Not a question but a comment….

[Vera Milosavich]

I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve said this, but I’m at the end of my rope with the expense of upgrading my 3-year-old version of Filemaker (which I now only need for about 30 minutes a month) to be compatible with Catalina. Plus, at that price, their perennial lack of iCloud support is inexcusable. Aside from those two big issues, I’ve been a satisfied user for at least 20 years so switching is still not an easy decision To make.

I’m also at the end of my TapForms free trial. Between Brendan and Sam, support on this forum has been fabulous — THANK YOU! — so I will be purchasing the desktop app shortly. If I can get a usable system in place within a few months ?????? (even if it’s stripped down to the least I can get by with), I will transfer my old FM data into TF and also buy the mobile app. So I hope TF stays around for a long time and continues to improve!!!

Thanks again for being so responsive to the forum. This is more important than many developers seem to realize. Sometimes it’s the deciding factor.

[Chris Medeiros]

Welcome Vera.

I was also disappointed by FM for the very same reasons you have stated. My initial research for a good replacement for FM only brought me more discouragement. Then I ran across Tap Forms on a “Best Mac OS Database Apps” review type website. After trying it out for the initial trial period, I was very pleasantly surprised by the capabilities of Tap Forms. Even so, I was still a little reluctant to pull the trigger and purchase.

However, 3 months after my purchase of Tap Forms’ Mac OS and iOS versions, I have been able to build a robust solution for my business needs that works great!

I believe FM has no need for me and, now, thanks to Tap Forms, I believe I have no need for them.

[Vera Milosavich]

Thanks Chris. I knew I wasn’t the only one who felt that way, and I was also disappointed by FM’s competition — such as it is. TapForms has been the least formidable aside from it’s use of javascript.

It’s also encouraging to know you’ve had such success. I hope for the same. I had no trouble with FM’s scripting and formulas but I’m totally at a loss when it comes to javascript, and I know I’ll need that for my solution. I’m more than willing to try, but I’ll have no choice except to rely on this forum for help with that.

[Brendan]

Hi Vera and Chris,

Thanks so much for your vote of confidence for Tap Forms. I am pretty much always working on Tap Forms new features and bug fixes. I’ve been working on it since 2008. So it’s been around a long time and I never tire of it. Sure I take a day off here and there from working on it, but I always respond to customer emails and this forum every day. Often at night after my family has gone to sleep. Especially during this time when everyone is around, it’s sometimes tricky to get time to work during the day. But I’m a night owl anyway, so this works for me. I imagine I’ll still be working on Tap Forms for the next 20 or 30 years!

I’m glad that you were able to make a solution with Tap Forms that works for you.

The use of JavaScript as a scripting engine was a decision I made because JavaScript is relatively easy to learn and program, and it’s built-in to macOS and iOS. Building your own scripting engine is a massive effort that a one-person operation like myself just couldn’t possibly do in any reasonable amount of time. FileMaker would have built up their scripting engine over many many years with a big team of engineers working on it. Since Apple already provided the JavaScript Core Framework, I chose to use that. So far it has worked out very well for Tap Forms, even if there’s a bit of a learning curve for some people. The snippets that I have can really help you to learn some of the basics of what you need in Tap Forms to get going. Plus the Script Talk forum on my website can be very useful to see how other customers are writing scripts. And there are some fabulous customers and Tap Forms beta testers on that forum who really know their JavaScript stuff.

Thanks!

Brendan

[Francis]

Hi,

I too have been a FileMaker user for a long time and now have switched to Tap Forms.

Thank you! Brendan for the great support

[Vera Milosavich]

Hi Brendan,

I had no idea TF has been around for so long. I never heard of it until a few weeks ago when I started trying out alternatives. And I’m sorry if I gave the impression that you should t be using JavaScript. It wasn’t what I meant at all. I fully understand if not for JS, this would be a far more expensive program. I also know JS is everywhere, and I’ve heard it was easy to learn, but it hasn’t been so for me. That’s what I was getting at. I bought a few books about 15 years ago and tried learning but finally gave up. As close as I get to programming now is HTML, CSS, and spreadsheet formulas, and I know these aren’t programming. But I’m willing to take small bites of JS.

BTW: May I suggest you set up a separate forum board for feature requests? It might be a good way for people to let you know what they’d most like and perhaps vote on what others like. Likewise, if it’s something that already exists, it might be a good way to get the word out.

Thanks again!

[Author]

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