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MOBILE DEVELOPMENT
Create a Web 2.0 FileMaker Pro Solution for iPhone
Learn how to build a slick looking, high-performance application to pull FileMaker Pro data to an iPhone.
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The busiest and most relevant sites on the Internet -- eBay, Amazon, and Facebook to name just a few -- have concluded that the iPhone is for real and have made special versions of their sites optimized especially for iPhones. The iPhone incorporates the best Web browser you can carry in the palm of your hand, and industry movers have already realized that supporting it explicitly is well worth the investment. As a FileMaker developer, you too may have already concluded that some (or all!) of the users you work with will want your solutions to support the iPhone.
Figure 1: Example application in standard portrait view -- This application is designed specifically for iPhone, so no zooming or panning is required.
What tools to use?
FileMaker Mobile, about which many FileMaker users renewed their excitement when they first learned of the iPhone, is not the solution. It doesn't run on the iPhone and never will. FileMaker, Inc. has already discontinued FileMaker Mobile, and anticipates using next-generation Web technologies as a better way to access FileMaker Pro via an iPhone.
If you have an iPhone, it's likely that one of the first things you checked was FileMaker's Instant Web Publishing. Is there any chance an IWP app can look good on an iPhone? Sadly, the answer is no, and you shouldn't expect any improvements. FileMaker, Inc.'s strategy for mobile devices such as the iPhone lies elsewhere.
Custom Web Publishing for the iPhone
Using Custom Web Publishing, you have complete control and can create a Web page precisely optimized for display on the iPhone. Good software is a marriage between hardware and interface, like the iPhone itself. With this in mind, let's outline what your design goals should be:
- It should look good and be readable without the need for the user to zoom in and out.
- It needs to be clean and sharp; there is no room for wasted real estate.
- It should react quickly: no time lost waiting for Web pages to reload.
This doesn't mean you should simply sit down with FileMaker's PHP Site Assistant and generate a site. You can, and it will work, but it won't meet any of these three design goals.
For this article I've built a simple example application for iPhone using Web 2.0 technologies to illustrate all three design goals. Inspired by a popular social networking feature, this application, The Wall, offers a single simple function: Type a comment, and see it added to the list of comments already there (figure 1). It's similar to a guest book. In this case, your comment is written to the FileMaker Pro database, and that same database is accessed each time someone views The Wall.
The complete example application is available live online for you to try with your iPhone at briandunning.com/iphone, and FileMaker Advisor subscribers can download the complete example code and database.
Again, this is a simple application, and by itself it probably isn't very useful. But it does contain virtually all the building blocks you'll need to create much richer Web 2.0 applications.
The walkthrough and explanation of this example requires a few prerequisites. You should have at least a fundamental understanding of cascading stylesheets (CSS), JavaScript, HTML, and DHTML -- enough to know what you're looking at. You should also have a general understanding of the way FileMaker's PHP API works to send data back and forth between a Web page and FileMaker Server.
Now, let's take those three design goals one at a time, and examine the best tool to accomplish each one.
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 Brian Dunning has been a top developer, trainer, and writer in the FileMaker community for many years. Brian is a technical editor of FileMaker Advisor and has been a speaker at FileMaker Developer Conference, where he has received three awards including the FileMaker Excellence Award. http://www.briandunning.com
ARTICLE INFO
Web Edition: 2007 Week 46, Doc #19312
 FREE ACCESS
Keyword Tags: Apple, Apple iPhone, Development, FileMaker, FileMaker Development, FileMaker FileMaker Pro, IT Networking, Mobile Business, Mobile Development, PHP, Software Development, Web 2.0, Web Development
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