Tuesday, June 12, 2012

FileMaker Pro 12 vs Access Update

The past few weeks I have been learning how to use FileMaker Pro 12 so that I can teach it to students in a few weeks - there you go - the life of a teacher (learn one, do one, teach one).  The bottom line is that I really am liking FileMaker Pro!!  My son told me (sons are always smarter than mothers) that FileMaker Pro is more intuitive than Access and I have to agree.

FileMaker Pro makes fantastic use of "layouts."  Layouts are views of table and query data.  FileMaker Pro does not use the techie terms of queries.  The calculation formulas are identical to Access with the exception that FileMaker Pro uses semicolons ; instead of commas, in the calculations.

Okay - Microsoft - Access was the only app that kept me in the Microsoft system.  Since 1/3 of the students in the class I am teaching this summer are Mac users and I need to introduce them to database software - I am sucked into the Apple ecosystem.

I am also learning ScreenFlow software in order to show the students certain database functions.  Will have additional blogs on that software.  Learned an important lesson today on how the videos show up in YouTube in HD!  OMG!  Amazing!!  Thanks FL!!!!

Now if I could only do without any sleep I could be twice as productive :-)

1 comment :

  1. I agree that FileMaker Pro is superior to Access because of the layout structure. The table & query data views are very important and I think that FileMaker has got it pretty much spot-on in this regard. Thanks for sharing this insightful post with us!

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