The debate has been longstanding in the FileMaker community about how FM is substantially better and easier than Access. I’m not here to rehash a seemingly silly and hardly useful flame war, but with the pending (a year from now can be considered pending for Microsoft 
) release of Office 12, FileMaker Inc, and developers will have to contend with the mass of Office users who might want to instead use Access as their data-platform of choice.Office 12, being one of Microsoft’s cashcows, has been under great scrutiny and been rearchitected and has a new and interesting UI on top of it. Their use of “ribbons” or large visual toolbars to display options and actions instead of a myriad of menus is one of the main innovations.
I’m posing this kind of philosphical debate to question what FileMaker users and developers would want to see in FileMaker 9? A FileMaker wishlist can tend to be very solution specific and not broad enough in terms of asking for justifiable productivity gains to warrant the added expense of a new version, so what of Access? What do people think of Access in comparison to FileMaker? I set up a rather intricate hierarchical data view in Access and found it surprisingly easy to implement. Beyond that, the process of customizing the data entry forms, sharing the data, and more was beyond simple and quite frankly, a pain in the ass. I could have done twice as much in half the time with FileMaker aside from the native hierarchical view control. That being said, the only reason I had that control was because it was installed with my version of Office/Access and it was one of the Pro features.
I’m chiming in on this finally (I originally wrote this post before CES 2006) because I’m interested in software, Microsoft, Vista, Office and where all three will go and if there will be a generational leap in productivity and user friendliness. Some people hate Microsoft, I don’t. I’m no lover either, but I do admire some products that they produce. I tend to adore Apple products more, but not always…
Back to FileMaker and Access: what are some of the things people really are looking for? What do you miss most from the feature set of 4D or Access? I want real answers here people.
Some FileMaker updates
For those not in the know, FileMaker Server 8 Advanced is shipping. If you’ve committed fully to the version 8 platform of FileMaker, then this is worth noting.
In addition, FileMaker Inc is also promoting a set of graphics that can be added for the ’spit and polish’ to any FileMaker solution. While they promote this as a 79.99 value, I think that the FamFamFam Silk icons for the price of FREE are far better. Don’t forget the Mini icons which are also FREE.
This is my first real post of the new year. There’s a lot to look forward to and I hope to bring a lot to you. WordPress 2.0 is out. Apple is glowing with new goodies. Chris has released some of his hard and beautiful work out unto the open. And I’ve got a lot of catching up to do. It starts now! Hoo ahh!!
For some more fun reading and viewing…
Take a look at Tauquil and a post he put together based on the Bill Gates preview of some Longhorn technology. It’s both funny and worrisome given the preview of what is actually coming this far in Longhorn
Source from: www.secretweaponlabs.com
[...] Syslance Studio put an intriguing blog post on FileMaker vs. AccessHere’s a quick excerpt [...]
I’d like to see: charts support, real time SQL access, more object oriented technology, a way to separate interface from data without the user knowing it, an Instant web publishing that supports a resizing interface, a runtime solution engine that has networkability even if it is paid extra, a real Mac OS X Cocoa interface (No more Quickdraw style), a selection line that marks the whole line in list mode (not just a small square at the beginning of the line), a real time searching engine (like Spotlight), SQL support inside Filemaker, Barcodes support inside the app, a way to copy paste layouts between solutions, a subversion engine (or something similar), a network monitor, etc.
I’d like to see: charts support, real time SQL access, more object oriented technology, a way to separate interface from data without the user knowing it, an Instant web publishing that supports a resizing interface, a runtime solution engine that has networkability even if it is paid extra, a real Mac OS X Cocoa interface (No more Quickdraw style), a selection line that marks the whole line in list mode (not just a small square at the beginning of the line), a real time searching engine (like Spotlight), SQL support inside Filemaker, Barcodes support inside the app, a way to copy paste layouts between solutions, a subversion engine (or something similar), a network monitor, etc.
Please erase this post since it talk about an specific upcoming version that is already old, FileMaker is on version 10 and the majority of this debate is no longer news it is trash, please delete it!