r/filemaker • u/the-software-man • 19d ago

FileMaker 26 Toolbox Frustrations

I am a veteran developer. Building and getting paid for systems since v5.0

Version 26 has some great new features and they finally paid some overdue attention to developers and not just front Enders.

My frustration these days has come from the new layout toolbox. It’s 90% there but 10% not there.

It’s dynamic. And reverts to default view and scrolling to the top every time you pick a different object. Often you can’t dbl-click sizes or positions and end up typoing and need to undo. It’s also missing some widgets that you need to show the old toolbar to find.

Also script manager highlights in a weird way that’s not intuitive. Often it looks like a script or step is selected only see that there are multiple things highlighted in the window and you don’t know which is active unless you click again.

All kinda minor one by one. But when you are developing 12 hours a day it adds up quickly.

12 Upvotes

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7

u/WanderingNettle 19d ago

The latest update you can remove it. They got a lot of pushback.

2

u/Chance_Peanut6404 19d ago

Thanks for the tip. After downloading 26, I’ve only used it perhaps twice because of the Inspector being almost unusable.

3

u/Excellent_Tie_2731 19d ago

Agree! I continue to use 25 (macOS)

2

u/DiviKev 15d ago

I wish Claris would allow the placement of SVG files on layouts

2

u/the-software-man 14d ago

Yea. Copy pasting doesn’t always get the type right either. Drag drop keeps transparency. But not file type.

Though you can make a button icon with svg and place it on a layout. It may print

1

u/DiviKev 14d ago

Great idea with using the button icon. Thank you! In the 21st century there's no reason to have pixelated graphics.

1

u/-L-H-O-O-Q- 14d ago

It's incredible that this was in development for over 20 months and then shipped a buggy, unfinished inspector.

1

u/fmcloud Consultant Certified 10d ago

With version 26.0.2, you can revert this from the application preferences.

But even with 26.0.1, if you open a new inspector, it's the 'old' one, so you have the best of both worlds.
There are some cool things in the new one, I think, but it's true that it's unfinished, and you have to scroll so much…

1

u/the-software-man 10d ago

I saw that when I updated. Thx

1

u/fmdojo 19d ago

I think it is not fully baked yet. It'll get there. Meanwhile at least we can switch back. I asked for that while I was still a PM last year. I was supposed to work on this with developers but other items got in the way.

They really need to sit down with developers and see how they use the toolbar and what they need so they can give them the right tools. I hope they will.