Display Size Usage Patterns
Statistics indicate that more than one-quarter of Web users are using monitor settings higher than the “standard” 1024×768 (source: W3Schools.com). The reality is that users now have many choices of monitor size and resolution. The aspect ratio of displays is also changing, favoring wide-screen dimensions—for both stand-alone and laptop screens. Resolutions exceeding 1600×1000 on 21″ or larger monitors are common, effectively doubling the number of pixels one can use on their screen. And 30″ displays (up to 2560×1600 resolution) are popular in the creative markets, where FileMaker has a strong presence. Naturally, you’ll want to survey your target audience to confirm their own particular usage mix and adoption patterns..

Evolving UI Design Guidelines
The current user interface wisdom is expressed well by Jakob Nielsen; here he’s describing Web design, but his observations also hold true for most desktop applications: “Optimize Web pages for 1024×768, but use a liquid layout that stretches well for any resolution, from 800×600 to 1280×1024 and higher. We know that designing for higher screen resolutions can provide a richer user experience and dramatically increases performance and usability. But keep the minimum required size to 800×600, as not all users will want an application to take over their whole screen.”

So, enough of the Why; here are the What and How:

• Auto-resize settings are assigned via the Object Info palette (brought up in Layout mode by selecting menu item View > Object Info). Clicking on an object selects it, and the object’s position, size, auto-resize options, and name (if any) will display. Multiple objects may be selected, to add or remove an auto-resize setting to them all.
• To reproduce prior version behavior, new objects have their top and left sides anchored by default.
• Tab controls and the objects they contain can each have their own auto-resize behavior. For example, a tab control could be anchored to all sides so it expands as the window does, but fields on the tab control could be centered on the tab control boundaries.
• Portals are a unique case, and FileMaker Inc. has really delivered a much-wanted capability… the power to automatically add portal rows or increase portal row height when a window grows! Objects located in portals anchor to the top and/or bottom of the row boundaries, rather than the portal’s outside boundaries. The resulting portal resize behavior depends on how the objects it contains are set.

• Objects move or resize relative to their containing boundaries–not to adjacent objects. Be aware that it’s possible to design layouts where items may overlap when resizing.
• Resizing applies to individual objects. Grouping or locking has no visual affect.
• In list view, vertical height is unaffected; resize occurs only horizontally.
• Auto-resize has no effect in Table view.

The demo file for this tip is a slightly modified version of Registration.fp7, one of the template files that comes with FileMaker Pro. Feel free to download this demo file.