File Upload Checklist

I believe you can change the “Require Full Access privs to use references to this file” while the file is hosted.

The View defaults are: Browse Mode, View as Form and Status Toolbar visible.

Changes to the Status area Toolbar only affect the user account of the machine that you are operating. You can show/hide the toolbar but you cannot control the items that are displayed. The exception to this is that the toolbar will reflect the Permissions for an account and the state of Custom Menus.

Just double-checked it: file access can be changed on a hosted file.
For toolbar and menu control, a config script runs at launch time of a file on a client. That gives fine-grained control on a per user level.

One of the most Important single user issues is the retention of any values entered in global fields.

We have shutdown scripts that clear all of these when in single user mode. We use layouts, list the fields on these and loop through, hence just dragging a new global field on to a layout means it will be included in the scripts.

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Thank You very much for the list!

One of the most important: Ruler units… Default here is cm (Centimeters) - fatal, because of alignment. If one switches to pt (should be default…), objects will never align since its likely to get fractals for points (123.123pt) as well.

Also, when having a ‘fractal’ in the height of data part, a lower nav-part will make problems when adding objects such as scaling, etc. with a small height (ie 15 pt) - objects will simply not show, leaving a developer in searching forever…

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A script of the client launch routine takes care of deleting/setting globals in concerned tables. This way it is done in a explicit way, no stray or missing values during a user session.

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FMPA should have default settings and per-layout settings (superseeding defaults when defined).
All manageable in hosted files. Long overdue.

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Yes! A kingdom for settings like these - and another kingdom for not having issues with settings that can only altered when a file is local - and this happens just as fmi want’s to go away from peer2peer, pushing the cloud…

it’s sometimes hard to get attention to issues. Fmi does not really like the wording ‘issues’ and as I tried to file in an issue report about fractals for pt, others didn’t get the point (hehe - pt (point) is the point…) and replied that they strictly don’t want the non-fractals - because for inches and centimeters, fractals are needed. Unfortunately this is not so true for pt.
I can understand that it’s hard for filemaker to get that issue (assuming that only a small part of the users won’t like the current method)

We got some projects where we have to update layouts from older versions (v12/14 to 18 and v15 to 18) where we (among a lot of other things) add a lower navigation part that contains the missing status elements (scaling, show/hide top status-bar,)
That part has a height of 15 pt, black color. If the data part above has fractals (not all do have that, but quite a few), the new, custom lower status will simply not show anything, somewhat scary (and I forgot about that fractal problem every second time it happens…)

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I like to toggle this one to show

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View > Show is another one. I added Buttons to the Show list when FMI/CI added Layout Mode tooltips.

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I prefer “View by: field name” as the default

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@tonywhitelive is the View → Show something that is also ‘sticky’? I could not get it to stick on a local file. Do you have a special trick?

You might have to make a change (add a snip of text to a layout just worked here) to get the setting change to stick.

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In ‘File/Options/Spelling’, the default for ‘Indicate questionable words with special underline’ must be set before upload to server. It cannot be controlled via script and a hosted solution does not retain changes beyond a session.

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I’ve added to the original post:

For anyone who wants to voice how this is problematic for them, this is the product idea on the community I found to be the closest match

Good work in progress Checklist...

File > Sharing > Share with FileMaker Clients...
...seems to be something that can be set without de-hosting.
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Thanks @tonywhitelive! It seems even the values for the radio-button above can be modified (provided a network user with sufficient privileges has access).

I was not aware of that. Thanks for sharing! Do you know by any chance if it has always been this way or if it was changed in a given version? I tried on FMS18 and it worked. Glad I can take this one off the list!

2 things...

1... Tested as true in FM 16. If anyone is running FM below that...upgrade!

2... By...

  • default login
    ...are you referring to File > File Options > Open > Log in using: ?

If so, that might merit some testing to see if it should be on the list.

Thank you for making a list and checking it twice!

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Hi @tonywhitelive,

Thanks for testing the list & thanks for pushing for continuous improvements and better documentation. Based on what you said, I tested and crossed from the list both default login (matching the file option you pointed to) and Keychain Access. I did not test anything else.

Sorry for not testing things much further. As you know, this is really the type of things Claris should document better.

This only proves how hard it is to make sense of what can and cannot be changed on a hosted file.

Also, please note that I do not see what is here as actual documentation, nor am I trying to claim so (the text "Here is what I can come up with, without putting too much effort into this." says it all). I see it more like a wiki (even attempting to credit contributors as much as possible): to update as knowledge increases & to correct when proven wrong, pretty much the way stuff works with any hypothesis in science in general. Looking at the questions I had towards the end of the post, it seems like I did not have access to much that would let me test things out when I first wrote the list. It is also like the rest of the free stuff out there: rely on it at your own risk, expect no warranties or support of any kind.

I do not think I can do much by myself. Our strength is in numbers: power to community contributions!

Widening the discussion, I hope no ones feel like putting forward a list or anything else necessarily comes with the burden of providing "official documentation" level of accuracy. I think that would only deter people from making contributions and I think the community would lose in the process. Even official documentation is not always as accurate as we would hope.

"Thank you for making a list and checking it twice": You are welcome for the first item. If the second item was expected, I'll attempt being bolder in my disclaimers the next time around, but I would recommend adjusting expectations.

"Upgrading anything below FM16" is a strange comment coming from the guy who asked about this recently.

See you around at a virtual meetup sometime soon, or the NY one - I hear you guys will bring out the big guns on your soon-to-be-any-moment-now virtual gathering.

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With FileMaker Pro/Server 19 the minimum version allowed to open a file can be changed whilst file is already hosted. You can also specify major/minor version number such as '19.1'

File icon can be changed on the server.
Toolbar customization is not stored in the file but at the client app level.
All security settings (except encryption) can be changed.