Rants, Raves and Revelations 

by Harry {doc} Babad 

An Introduction to Chuck Ross's article on  FileMaking  

As many of you know, I am a heavy but inhibited user of FileMaker Pro [FMP] and a, presently 

stuck at version 6.0v4. I have databases dealing with address lists (four of them) and collections 

(books, movies and music, Macintosh tips) as well as household associated databases in which I 

collect tax related information. [I don't do Quicken.]  

 My primary reason for not upgrading is I'm not sure I want to take the time to integrate and 

make relational, my collection of four large address books. The four databases in question 

contain addresses that are family, nuclear professional contacts, Crafts Customers, and sources of 

stuff suppliers. These were all created using different templates in which I gave key data field's 

different names (that's easy to deal with) but different functions (e.g., information contents). For 

example, one database has the City State Zip as one data fields, but in the two that followed, I 

give these items separate fields. Last but not least, for professional contacts, I added a country 

field. 

Nevertheless, I read, and on occasion review FMP related books as well as checking articles in 

the various eZines and magazine to which subscribe. I was therefore delighted, earlier this month 

to find a column in ATPM About This Particular Macintosh   

http://www.atpm.com/

 called 

How To by Chuck Ross that was entitled  FileMaking  at 

http://atpm.com/11.07/filemaking.shtml

.  Chuck's article is a tutorial on creating a simple 

database with FileMaker

 7 

to track serial numbers. The database created was relational, which 

means that Chuck tried (and succeeded) to eliminate the duplication of any data, minimizing the 

need to enter unique data into the DB more than once. 

I started reading, and despite other high priorities, I was glued to the pages till I finished reading. 

This article appeared in the July 2005 issue 11.07 of ATPM and is linked with both Chuck Ross 

and ATPM's permission. Read it  take the plunge and get relational. As Chuck noted in the 

article  If you don't already own FileMaker, you can download a demo version from the Web 

site.   

Now if Chuck could only find time to write a tutorial on how to create an FMP 7 database from a 

collection of flat file address lists created without real regard for uniformity of data fields and 

their contents. Well, when I figure out how to, perhaps I can write such a tutorial.  

doc_Babad 

  MPN, LLC 2005 macCompanion 

Page 23 

August 2005, Volume 3 Issue 8