Itâ€™s aimed at anyone who wants to build their own robust, cross-platform applications. The product/platform is increasingly being called Claris FileMaker (â€œAdvancedâ€ has gone, although the filenameâ€™s extension is still â€œ.fmp12â€). And there are significant new features as well. Yes, its core engine remains a highly-sophisticated RDBMS. But FileMaker 19 should be seen as Clarisâ€™s first open platform for software development. Has it been a while since you thought about FileMaker? Do you still think of it as database software (albeit extremely powerful)? If you havenâ€™t kept up with the extent to which FileMakerâ€™s market penetration and user base have grown – to more than a million, then do take a look at this pageâ€¦ you may be in for some surprises. Older Mac users will remember and love Claris as the company which brought us ClarisWorks and on which the current Apple Mail application was based.

Not long after that review, FileMaker Inc changed its name (back) to the venerable Claris. Filemaker, the product which began life as a database, had already (version 17) been â€œrecastâ€ as a platform for application development. MyMac last reviewed FileMaker Pro (version 18) a year ago.

Filemaker 18 mac