Just got my brand new copies of FileMaker Pro 7 and FileMaker Developer 7! The release of FileMaker 7 is a major accomplishment for FileMaker Inc. This new version is way more powerful, open-ended and web-friendly. It also represents a full redesign of the internal workings of the product to such an extent that, for the first time, you can't take any FileMaker 6 system and open it up just fine in 7.
Depending on the complexity of the application, quite a bit of prep work before conversion and polishing afterwards has to be done. Third party tools will ease the process, but one document estimates that it will take you 10% of the time you took to develop the application to convert it successfully to FileMaker 7.
I've had the beta for a while now. I've attended an all day training at FileMaker Inc. I've read a lot of white papers and tech briefs. And I've still got a LOT to learn about this new tool. All I know is that it takes the lid off the upper end of the FileMaker market. This is not a toy! And I am very pleased to see a big jump in web capability within FileMaker so that we can easily share data with people outside our company such as vendors and customers.
If you are interested, you can see my top ten favorite features of FileMaker 7 on the FileMaker Kingdom page in my company website. I'm actually contemplating starting a FileMaker 7 blog because there's already all sorts of interesting information out and there's going to be so much more information and utilities coming out over the next year. Even though I've got a big learning curve ahead of me, I'm excited to have moved up to the leading edge, compliments of FileMaker Inc's bold new initiative.
