• Most users on Windows that I know, run their applications maximized.
• OS X users tend to have their windows open as large as they need to be to see the content, but no larger.

OS X is the more forgiving of the two for a Filemaker developer. Usually you just open the window and adjust to fit the content, and you’re done. You’re not likely to need to adjust the window again (unless you have large differences in layout content size). If you don’t maximize, Windows users aren’t likely to enjoy or understand the extra grey space in the gap between the Filemaker application window and the database document. When the user decide to maximize on their own it causes problems. If you haven’t accounted for this possibility when building your app, the user is going to become annoyed when new windows are launched and undo their maximization over and over.

The alternative is to maximize the window and assume they will always be maximized. When opening new windows that are not maximized, the main interface window is restored to whatever size it was before being maximized. When closing your pop-up window you (the developer) have to re-maximize or restore the previous window size. Even though it’s the logical way to deal with the problem, it looks sloppy. Especially when compared to the way things work on OS X, where there is no layout adjustment needed for a pop-up window.

There’s another option that you may not have thought of. I didn’t think of it either until recently. I had the need to run an install on timer script to open a window and grab some data periodically in the background. As soon as I opened the solution in Windows the problem became very apparent. Whenever the script runs, the window un-maximized. I could always add a step to re-maximize, but again; inelegant. What I decided to do was to fake maximize the window when the file opened. I’d keep the window un-maximised , but fill as much of the Filemaker application window as possible, using the Get ( WindowDesktopHeight ) and Get ( WindowDesktopWidth ) functions. This will tell you how big to make the window. I’ve found that subtracting 4 pixels on each dimension will make the window size just right.
Fake Maximizing a window in Filemaker
Now, no matter whether the user has the Filemaker application maximized, or only taking up part of the screen, the internal document window will be adjusted to fit just within the bounds. This makes the windowing more consistent cross platform. Users who habitually maximize probably won’t feel the need to since the window will be taking up all available screen real estate (less the extra space needed for the document title bar). Enjoy. WindowsMaximizeFakeout Demo

Essentially it pulls content from the Adobe Kuler online community into the Mac system-wide color picker, making the color themes available in ANY Mac app that uses the system color picker (Which FileMaker does).

Once you’ve installed it, you can select any color theme and either view it online, or add it as a new Apple Color List.

If you add it as a color list, then you’ll have a new Color List in your dropdown menu in your Palette tab, and can start playing around. Download it now, and have fun!