FileMaker Mobile 8 Released

[Darius Wey]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.filemaker.com/products/fmm/' target='_blank'>http://www.filemaker.com/products/fmm/</a><br /><br /></div><i>"FileMaker, Inc. today announced the immediate availability of FileMaker Mobile 8, a companion to FileMaker Pro 8 designed specifically for Palm OS and Pocket PC handheld devices. The new FileMaker Mobile 8 now goes beyond synchronizing with local desktop databases only. For the first time, it allows users to synchronize handhelds with databases on FileMaker Server 8 and FileMaker Server 8 Advanced. FileMaker Mobile 8 runs on the Palm Treo 650, and many other Palm and Windows Mobile compatible handheld devices, allowing individuals and mobile workgroups to extend the productivity of FileMaker solutions from the office to their handheld device. FileMaker Mobile 8 supports a range of applications as simple as lists to more complex solutions such as inventory records, customer information, student records, work orders, research notes, or help-desk records. In addition to providing one-button, two-way synchronization, FileMaker Mobile 8 allows flexible data entry and viewing features."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/wey-20060126-FileMaker.jpg" /><br /><br />The new FileMaker Mobile 8 offers Pocket PCs new hosted database synchronisation options with FileMaker Pro and FileMaker Server, and six new mobile starter solutions (contact management, asset management, research notes, student records, movie libraries, and recipe tracking). The upgrade costs $19; the full version, $69.

[ricksfiona]

Wow, this is really good. Anything to help move forward the Pocket PC platform is a good thing and the Filemaker folks wouldn't have spent major dollars doing this if they didn't feel there was a future in it.

[hamishmacdonald]

I have an earlier version of this program, and it's pretty weak. I bought it so I could sync my database of past articles I'd written with my Pocket PC, only to find once I bought it that fields in the mobile version have a 255-character limit. And overall it just felt, I dunno, thin.

It's so easy to make really useful and good-looking databases in Filemaker, but this felt like some sort of conduit/hack more than a full application of its own.

I'm looking to see what's changed in this version, and, yeah, there's server stuff that will be helpful to some, not to me. Beyond that, I'm not seeing anything to convince me they've improved the program itself. Still looks awfully black-and-white.

And no upgrade available in the UK as yet.

Pass.

[Sven Johannsen]

only to find once I bought it that fields in the mobile version have a 255-character limit

Text fields in Access have a 255 character limit. That's not unusual. Do they not support a memo field of some sort?

I'm glad to see this, as it appears MS hasn't figured out folks might actually want to do database synchronization without a SQL server. Maybe this will get noticed and someone will remember that MS has a desktop DB app too.

[hamishmacdonald]

I do have to say, though, that I looked at a lot of other ways I might be able to sync databases from my Pocket PC, or even just export the data as something standard and readable. Every other tool was way too complex for me to use -- and I'm very comfortable with creating Filemaker databases, sometimes including rather involved scripts.

So even though the version I used was not pretty and felt awfully basic for the price they charged, I would still recommend this product in terms of its ease of use.

I use another program, though, for making forms for my Pocket PC called PocketPCCreations. It hasn't had a significant update in a while, but you can still do some really sharp things with it and make data-gathering forms that look friendly and appealing (including images, fields that appear or disappear based on other selections, and so on). I use these just for myself, for goals, planning, and generating invoices -- which it can export as HTML. It also has remote sending capabilities, but I've not used those.
http://www.pocketpccreations.com/