navarre.aiClarisTalk AI · the FileMaker AI podcast
Chat with Wesley Powell at EnageU in Malmö
Wesley is the director of Product Engineering, and we talked about some upcoming features in Claris Studio and the new custom layout tools.
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Transcript
Transcribed by machine (whisper, large model), 1,452 words. Names and product terms are sometimes misheard; the audio is the record.
Claris Talk AI. Welcome to Claris Talk AI. I am Matt Navar at the EngageU FileMaker conference in Malmö, Sweden. I recorded several short interviews, and please enjoy this one. I'm here with Wesley Powell, the Director of Software Engineering at Claris. We just got a really awesome panel discussion that you were the first to talk about. So you talked about it on the keynote yesterday, and then today, and it's really exciting. I'm really excited about the concept of Studio extending an existing FileMaker solution, being able to take your FileMaker data, being able to solve for use cases where you can allow external users or a dynamic load and concurrency in a way that was impossible.
And the super exciting thing that we got to see is this custom view. It's kind of a couple of different layers: the grouping feature, the ability to mix data from different tables on the same page, and some code, and to be able to choose where the table is, but really, really, it's been built-in. That's completely new, and it's just a new path for us. Correct, and yeah, we're really excited about those features, because it's going to unlock new capabilities, that I don't think we've talked about in the Claris platform before. For example, the idea of being able to have a view and being able to represent multiple data sets uniquely and independently, but also be able to program custom business logic to present this data to users in a capacity that wasn't available in a web-native application until now.
Yeah, and then also that we haven't seen a demo of it, because Studio is connected to Claris, connected to, you know, Claris. Yes, we're very excited about that. Now, through the Studio connector, you can register for triggers, so when a record update happens within Studio, you can send that same update to FileMaker or another third party. Similarly, you can write data in Studio through the Studio connector in a way that opens up a lot more opportunities and integration points that weren't accessible, yeah. Yeah, so I mean, well, Javier's like, he was on the panel, and he was talking about how he had been impacted. Yes. And now, it's been quite smooth with all that.
Yeah. Yeah, so I mean, well, Javier's like, he was on the panel, and he was talking about how he had been impacted. Yes. And now, it's been quite smooth with all that. Yeah, so I mean, well, Javier's like, he was on the panel, and he was talking about how he had been impacted. Yeah, the idea, like, that the record gets stored in Studio. But Studio and FileMaker, it's always been nice to have an open-end FileMaker and actually see that Studio is same old. Yes. So you can directly interact with the FileMaker script and, like, look for a record and do some stuff. But having it reached out, I think, is pretty cool. Yeah, it really brings the Claris platform together in the way that you can share the data between FileMaker and Studio, and being able to leverage the data capture capabilities of Studio and Scala and bring it into your FileMakers, and then take advantage of the FileMaker documentation and scripting capabilities.
Yeah. Yeah. Including the AIS stuff. Including the AIS stuff. Yeah, yeah, and quickly group them up. Yeah, we have Joe directly on the call. Yeah. And then see that information back to the studio. Totally. You talked about a couple of things on the team. There's sort of more... You talked about a whole bunch of amazing stuff. Some of them are really exciting. Yeah. Okay. Some of them are a lot more exciting. Yeah, there are a lot of them more... Well, I guess I can bring them on to the mic. Okay. You come in first. You're welcome. So can you just say what the Claris AD opens to people? Yes. So the goal of Claris AD is one identity about the platform. And part of that North Star is that developers will be able to bring third-party identity providers to the Claris platform.
So they're not locked in to a third specific implementation. It's there for you if you choose to use it. But you'll be able to expand their solution to take advantage of, like, signing with Apple, signing with Google, and other providers that your business needs. Yeah, that's a huge thing. Yeah, we're excited. Another one on my topic. Okay. The change here, the connection from PrimeMaker to the data table, which right now is... Kind of slow. Yes. I made my pun, please. Yeah, we are improving that communication pipeline. We first built it for the purpose of anonymous form collection. So that pipeline was first built with the idea that it would support single record updates, single records being added.
But as the capabilities of Studio and the platform have grown, there's a lot more operations, a lot more data being generated by Studio. So we're revisiting and renewing that data pipeline. So the pipeline between FileMaker and Studio will be taking advantage of the latest and greatest API developments. Coincidentally, it's also with the Studio connector that takes advantage of the next-gen performance. Yeah, you mentioned that as well, right? Like, Studio and Connect are actually trying a lot of the same stuff back-end. So probably . Yes. So now we're bringing FileMaker into that as well, so we'll be unified across the platform. And, like, for part of this, I guess for part of my first question.
So you're importing a bunch of records into Studio, and that'll be really fast. Renewing a very large table will be really fast, and that's going to be helpful. Separate import a little bit. Import's a different beast, so I would put that third on the list. Currently, importing records like DSDFB and Studio take place on the client side. So there's a little slowdown in the processing and the amount of records that I manage. I don't think that's really part of it for what you just talked about, frankly. No, there's more of it. It's still really more form. You can't just enter the entire thing. And really extending the FileMaker solution by providing these capabilities.
That's uploading a file. Yeah. And then having FileMaker, like, process that file and give it a recognition. Yes. Yes. What's on your top list? Boy, that's hard to narrow down. You covered some big ones. I love custom view. I love frames. I love the idea of subviews. The idea of being able to create a view that can have hot-swappable subviews so I don't have to redo my entire view based on a header change or button navigation. All that is self-contained. And I can control the business logic and the navigation and the rules that my application needs to have. And reusable components? Reusable components. And actually put, like, a header in some multiple pages? Yes.
Yeah. Yes. Everybody's saying, "Why can't we have that in FileMaker?" Totally. Yeah. Make the change once it applies everywhere. Yeah. We love it. Yeah. Yeah. What else is on your list? Tell me about some of the jobs. What is that open to now? So part of Studio's customization comes with kind of calculations. The calculations and the availability in Studio is powered by JavaScript and will take some of the syntax of JavaScript. So if you're used to those operators and some of those functions that are available to you, but there's also kind of a step back where the functions aren't exposing JavaScript and all of its complexity. It will look familiar if you know JavaScript, but you don't have to know JavaScript to be successful.
What we're really describing is a functional programming language, not too different from a FileMaker calculation, but the ability to query data, sort data, manipulate data in a way that's a single function, makes a parameter, to make it easy to use, but really powerful, which I think is the ethos of the Cloud Platform. Yeah. Definitely. Well, you're going to share that online. Yeah. Well, I would recommend to everybody who's watching to watch the Odyssey's talk from today. Yes. So you're looking at it. Yes. He gave such an awesome demo of the new features. Yeah. Highly recommended. Like how much you can do, which has always been one of the fun things about FileMaker, but you can do like way more in Studio and help more than I ever would have seen.
Yeah. Love it. Thanks so much for your time. Absolutely, Matt. Appreciate it.