I get so much join in working with others. Whatever the subject, it is fully part of my DNA to share knowledge I've gained in a thoughtful and meaningful way to people who'd like to learn. Through blog posts, podcast interviews with guests, recorded videos, and now live trainings, my being and my company are here to share my experience. So I thought I would take this blog post (first one in awhile) to spell out the training and its meaning to me.

Why I do this

Sharing my experience does not come out of a 'better-than-thou' attituide. Rather, I wish to help people get through the stumbling blocks and detours of the learning faster. Sure, people can learn a skill on their own. There's plenty of material out there. When it comes to JavaScript in FileMaker (my chosen subject) there are a lot of those stumbling blocks. I've encountered them, and I hope to clear the path for others. Potholes in the path are good for learning, of course, but pitfalls where an exit is clearly marked is also good for the soul. I try to mark those exits.

The JS-in-FM training (course 1 of many)

In the past few months I have been spending a lot of each week working with others as they begin or continue their path in JavaScript for Claris FileMaker Pro. Through the JS-in-FM Community where I do Office Hours each week, livestreams, and now live trainings, the primary purpose of Integrating Magic is to help others learn JavaScript for FileMaker. This time has paid off: I'm finding joy in my work and others are learning how to use JS to provide interaction and modern ways to solve business use cases.

The goals and scope

The goal of this course is to demystify working with JavaScript in FileMaker by spending all of our time doing JavaScript for FileMaker. We don't learn all of JavaScript, and we barely talk about FileMaker. Instead, we experience the intersection between those two platforms. Starting from a place of "picking the right tool for the job" we see how JS can be that right tool and how managable that tool can be. Additionaly, during each session we explore:

JavaScript libraries
The quirkiness of the web viewer
The JS language syntax
VSCode's features
FileMaker techniques to support the JavaScript.

In all I do I want to make sure that participants come away with the realization that working with JS in FileMaker is not scary. Additionally I want to provide tools to make this work as easy as possible.

What's happening

During each training session, the participants and I review how to work with JavaScript in FileMaker.

We usually begin with a JavaScript library. Since working with JS libraries is the primary thing we will do for our clients, I feel it's vital to jump right into those. We explore the patterns of a JS library: the installation, the access, the options, and the events/methods. We get a library set up in the JS Dev Environment, set its options, and explore the unique features of the library in question.

Over the course of the 12 hours, we examine the C3 Library for charts, a date range picker library, and, a favorite of FileMaker developers, the DataTables library. I feel these three have great possibilities for FileMaker. They bring a lot of functionality to an app in a short amount of time.

We also explore the syntax of JavaScript, how VSCode works, and a bit about GIT. There's a lot in this course for sure, but I try to make it as digestable and meaningful as possible.

All throughout the sessions, I answer questions and provide feedback and support to fix bugs along the way. I'm not about to leave someone behind if they're new to this.

Always revising

The JS-in-FM training course is taking up a lot of space in my brain. As I walk the dogs each morning or drive down to Walt Disney World, I consider every part of it. Don't get me wrong, the training course I think is complete and logical, but I want to ensure that every part of it is meaningful and useful.

I've made some great changes since the very first cohort.

This course is for you

You are a Claris FileMaker developer. You are interested in providing the best solutions for your clients in terms of performance and features (or # of use cases solved). You're interested in learning something new. And finally, you've got a lot of FileMaker knowledge.

These attributes will help you be successful in this course. You'll enjoy the time and you'll learn a lot. This course is for you. Join us and be part of the next cohort.