From the course: FileMaker Pro Essential Training (2019)

Introducing the FileMaker platform - FileMaker Pro Tutorial

From the course: FileMaker Pro Essential Training (2019)

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Introducing the FileMaker platform

- [Instructor] Before we get started with our exercises, I'd like to first take a moment to introduce you to the different products that make up the FileMaker 18 platform. Now, the FileMaker 18 platform is really a set of tools and technologies that enable you to create, deploy, and manage custom business apps. So, it goes beyond just the FileMaker Pro Advanced version that you have installed on your machine, there's actually a whole different suite of different products in the platform. Now, first we have FileMaker Pro 18. This is an application that can be installed either on a Windows or Mac machine, and this allows you to design and build custom apps. It also allows you to access custom apps that others have built, and basically, allows you to do everything that we're going to be talking about in this title. Now, FileMaker Pro 18 Advanced is kind of like two products in one. It's got an Advanced Tools setting inside the preferences that extends the functionality of FileMaker Pro Advanced, but it also has some additional tools that developers find useful, like script debuggers or data viewers, or even the ability to create custom menus. Now, probably the most important product in the entire FileMaker platform is something called FileMaker Server 18. So, if you ever need to share your custom app with more than one user, so if you're not planning on just using it yourself, which, by the way, is really how you should be using FileMaker apps, then you need to upload these to a dedicated server machine, or up to two different machines, for that matter, and this will allow you to be able to share these different files that you create in FileMaker to many different users at the same time. Now, these hosts apps can be accessed by hundreds of people at the same time, all with data shared securely between the servers and the users. FileMaker Server can also allow FileMaker custom apps to be accessed in something called WebDirect, which I'll talk about in a moment. You can even publish your databases to the web using PHP or other web technologies, and you can also make your apps accessible from other applications that want to access your data either via ODBC or you can make your app a web service and allow others to access your data through the FileMaker Data API. Employing FileMaker Server also allows you to do safe backups and automate some of the tasks without users having to interact with your app. So, this is a very important piece of the FileMaker platform. FileMaker also has a very exciting product in the platform that's called FileMaker Go. FileMaker Go is a free app that can run on any iOS device. You can go to the iTunes store and download it and play around with it right now. It allows you to access custom apps that are either hosted on a FileMaker Server, or you can even run apps that are local on your device, which means you can upload things to your device and run them on your phone or iPad, for example. FileMaker WebDirect isn't actually a product so to speak, it's really a breakthrough web technology that runs custom business apps directly on a web browser, on a desktop, a laptop, or even non-iOS phones and tablets. It's not actually a separate product, but really, a different technology for sharing your FileMaker custom apps. So, with FileMaker WebDirect, you don't need to use coding tools like PHP, HTML5, CSS, or even JavaScript in order to create robust applications for the web. Using just your existing FileMaker skills, you can go from creating a custom app to making it accessible in a web browser in just a few clicks. And since FileMaker WebDirect looks and acts like a desktop application, it gives you familiar functionality like desktop-style interaction that you might be used to if you're accessing it on your Mac or PC. Finally, FileMaker Cloud. Now, FileMaker Cloud is another hosting option which really in the combination of FileMaker Server and cloud hosting, specifically cloud hosting through the AWS Marketplace. So, if you don't have your own server on-premises and you don't want to manage hardware devices, you can actually go and get something called FileMaker Cloud, which allows you to get both hosting and the FileMaker Server licenses all in one place. So, understanding the entire FileMaker platform can help you plan for your current and future database needs, and to use the right products to work together across iPads, iPhones, Windows, Mac, and even the web in order to streamline your businesses.

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