Now that you understand the basic components of a FileMaker database, it’s time to start adding your own information.
(The Mode pop-up menu is the most popular way to mode-hop, but you have plenty more options see the box on Changing Modes.) You can also glance at the Mode pop-up menu to see which mode you’re currently in. Your FileMaker window instantly switches to the new mode. Click it and choose one of the four modes. It appears near the bottom-left corner of Figure 1-1, displaying Browse mode. The Mode pop-up menu is the easiest way to change modes. Get more info on Preview Mode and Printing. It shows a one-page-at-a-time view of your data exactly as it’ll appear when printed. If you’re ever curious about how something will look when printed, switch to Preview mode. Once you’ve put all that information into your database, eventually you’ll want to print something out, like a set of mailing labels or a batch of invoices. Part Two of this book is all about Layout mode. Layout mode is where you design the screens (called layouts in FileMaker parlance) that present your database information to best advantage. In addition to using databases (viewing, finding, sorting, adding, and changing data), you can use FileMaker to build databases (in fact, that’s what most of this book is about). (For more details on finding specific records, see Finding Records.) You tell FileMaker what you’re looking for when it’s done looking, FileMaker returns you to Browse mode and shows what it found. Use Find mode to let FileMaker do the looking for you. When you have a lot of data, looking through it all for a particular bit of information can be tedious. Browse mode is the view shown in all the figures so far, and it’s where you’ll spend most of this chapter. In this mode, you add, change, and view your data. Browse mode is the one you see when you first open a database, since it’s the one you use most often.
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