Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Grids, Guides, and Dynamic Guides
One of the keys to visually appealing and usable layouts is keeping things neat. A jumbled
layout detracts from the awesomeness of your scripts and calculations and generally makes
your database seem amateurish. Your tools for keeping the chaos away are grids and guides.
Figure 8-5. In this scenario, the Theme Box database has three carefully crafted themes defined to
reflect an organization's brand. Rather than recreate them for each new database, simply import
the finished themes to save many hours of customizing.
Grids
Every layout has a grid, even if you never use it. FileMaker uses the grid to ensure that the
100 point wide, 22 point tall field you placed on your layout always shows up 75 points from
the top edge and 42 points from the left—just where you placed it. You can see this for your-
self by selecting any field in Layout mode, choosing View→Inspector, and selecting the Pos-
ition tab. You'll see something like
Figure 8-6
. You can use the grid to your advantage by
turning on a couple of checkboxes near the bottom of the Inspector's Position tab. Selecting
Show Grid draws FileMaker's grid right on the background of your layout while you're in
Layout Mode. Think of it as instant graph paper. Right next to that is the “Snap to Grid”
checkbox. This provides a welcome assist to those without highly developed fine motor
skills. As you drag an object around a layout, it will automatically snap to the nearest inter-
section of grid lines. Given a set of identically sized fields, “Snap to Grid” makes it a cinch
to get them evenly aligned and spaced.
