revert. You don’t have to try to figure out which steps you were working on. It will be a great time saver. The undo/redo feature works as you would expect. Make some changes and undo them. I’m pressing command+z on the Mac. On the PC, I would press Ctrl+z, or I could choose edit, undo, new.

And of course, I can redo as well. If I press command+shift+z, I’m redoing the changes that I made. For a script step that contains parameters such as set variable, when I click on undo (command+z), the entire setting of parameters goes away. I can’t change one of them at a time. All of the parameters go away. To get rid of the script step, I would then press command+z again, and it goes away. Each script has its own undo and redo history. If I were to make some changes in here like set variable. Then, I go to one particular script and make some changes here. I can go back to the first script and I can undo the changes I made here.

Of course, I can go to the second script and I can undo those changes as well. As long as the script workspace is open, I have the ability to make changes using the undo and redo feature. Even if I save a script – so I’ve saved it. The star has gone away. I still have the ability to undo what I had done before the save. Or, to redo what I had done before the save. So, let’s get that variable script step back. See if we go it – there we go, and it’s right there. So even though I’ve saved it, I could still undo what I’ve done.

Now, this only works when the script workspace is open. If I were to close the script workspace and then open it back up, I have lost the ability to undo and redo the changes that I made. FileMaker 15 script workspace has been updated in just a year and the changes are very welcome. We are given some more flexibility in our coding. We’re given some more tools to help us to check for problems. And, we’re given some nice UI updates and tweaks.

Thank you for watching. Stay tuned to Soliant TV or our site for all the latest blog posts and videos about FileMaker 15. Thank you.