Isn’t  the main window shrinking from full-screen to a smaller size while opening a modal window screen in Filemaker irritating ? Indeed it is irritating…and the experience looks very unprofessional.

The main window shrinking is indeed a known bug in Filemaker and it happens when you open a modal dialog window from the interface with the main window size “Maximized”.

Let me explain with an example ; Suppose, you have a FM application interface which is maximized to fit all corners of the screen (Either with script step – “Adjust Window(Maximize) or with script step “Move/Resize Window” in start-up script or any other ways). Now, there is a button in your application which opens up a new modal window; On this button click, if you have noticed, the new modal window opens and the main Window shrinks in the background. This is not a big functional issue but create a lot of annoyance and irritation for some customers/clients.

As this is a known and reported bug in Filemaker, any way to fix it ? Ofcourse there is a way. The way is to not use the “Maximize” option in the “Adjust Window” for full screen display. In place of it, use “Move/Resize window” script step and set the “Height” and “Width” option the script step 5-10 pixels from your desktop or monitor size and it WORKS!!! The window does not shrink anymore after this.

Example :

Move/Resize Window :
Height [Get ( WindowDesktopHeight ) - 10]
Width [Get ( WindowDesktopHeight ) - 10]

Something like this…..

Written By: Shibasis Nayak, Software Engineer, Mindfire Solutions