24U News

FileMaker Platform is ideal match for startups

Everyone knows or feels that starting a new business is not easy. There are many startups in these days. Every new company looks for the best possible systems to support their new ideas. We found out that our favourite FileMaker platform is an ideal match for these startups.

Life before and after Xgode

We can build native iOS apps with the FileMaker platform but we struggled doing that too often. Xgode has changed this for us, and now it is not an exception when we build a FileMaker based native app more than five times on the same day. Why is the life after Xgode so different from the life before it?

Google Maps become affordable

Since the introduction of WebViewer, Google Maps were quite popular in FileMaker solutions. What many FileMaker developers may have missed though is that in most cases they were using Google Maps API illegally and Google could ban their API key or IP address from accessing the feature at any time.

Echoes of the Past

As time passes by, we quickly and easily get used to new technologies and new versions of all the apps we use. Occasionally, the history decently knocks on the door, checking if we remember. Just like recently, when a customer contacted us, asking for help with converting his invoicing solution, made in FileMaker Pro 1.0, to the current version.

Product Testing for Constant Improvements

We’ve been developing FileMaker plug-ins since the release of FileMaker Pro 4, so some of our products have been there for our users for over a decade. We would like to share with you a few notes on how to make a product successful, no matter how precisely you plan the future of your product.

Compression vs Encryption

Many years ago, when designing backup strategy for our server, we decided to take advantage of one typical aspect of FileMaker databases. By using a simple bash script, we could easily keep a history of 4 times more backups than without compression...

Perform Script On Server

The idea of being able to off-load time consuming tasks from FileMaker Pro to FileMaker Server is as old as the scripting abilities of FileMaker Pro, which were introduced with the FileMaker Pro 3 release. But it was the FileMaker Server 13 that finally made this idea easy to implement.

5 reasons for not attending FileMaker DevCon

To attend or not to attend? That's the question I am asking myself every year since 2002 when I attended my first FileMaker DevCon. I have attended 8 DevCons so far, and skipped one. I have identified the following 5 possible reasons for not attending:

24U SimpleDialog Plug-In 4.0 Special Offer [updated Jul 24, 2010]

New SimpleDialog 4 was released. Here are some important changes: New dialog field type: list can be used to offer selection to the user FileMaker Pro styles can be used to enhance dialog readability Dialogs can be updated on the fly Validations work for all field types (text areas, pop-up menus) Progress dialog has been fixed so it does not block

Why is FileMaker 12 slow?

A lot has been written and said since FileMaker 12 was released about its speed, compared to FileMaker 11. Emotions left aside, if I was supposed to compile all the recent findings into a single brief message, I would say that some people find FileMaker 12 slower than FileMaker 11 while others experience improved performance.

Top 10 things I like about #FileMaker 10

Over a year has passed since the FileMaker 10 family of products was released. Do you still hesitate to upgrade? I am constantly meeting customers who have not yet upgraded to the latest version of FileMaker Pro and FileMaker Server, so I have decided to share my top ten reasons why "ten" is so great.

Stay Independent

Do you use FileMaker plug-in? Why? Let’s try something. Stop reading now, scroll down to the Comments section and answer these two questions. I am seriously curious about your answers. Then scroll back up and read the rest of this article. While only hours are remaining for the new SimpleDialog to get released, let me tell you one more story.

Custom Function Optimized to Evaluate Hundreds Times Faster

Experts in optimization and hardware integration, platinum member of the FileMaker Business Alliance. We build custom apps, FileMaker plug-ins, native apps for Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android, we are able to to integrate even hardware and software noone has integrated before.

Infinite Hierarchy

Last week Hal Gumbert mentioned on Twitter that he was “working on a FileMaker quote to display and edit a BOM ( Build of Materials ) that can go 9 levels deep.” Probably the most efficient and user friendly way to implement this is using a tree view with collapsible/expandable items.

FileMaker Custom Function for HTML Entities

Just today I needed to decode HTML encoded text in FileMaker. After checking few functions I found one that seemed pretty good. Written in 2009 by Fabrice Nordman and named HTMLencoded2Text, this custom function was converting my imported text OK at first sight.

The best 10minute workflow to demo #FileMaker at a press conference

I am preparing a 10minute demo for a press conference where I will be showing FileMaker to journalists who have never seen it and have no idea what it is about. After a short brainstorming on Twitter I have come to the following idea as a workflow to show how cool FileMaker is:

Top 10 things I hate about #FileMaker Pro 10

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Debugging Scripts by Writing to Event.log

This is a fresh story of me spending hours trying to fix a technical issue and accidentally revealing a gold nugget. A few days ago one of my nightly server-side scripts stopped working without any apparent reason. But when I tried to run the script in FileMaker Pro it worked just fine. I really needed a way to debug the script on the server.

FileMaker PHP Error 7 (Running Out Of Memory) resolved

Yesterday I got so stuck with an issue that I wanted to send a question to a mailing list. But (un)fortunately I sent it from a wrong e-mail address so it did not reach the list. Then, before discovering that I used the wrong e-mail address I actually resolved the issue, so now I can share this for the case it can help someone.

Marvelous Optimization #1

This is the first example I was showing in my session Marvelous Optimizations at Pause On Error [x] London 2011. I already wrote about this optimization some time ago. It’s the one that led me to unveil the Marvelous Optimization Formula. I took the example and added FM Bench Detective into it to be able to exactly measure and examine what happens.

PHP Debugging & FileMaker Custom Functions Do Exist

I have just read Anders Monsen's post "Read on Mightydata's blog" A Simple Debug Function for PHP at the "Open the Mightydata's blog" Mightydata's blog. My first thought was this is similar to what I have been doing since I learned PHP a few years ago.

Prevent Support Calls [updated July 29, 2010]

After being silent for a while, busy preparing a new product launch, I am now back and cannot wait to tell you what you all probably guessed already. Pssst, rumors have that an all new SimpleDialog is rolling out. But before I confirm or deny the rumors, I have a story for you.

Optimization Madness

In May, I participated in Pause[x]Berlin 2013, a European format of the popular unconference Pause On Error, organized for FileMaker developers by FileMaker developers.. There I presented a session called Optimization Madness focused on optimizing performance of FileMaker solutions.

First Lessons from Developing for FileMaker Go

In the old times before FileMaker Go, before tab control, before anchors, before multiple windows per file, in the age of 13-inch CRT monitors, the most frequent challenges I was facing when developing FileMaker solutions were how to fit all the necessary information and what to put in empty area.

Team Development

The good thing about growth is that you’re getting stronger. You can deliver more work in less time and provide more unique values to your clients, such as stability, reliability, or variability. The difficult part is to make the team work together like clockwork.

Per-Database FileMaker Plug-Ins

Hal Gumbert has started an interesting topic on Twitter today. This topic quickly turned to be full of ideas and opinions. Way more than can reasonably fit in Twitter’s message length limit. Check this article where is interview between HOnza and Hal.

FileMaker Script Execution Time Cut From 5 Hours To 6 Seconds

Sometimes, not often, I accidentally achieve results that look too marvelous to be real. But they are. Just like in this case. Last week I assigned Petr, our internal system developer, the task to optimize one server-side script. The script recently started taking over 8 hours to run and reaching the expiration limit we have set for it.

Save the Planet Through Automated Planting

These brothers created the first mobile system for automated planting and we are really proud that we can the part of it. This system will not only make planting easy but it can really help us to save our planet. You can plant anything, anywhere in the world. Tomatoes in a desert, strawberries in a cellar, in a few years maybe on Mars as well.

Text or Numbers - What's Faster

One of the questions I am getting from time to time since I testing FileMaker performance is whether there is any significant difference between performance of text and number fields, So I tested it and discovered that there is even a case when indexed field can be slower than an undindexed one.

How and why I won the FileMaker DevCon Developer Cup

When the first FileMaker DevCon Developer Cup took place at FileMaker DevCon 2014 many people asked me why I was not participating. So I applied for the next one in 2015. I was selected out of the over 1500 attendees to be one of 12 actually competing, and I won both the separately evaluated design challenge and the whole contest as well.

I have got my #FileMaker branded flash drive

Experts in optimization and hardware integration, platinum member of the FileMaker Business Alliance. We build custom apps, FileMaker plug-ins, native apps for Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android, we are able to to integrate even hardware and software noone has integrated before.

Random Set of Records (optimized)

I noticed that one of the articles updated in the official FileMaker Knowledge Base on September 23, 2011 was explaining how to select a random set of records in a FileMaker database. I was wondering how fast the currently recommended technique is and whether I can make it faster with the help of FM Bench.

Designing Buttons in Pages [updated]

When developing a software (FileMaker solutions, iOS apps in my case) we often need nice looking user interface elements such as buttons. I do not always have time to wait for a designer to create them. Now I don’t have to, because I have discovered I can quickly do that using Apple’s Pages.

Marvelous Optimization #4 - Optimized Again

Last September I wrote an article about a custom function that I optimized to evaluate hundreds times faster. At the end of the article, I challenged my readers and myself by claiming that the already optimized custom function can be optimized even further. Do you remember? Later on I actually really optimized it again, and talked about this.

Mac OS X 10.7 Lion - Upgrade or Wait?

Everyone is excited about Lion. Even though many new features on Mac OS X 10.7 are giving us improvements we kept asking for since 10.1, Apple has again succeeded in giving all the new features the strong essence of innovation that makes us unable to hesitate to install and try Lion out as soon as we are able to.

Marvelous Optimization #2

The second example I was showing in my session Marvelous Optimizations at Pause On Error [x] London 2011 was the script for selecting Random Set of Records. I found this example in the FileMaker Knowledge Base and optimized it to run at least 158 times faster when selecting 10 random records out of 50,000.

Marvelous Optimization #3 - Faster Imports

This example demonstrates that even a single-step script can be optimized. You just have to think a little bit out of the box... I was showing this as a surprise in my session Marvelous Optimizations at Pause On Error [x] London 2011. I used a sample file with 25 fields and 5,000 records and imported these records 5 times in a row in just 13s.

GetAsDate(x) ≠ GetAsDate( x & “”)

Ever had a trouble getting FileMaker Pro convert text to date reliably? Last week I was helping my colleague to debug a solution that seemed to be swapping month/day values in some cases. When I checked the issue in detail I discovered a strange behavior in FileMaker's calculation engine.

24U FM Bench is fully compatible with FileMaker Pro 14

We have tested all components of 24U FM Bench with the recently released version 14 of the FileMaker products and have not encountered any issue at all. The current version 1.2.1 of 24U FM Bench is fully compatible.

24U SimpleDialog Plug-in 5.0 released

24U SimpleDialog Plug-In allows your FileMaker solutions to interact with users via professionally looking dialogs to provide excellent user experience with minimum development effort. New version of our popular plug-in for displaying native custom dialogs and progress bars bring full 64-bit support for FileMaker Pro 14 and latest operating system.

24U offers audit service for existing FileMaker solutions

Managers and business owners can now easily order 24U’s expert advice to have their internally developed FileMaker® solution audited and prepare a sustainable long-term maintenance and development plan. Don't hesitate to contact our sales department!

Phidgets Plug-In 3.1 is now available

Phidgets Plug-In 3.1 is now available. The new version now brings support for iOS and new features like locking RFID tag while you are writing via Phidget. Minor bugs were also fixed.

Transformation Service

24U Software is able to provide you with a custom solution on the level of enhancement or transformation that best suits your actual situation. You will be able to effectively get the most out of any new technology. Don't hesitate to contact our sales department!

Integration Service

Let us integrate your FileMaker solution with your other systems to avoid human error and waste of time by duplicated data entry, and get your business running smoothly by having your data where they have the highest value. Don't hesitate to contact our sales department!

How 24U FM Bench Detective works

Get the best performance out of FileMaker Pro by optimizing your solutions and achieve 100+% speed gains in almost no time. See how 24U FM Bench Detective benchmarks your FileMaker solution with microsecond precision to tell you how long exactly your scripts and calculations take to execute.

How to implement 24U FM Bench Detective

We spent years trying to find out how to make our own solution perform faster. Learn how to easily implement 24U FM Bench Detective by inserting a few script steps into your own FileMaker solution and start measuring and optimizing your solutions today.

24U helps SYNELOGIS to eliminate paperwork in freight transportation

Small company brings European freight transportation to the 21st century via modern technologies and a custom app developed in partnership with 24U Software within 6 weeks using the FileMaker Platform.

Faster way to implement FM Bench Detective on Mac

Implementing 24U FM Bench Detective can take a lot of time especially when you have hundreds or thousands of scripts in your FileMaker solution. See how PTHPasteboard can save you tremendous time by letting you insert the 24U FM Bench Detective script steps into your solution on Mac about 4 times faster.

Faster way to implement FM Bench Detective on Windows

Implementing 24U FM Bench Detective can take a lot of time especially when you have hundreds or thousands of scripts in your FileMaker solution. We have found a great 3rd party tool for Windows called Hot Copy Paste that can save you tremendous amount of time.

Automating insertion of FM Bench Detective into your solution

If you have a large solution with hundreds or thousands of scripts you will like what we are working on for the next version of FM Bench, fully automated insertion and removal of FM Bench Detective. But if you dont want to wait, here is something you can use already today.

Checking Implementation with Error Checker

Before you can analyze measurement data captured from your FileMaker solution with 24U FM Bench Detective, you have to check consistency and validity of the data with Error Checker. It will tell you where FM Bench misses some log entry it expects, such as corresponding exit event for previously logged start event.

Examining Solution Usage with Session Browser

Session Browser in 24U FM Bench Analyzer lets you browse through individual users sessions of your FileMaker solution, see when they logged in, when they logged out, and when they ran specific scripts, how long these scripts took to execute and compare them between themselves.

Optimizing Your Solution with Bottleneck Finder

Before you can efficiently optimize your solution you first need to find out what to optimize. Bottleneck Finder is the major key component of 24U FM Bench that analyzes collected measurement data and identifies the real bottleneck of your solution...

Watching Your Optimization Progress with Reporter

We spent years trying to find out how to make our own solution perform faster. After you have optimized the bottleneck of your FileMaker solution, the Reporter feature of 24U FM Bench will let you compare the speed before and after optimization and prove your progress to your peers, boss, or client.

Optimizing with 2empowerFM Developer Assistant

Developer Assistant from Dracoventions is a FileMaker plug-in that helps FileMaker developers to save time and be more productive. This tool will make your optimization process even more efficient. Developer Assistant lets you search all scripts, the table relationships graph, in table and field metadata.

RFID reader for scanning animals

Our team is exploring the possibility to integrate our customer's FileMaker app with a special RFID reader for scanning animals. If you have a similar need, make sure to get in touch with us.

Software for selling seeds and purchasing crops in Malawi? No problem!

24U's FileMaker developers have released a new version of JOGS, a custom app we developed for our customer from Malawi, Africa. The app was made to help our customer manage purchasing crops from local farmers, now we have added new features to also support distributing seeds to farmers.

Fasten your seatbelt!

Just like fastening seatbelt can protect your life, having your core systems audited by an independent expert can save your company. In this video excerpt from FileMaker Konferenz 2016 HOnza talks about how our audit service helped KLM to make their own solution more scalable and reliable.

Phidgets Hardware

Do you want to integrate physical devices with FileMaker Pro but not sure where to start? Now you can get everything (software and hardware) to get started with Phidgets and the FileMaker platform, at one place.

Craig Cutler talks about 24U's custom development service

“I would recommend 24U to anybody who had a tricky problem because 24U really helped me to figure it out and I was surprised they could do it!” Craig turned to 24U for help with getting data from an old optometry equipment directly to his FileMaker app.

Quality of food products… this question is still in the air

Customers from Holland working on implementing the systems of food quality control came to us to see our demo. They were particularly interested in scanning RFID and reading data from weighing scales on the go. Both these features can be implemented to a custom FileMaker App using Gonector

Jacques Kirouac

“The 24U Phidgets Plug-In turned out to be solution and the answer.” Jacques Kirouac developed his own sheep sorting solution for farmers in Canada based on FileMaker Pro and 24U Phidgets Plug-In. It’s interesting to hear how it works and we are happy that Jacques is satisfied with our plug-in and services.

Under time pressure??? Yes! But we made it!

Within only 6 weeks the FileMaker platform helped 24U and SYNELOGIS to develop and deploy a custom app for managing freight transportation that completely replaced paper waybills and allowed truck drivers to share data with dispatchers in real time.

Joe King

“If you are trying to figure out what’s wrong with your solution or how you can make it better, 24U guys are a great resource!” These words come from WorldCloud Inc. CEO Joe King. We are happy to hear feedback like this all the time.

DevCon 2016 - Optimization, how bottleneck works

There’s a big difference between guessing and knowing. Every FileMaker solution has a bottleneck. Learn what it is and let FM Bench help you to identify it!

24U at FileMaker DevCon 2018

A month has passed since we got back from FileMaker DevCon and now we have a small recap for you. Our demo generated a lot of interest this year, so if you have missed it, make sure to check it out at least from the web...

FileMaker 16 is here!

What a great week! There are some great new features such as JSON parsing, external script steps, Save as PDF on server, encryption calculation functions, and more. Check it out and let us know what you like the bridge.

Compatible with FileMaker 17

All of our available plug-ins have been tested with FileMaker 17. We are pleased to announce that they are fully compatible with this new version of the platform! You will find information about this compatibility soon at

The FileMaker 17 Platform was introduced!

New features e.g.: Starter apps and Add-on Tables - Get started more quickly! Use one of the 6 predefined applications to get the custom app you've always wanted. Add more functionality by connecting an Add-on Table to the app.

Apple iPad As a Tool for Everyone

24U Testers are indispensable in applications development processes. Dušan Kollár our test manager is using modern Apple technologies – iPad Air 2 to effectively lead team of testers.

Interview - FileMakerProGurus

In the last months we have released many new versions of products, even 3 completely new ones - fmRESTor, Xgode and Gonector! That's why Don Clark asked Honza Koudelka as FileMaker Pro Guru.

Interesting fact you may not know

We have sold our licenses to 67 countries around the world Join our customers community. Check out our products.

Mert Bayri talks about how 24U helped him with his FileMaker custom app development

“I will totally suggest the audit. It was very helpful for us!” Mert Bayri from Medeam (e-commerce workgroup of KLM) talks about how he developed and improved his custom FileMaker application in cooperation with 24U.

“If you are arachnophobic you have the best base to be a good FileMaker developer”

HOnza presented results of converting a complex solution from Spider Web to Anchor/Buoy relationship model, making Perform Script On Server 3.5 times faster. This video is an excerpt of the FileMaker Konferenz (Salzburg 2017) session recording, showing the most inter

Hardware integration

24U team of coders works hard to develop another hardware integration solution. Our most famous hardware integration product

Optimized Means Cheaper! 24U Tool FM Bench Shows You Where Is The Bottleneck!

Layout switch takes 40 seconds? How user feels? Maybe frustrated is the right word. This was happening to our user before they asked us for help. Before we found and fixed two bottlenecks. Layout switch is now 8x faster and 1000 hours a year saved!

24U at FileMaker DevCon 2015

Once again, our team came across the ocean to share our best experiences with you and to help you to let you focus on your business. This time in Las Vegas, Nevada.

All 24U Plug-Ins Updated

Since eSellerate has recently announced an end of life of their services, we have updated all our plug-ins to use a new way to verify license validity, independently on eSellerate. We also included latest minor improvements and optimizations, including optimizations for better compatibility with the recently released FileMaker 18.

Accept payments on the Go

We have added support for mobile payment terminals to our Gonector plug-in to allow seamless integration of mobile paymens for custom apps developed using the FileMaker platform. The new version of Gonector lets your app talk directly to mobile payment terminals from Infinite Peripherals (for Noth America) and Ingenico (for Europe).

Toolbox returning timestamps correctly and FM Bench updated as well

Toolbox 3.0.9 addresses an issue on some Windows configuration returning timestamps with wrong date. Since FM Bench relies on this functionality, we have updated it as well to include the fixed version of Toolbox.

Migrate and optimize your FileMaker solution with us

Our team of experience developers has just helped our client to safely migrate database from FileMaker 10 to FileMaker 18. Let us take care of your solution. New FileMaker version is just the beginning.

Read story how automated sheep sorting with 24U Phidgets Plug-In works

Counting sheep may put anyone asleep but for a sheep farmer sorting sheep is a real madness. Therefore our customer Jacques Kirouac from Quebec developed a new solution Sheep Sorter. It's cheaper than other commercial solutions and it’s able to sort animals based on many criteria.

fmRESTor updated for FileMaker Server 18

We have updated our open-source PHP library for easy integration of PHP websites with FileMaker Data API to take advantage of the new features introduced in FIleMaker Server 18. fmRESTor is now also available via Composer.

We have a new product: LogMonitor

We have released a new open-source tool, useful for every server administrator. Specifically with FileMaker Server admins in mind, this tool lets you get notified about important messages appearing in logs without being spammed by unimportant notifications.

Amazing news from DevCon

FileMaker is now Claris. Again. FileMaker Platform remains a flagship product but other products are coming, first of them being Claris Connect, an integration service developed by an Italian company Stamplay, now acquired by Claris

The last FileMaker DevCon is over

Our team of experienced FileMaker developers look forward to meeting you next year at #Claris Engage 2020!

24U at DevCon 2019

Our team crossed the ocean again to show our skills and upgraded demo at the FileMaker Developer Conference, which took place in Orlando, Florida. We answered a lot of questions about FileMaker and we discussed every problem our customers came with.

Tour de Conferences Germany and Scandinavia

The 2019 European FileMaker developer conferences are just behind the door. This year we have chosen two to participate in - FileMaker Konferenz in Hamburg, Germany, from October 16 to October 19 and DevCon Scandinavia in Helsingør, Denmark, from October 20 to October 21.

Virtual Store from FileMaker Konferenz 18

HOnza leads you through our virtual store at #FileMaker Konferenz 2018. You can see all the hardware components of our mobile demo store. Would you like to buy a paprica, chilli pepers or macadamia nuts???

Claris Engage Europe 2020

Claris has announced that in 2020 there will be not only Claris Engage in the USA, but also Claris Engage Europe in October, located in Lisbon, Portugal.

Another FileMaker Konferenz is over and it has been great again

This year, hosted in Hamburg, Germany, over 180 German-speaking FileMaker developers came to this local conference to learn something new and get inspired. The atmosphere of the 3-day conference was very friendly and forward looking, as, how we already learned during the past 3 years, FileMaker Konferenz always tends to be.

Recap of our first FileMaker Devcon Scandinavia

When preparing for our fourth German-speaking FileMaker Konferenz, HOnza got invited to speak at FileMaker Devcon Scandinavia as well. So we ended up participating in 2 European developer conferences this year. We had a great time there and HOnza's sessions were well appreciated. He had to stay for about an hour answering questions.

How Fast is the New FileMaker Cloud?

How fast or slow is FileMaker Cloud and what should you know before deciding to throw away your old Mac mini you're using to run FileMaker Server and move your databases to FileMaker Cloud? Let me put the other aspects, such as cost or security, aside for now, and focus solely on the performance.

Convert FileMaker Styled Text to HTML

If you care about text styles then you care about presentation. And if the text you produce is going to be presented in the digital world, such as on a website or in an e-mail client, or any other platform based on HTML and CSS, then you should pay attention to what the HTML you produce tells about you, both to humans and to computers.

News, tips, advice, ideas, experience…