Databases on a Mac System

[hoggbottom59]

Hello, I have quite a lot of experience using MS Access for databases. I have offered to set up a database for a friend's company.

The two addded problems are that he needs full remote access and for the system to all run on Macs.

I have read about Filemaker which runs on the Mac and PC. I don't know if the graphical interface and support for coding is as effective as Access. Also MS Access integrates well with the rest of the MS Office suite.

Can anyone who's used Filemaker offer me any advice? Or are there any other alternatives on the Mac? From what I can work out Filemaker has nothing as nifty as VBA.


Thanks,

Leon.

 

[evalesthy]

My experience is similar to yours. I do Access development and just recently had to use FileMaker Pro 5.0 in a Mac office environment and found it to be quite different. Many people swear by FileMaker but I found the lack of the VBA environment and the use of canned 'script' elements rather than queries quite limiting. I'll be interested to see other peoples comments. I would also suggest looking at some related web sites like filemakerpro.com; digfm.org; databasepros.com; fmforums.com; layoutmode.com, etc. and maybe also look at some development books to see what you are getting into.

 

[hoggbottom59]

Cheers, looking at related articles it appears that Filemaker is very good for simple databases but not when it comes to automating, checking numbers and entry, etc.

Leon.

 

[ImStevenB]

Actually, I would disagree.

I use Filemaker for workflow control at a printing company. My solution consists of 33 databases covering everything from Sales Contact Management to Estimates to Job Ticket Creation to Reporting and Logs to Final Invoicing and integration with an accounting package.

This solution uses two (2) external plug-ins - otherwise I have programmed the rest of the solution.

If you look at the features of Filemaker 6 - you will find a lot of enhancements over the previous versions.

Filemaker can be used on a Mac and a PC. There is minimal differences in scripting commands between the two and you can allow for the differnet OS's with a few lines of code.

I saw the nobody that uses FM actually answered your post - so hopefully you now have opinions from both sides of the matter.

If you have any further questions - let me know.

HTH
Im Steven B

http://www.myarcadia.net

 

[Schlogg]

I work in both MS Access and FileMaker. FMP beats Access hands down for ease of use and development speed.
In many years in the IT industry I have used many, many programming languages. VBA is one of the worst.
The problem with FMP's script language is that it looks simple and simplistic. It is both simple and powerful but takes a bit of getting used to before you can really get it to hum. Cheers,
Paul J.