Instant Web Publishing Guide

28 FileMaker Instant Web Publishing Guide
1 Complex or layered pictures are not rendered properly. It’s best to create composite pictures in a drawing
program, then paste the image into the FileMaker
Pro layout.
1 If your images have transparent components, use the GIF file format.
1 For forms and reports, make fields large enough to display and print the data. In the web browser, fields
do not expand when they are active and the field contents do not wrap. You can format fields to display
a scroll bar so users can view the field contents.
1 A timestamp field should not be formatted to display a drop-down calendar. The calendar and optional
calendar icon are not displayed for timestamp fields in Browse and Find modes.
1 Arrange fields formatted as a checkbox set or radio button set with the value lists displayed horizontally
for best results.
1 Radio buttons and checkboxes display as standard HTML controls. If they are getting cropped, enlarge
the fields on the FileMaker
Pro layout.
1 Buttons can display multiple lines of text if you include Return characters between the lines. Make sure
the button is large enough to accommodate the text in supported web browsers.
1 Instant Web Publishing offers limited text styles. Paragraph text styles, tab stops, and vertical alignment are
not supported. Additionally, underline, word underline and double underline are all rendered as regular
underline. Evaluate your layouts in all supported web browsers before sharing the database with others.
1 Web users can view text highlighting that is specified in the layout. However, web users cannot add or
make changes to text highlighting by using the buttons in the status area. To allow web users to highlight
text, you must include a button in the layout that executes a FileMaker
Pro script. To highlight text, you
can use the TextStyleAdd script step with the HighlightYellow style, and the TextStyleRemove script
step to remove the HighlightYellow style.
1 Instant Web Publishing does not support merge variables in layouts or find requests. If a merge variable
is specified in the layout, the name of the variable appears in Instant Web Publishing, but not the value
of the merge variable. However, Instant Web Publishing does support merge variables in find requests in
scripts.
1 If layout text is wrapping to a new line, increase the size of the text boundaries in the FileMaker Pro
layout. For example, if the text is aligned left, drag the lower right handle slightly towards the right.
1 The FileMaker Pro Title Header, Title Footer, and Summary layout parts are not supported and should be
removed from layouts used with Instant Web Publishing.
1 Dynamic subsummary parts do not appear in Instant Web Publishing.
1 To avoid cropping of movies, make sure the container field is large enough to display the movie and the
movie controls.
1 Avoid using more than one copy of the same field on a layout, regardless of whether they have the same
or different control styles. For example, don’t use a field with an edit box control style and the same field
with a drop-down list control style. Otherwise, web users must enter the exact same data in all copies of
the field to save changes or to perform a find. The same limitation applies to more than one portal or
filtered portal on the layout that refer to the same fields.
1 Conditional formatting does not appear in Instant Web Publishing.