What's new in Clip Manager 4 ?

• New fresh user interface
• Growl Support
• Clip View shows a clip in a more readable format in addition to the XML view
• Clip Info via a new Inspector Window
• Improved XML Editor
• Clip Manager Status Menu Bar Item
• Improved History
• Snippets
• Occurrence Selector floating palette
• Spotlight Search
• Custom Function conflict resolver
• Support for the new XMFN format
• Automatic conversion of older Clip Manager formats
• Set clip in Clipboard without opening the clip, using the contextual menu

Download the pre-release for Mac OS X here. Updates to the app will automatically become available via the update mechanism.

FileMaker DevCon in San Diego

myFMbutler will again have a booth at this year's conference. Those who are attending may want to drop by the booth to get a preview of Clip Manager 4.
Also, during DevCon, myFMbutler products will be offered at a 25% discount when customers use the coupon code 'DEVCON10' in the myFMbutler web store. That way you can purchase Clip Manager 3 at a discount now and get a free upgrade to version 4.

Check out the movie below or go to YouTube if you want to see it in HD.

Go to the Clip Manager product page

It fixes an issue where Clip Manager would not always open the correct text editor on Mac OS X Snow Leopard.

Download it here or select "Check for Updates" from the Clip Manager 3 menu.

Many people are already using a backup and file sharing service like Dropbox or Sugarsync.

The way this works is the following: you install Dropbox or Sugarsync on all clients where you want to access to your shared data. These clients can be Mac OS X or Windows, Linux (Dropbox only), iPhone or Android (Sugarsync only). Dropbox has a folder (by default called 'Dropbox') that is automatically synchronized across all devices. For SugarSync, this folder is callled 'Magic Briefcase'.

This is also an ideal way to share Clip Manager clips.

Just create a clips folder in your 'Dropbox' folder or your 'Magic Briefcase' and point to that folder from your Clip Manager Preferences (see image above). That's it! All your changes will now automatically propagate to all computers you have defined in your setup.

Both services also allow access via a web browser, as shown below. From the browser interface you can also get access to older versions of the same file, share a particular file or folder with someone who is not a Dropbox or Sugarsync user etc.

Here's an overview of the changes:

Windows version

Bugfixes

New

Mac OS X version

Bugfixes

New

If you have automatic update checking turned on, you can start the automatic update from within Clip Manager. Otherwise, you can download the new version from our downloads page.

The Clip History was introduced in Clip Manager 2 and allows the developer to store all FileMaker clipboard clips automatically.

Setting up Clip History
If you want to make use of Clip History, you have to enable it in the preferences. Open the “Clip Manager” preferences and select the “Clip History” tab.

To enable the Clip History, enable “Record clip history”.

Now let’s have a look at the other settings:

Record layout preview images
When this option is enabled, Clip Manager will also capture the preview of a layout. When you are copying and pasting a lot of complex layouts, you probably want to switch this option off, because it will have an impact on the performance.

Limit recordings to x clips
You can limit the number of clips that will be kept in the Clip History by entering a maximum value here.

Limit recordings to x days
Another way to limit the number of clips that will be kept in the Clip History, is to auto-remove then when they are older then a certain number of days.
Enforce limit on quit only
With this option enabled, Clip Manager will only check and remove the older clips when you are closing Clip Manager.

Vacuum clip history on quit
The ‘Vacuum on quit’ option will optimize the SQLite database for better performance.

Backup
You can setup Clip Manager, so it will automatically create a duplicate of your Clip History database. Clip Manager will only make a backup when the application is running. So if you set it up to backup the database on a daily basis and you aren’t using Clip Manager for a whole week, there will be no backups.

Scan clipboard when in background
To enhance the speed of Clip Manager, we introduced the option to disable Clip Manager to scan the clipboard when in the background.

If you want to use the Clip History, the option “Scan clipboard when in background” needs to be enabled, otherwise Clip Manager will not save anything in the clip history until you switch to Clip Manager. In that case only the current clip will be saved.

By default this option is enabled.

Exploring the Clip History
So now we are ready to use the Clip History.

Populating the Clip History
1. Open a FileMaker Database with some scripts
2. Go to Script Maker and select a script and copy it.
3. Select another script and copy it
4. Go to layout mode and select some objects and copy them.
5. Switch to Clip Manager and select the “Today” smart folder.



You will notice that Clip Manager created 3 new clips in the background



Enrich the clip
Right-click on a clip in the list and choose “Edit inline”. Now you can add a comment without opening the Clip.



Save your clip
If you want to store a clip for later usage, you can drag 'n' drop the clip to a folder.


Finding your clips
To easily find the clip you're looking for we provided some pre-defined smart folders.


Another way to find your clips in the clip history is to use the Quick Search. Note that on Windows you need to click on the search button in the toolbar.



Clip History in action
I’m using the Clip History on a daily basis, just to be able to roll back if I mess up an existing script or layout.

Example: Editing an existing script.

1. Open the script and select all script steps by using Cmd-A (or Ctrl-A on Windows).
2. Copy the script steps by using the Cmd-C (Ctrl-C) command
3. The clip will automatically be picked up by Clip Manager. You don’t need to switch to the Clip Manager application
4. Now you can edit your script. FileMaker allows you to revert the changes, if you have not saved it yet. The problem is that you can’t test your script without saving it.
5. Test the script.
6. You are noticing that you have messed up the whole script.
7. To revert your script, select all script steps and delete them.
8. Switch to Clip Manager and open the clip in the history
9. Press the “Set” button
10. Now you're ready to paste the original script back.

You'll now understand why it has become second nature for me to copy something first before making a change in FileMaker.

Working with SVN requires two pieces of software: an SVN server and an SVN Client.

For the server you can opt to install your own SVN server (http://subversion.tigris.org/) or make use of one of the online services:

• Project Hosting on Google Code
• SourceForge.net
• Beanstalk
• and several others

Now you need an SVN Client. If you are on (Snow) Leopard, you can use the built-in SVN functionality via Terminal but it's probably easier to use a commercial SVN client. We prefer Versions, which is very well documented.

Other alternatives:

• SVN Finder
• RapidSVN
• SCplugin

On Windows we can recommend TortoiseSVN.

Setting up the SVN client
In this example we will use Versions, but the steps for other clients are very similar.
We will use Matt Petrowski's Custom Functions repository: http://code.google.com/p/filemakerfunctions/
In my folder on the repository I stored some custom functions as a Clip Manager clip.

1. Open Versions and click the button "Repository"

2. Give the repository a name and fill in the location. Click create.
http://filemakerfunctions.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/vanhulle/
Note: This repository will be read only.

3. Now you can connect and see the files on the SVN server, but you cannot use them in Clip Manager, yet. First you need a “working copy” on your local disk. Create a new folder “Custom Functions Matt” in your Clip Manager clips folder.

4. To create a working copy on your local disk, select the top folder in your repository in Versions and click on Checkout.
Select the folder you have created in the Clip Manager folder.

You will now have a local copy.

Adding, editing and deleting Clips
Note: The example URL is read only, but you can also test this with your own repository.

I have opened an existing clip and noticed that the clip is stored in an old Clip Manager format. I will save the clip in the current file format. If we save the file, the file is saved locally but not yet on the SVN server, we need to submit the changes to the server.

1. Open Versions

2. Notice that the new clips have a question mark. This means that these files are unknown for SVN and need to be added to the working copy. Select the files with a question mark. Right-click and choose the option “Add”.


3. Notice that the question marks are replaced with an “add” symbol.

4. Now we want to remove the old xml files from the repository. Never delete a file from an SVN working copy in the Finder or in Clip Manager. Select the files and right-click. Choose the option “Delete”.


5. Notice that there appears a new “delete” symbol near the files.

6. Now we need to submit the changes to the SVN server. Select the top folder and click on the “Commit” button.

7. Describe what has changed.

Every time you edit or change a clip you need to commit your changes.

To retrieve updates from your buddies, you click the update button.



If you are on a local network the most obvious way to share clips is via a shared folder on your network.

Here are the steps to add a shared folder to your Clip Manager.

1. Open a network share


2. Create an alias of the folder.


3. Drag the alias to your Clip Manager folder. You can do this in the Finder or directly drop it in the Clip Manager file browser.


4. You are now ready to use your shared folder!

During FileMaker Devcon in San Francisco we received a lot of positive feedback for Clip Manager and we wish to thank all of you who were there for their valuable input. Many among you are using Clip Manager for copy-and-pasting of Custom Functions into FileMaker. Some of you admitted they would love to use Clip Manager more, but didn’t figured out yet how to get started with this.
That's why we decided to launch a new series of posts called 'Clip Manager 101'. These posts are aimed squarely at those who are new to the Clip Manager. We’ll also be sharing some tips and trick for people already familiar with Clip Manager.

If you have any suggestions, questions or a fabulous trick that you would like to share, leave us a note at info@myfmbutler.com.

This week we start off with a frequently asked question:

“I try to import a Custom Function and my functions are corrupted. The function name and parameters are missing.”

I want to paste a custom function and get the following error:
"An error occurred. I could not make FileMaker open a new Customer Function Window."

To retrieve and set custom functions, Clip Manager 3 is driving the user interface by hitting keystrokes and clicking buttons. If the computer is quite busy in the background, some of those can be missed if they follow each other too quickly.

If you are experiencing this issue, you can solve it by increasing the value of the GUI delay in the preferences.

1. Open the preferences of Clip Manager 3.
2. In the preferences window you will notice a field “GUI Delay”.
3. Increase the GUI Delay value

What's new in version 3.1.3 Mac?

Bug fixes

How to upgrade ?

1° Use the built-in updater to automatically install the latest version
2° If you are using the new demo installer, some people have reported issues when upgrading. In order to avoid any problems, please remove your current app from /Applications/myFMbutler Clip Manager/ before installing the upgrade.

The Japanese verison will be available soon, exclusively through fmgateway.jp

If you are attending DevCon, myFMbutler will again have a booth at this year's conference. You may want to drop by the booth to get a sneak peek at a future version of Clip Manager, that is currently under development.

Also, during DevCon, myFMbutler products will be offered at a 25% discount when customers use the coupon code 'DEVCON09' in the myFMbutler web store.

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