
FileMaker Pro
How do I . . .
How do I guide users through FileMaker
solutions?
Apple Guide works very well for guiding users through FileMaker solutions.
You can coach mark the FileMaker windows, and you can use the standard context
checks to detect a lot of information about the user's current state (for
example, which mode they're in). FileMaker is also very scriptable, so you
can automate procedures using AppleScript or the FileMaker scripts.
The only real limitation involves how users open your guide file. To have
your guide file automatically appear in the Guide/Help menu, it must be
located in the same folder as the FileMaker application.
A better approach is to bypass the Guide/Help menu altogether and place
a button that opens your guide file right on the FileMaker layouts. You
can write an AppleScript application that opens your guide file, then use
a button on the FileMaker layouts to launch the AppleScript.
I've used FileMaker's built-in Send Apple Event script command to launch
an external AppleScript. The AppleScript to open your guide file looks like:
AGStart -- startup the Apple Guide application
tell application "Apple Guide"
Open Database "MyGuideFile"
end tell
Check out the Open and OpenWithSequence commands in Apple Guide's AppleScript
dictionary for options that let you open the guide file with specific views
or sequences that provide context-sensitive help for your different FileMaker
layouts.
© 1997, guideWorks, LLC -- Last updated: 970325 GPB