FileMaker Pro 6 review

FileMaker Pro is designed from the ground up to embrace ease of use - no mean feat for a database manager. It's also a cross-platform product, with full versions for Windows and the Mac (OS X included), along with a server version that runs on Windows, Mac and Red Hat Linux.

Despite its cross-platform capabilities, FileMaker's user-centric philosophy comes straight from the Mac, which is hardly surprising given that FileMaker is an Apple subsidiary. The product is one of only a few survivors in the desktop database market. It targets single users or small workgroups, providing a complete package including a database engine, ad hoc interactive tools and the ability to develop custom applications.

On the Windows platform, the desktop database market has been aggressively dominated by Microsoft Access, with occasional glimpses of Lotus Approach and Corel Paradox. On the Mac, however, FileMaker has this particular niche almost to itself, although there are other more developer-oriented packages such as 4th Dimension.

FileMaker has always excelled in what it provides for the database novice, but this is hardly a growth market. It's prospered by offering developers an easy-to-use alternative to the likes of Access or Visual Basic, pushing the limits of what can be done with point-and-click buttons and scripts. It also benefits from a highly capable database engine. But at the same time, FileMaker's distinctive approach can be frustrating for developers familiar with other systems, especially as it still lacks key features. For example, transactions aren't supported, databases can't be encrypted and you can't use SQL, except via ODBC or JDBC. For many database professionals, such shortcomings rule out FileMaker as a serious contender.

Regardless of certain limitations, FileMaker still has unique advantages. More importantly, it does a great job of hiding complexity. To create a new database, the user types in some field names and selects from a short list of simple types such as Text, Number or Date. FileMaker automatically creates a form with Browse and Table views, and provides an effective search facility through query by example.

By default, indexing is done automatically when needed and even includes full text indexing. Character fields double as memo fields - with the basic text type allowing up to 64,000 characters - and Container fields store items such as graphics, multimedia or Windows OLE objects. Common-sense dialogs allow users to add more advanced features such as validation and uniqueness and to pick lists of predefined values. You can also add buttons and link them to actions or custom scripts to build applications.

Sharing a database is a one-click option, and you can set up access privileges based on users and groups. Both forms and individual fields can be marked as accessible, inaccessible or read-only for particular users. As a tool for building single-table database applications quickly and easily, FileMaker is outstanding.

FileMaker's efforts towards enterprise integration are less steady. Early versions lacked any relational features other than simple look-up, and even now a FileMaker database file can only contain one table, together with forms and scripts. You can, however, set up links with other files and use them in scripts, and you can also display related tables in a subform, called a Portal in FileMaker jargon.

But FileMaker can't easily access external data. It may be an ODBC client, but the feature is mainly for importing data; it can't attach or join to an ODBC data source in the manner of Microsoft Access. There are ODBC and JDBC drivers for FileMaker, which is a more promising route if you need to use FileMaker data alongside other data sources. In this scenario, you lose the benefit of the RAD tools.