01Lesson + practice
The building blocks
Recognize tables, records, fields and layouts.
You’ll finish with: Explain a contact list and complete a five-minute planning activity.
15–20 min · Practice + review quiz
Read lesson 1 ↗FILESOFT ACADEMY / FILEMAKER BEGINNER
Your first app starts
with a few clear ideas.
A six-lesson foundation series. Start with the basics, then build a small contact-and-notes app one useful step at a time.
Start the first lesson ↗THE FIRST MILESTONE
A contact book you understand.
By the end of this series, you should be able to create a simple file, enter and find records, design a layout, run a small script and connect contacts to their notes.
This is the foundation of a beginner course. Hosting, deployment, advanced scripting and production security need further lessons; this project is a learning file.
SIX SMALL STEPS
The course outline.
02Lesson + practice
Create your first contact file
Create a file, define fields and enter fictional contacts.
You’ll finish with: A working contact file with sensible field types and a stable contact ID.
25–35 min · Practice + review quiz
Read lesson 2 ↗03Lesson + practice
Make a layout people can use
Arrange fields and labels, set tab order and distinguish Browse and Layout modes.
You’ll finish with: A clear contact-entry layout, using a built-in FileMaker theme.
25–35 min · Practice + review quiz
Read lesson 3 ↗04Lesson + practice
Find the records you need
Use Find mode, understand the found set, sort and show all records.
You’ll finish with: Find a group of contacts without mistaking it for the whole table.
20–30 min · Practice + review quiz
Read lesson 4 ↗05Lesson + practice
Make a button do something
Create and attach a short script; understand its steps.
You’ll finish with: A button that creates a new contact and takes you to its entry layout.
25–35 min · Practice + review quiz
Read lesson 5 ↗06Lesson + practice
Connect contacts and notes
Understand one-to-many relationships, IDs and a related-record portal.
You’ll finish with: Add multiple conversation notes to a contact, then review the finished app.
35–45 min · Practice + review quiz
Read lesson 6 ↗A repeatable lesson format.
Each lesson has a clear goal, a worked example, a practice task and a short quiz with an explanation for every answer. Lessons 2–6 include native screenshots and downloadable FileMaker practice files.