60 FileMaker Pro Advanced Development Guide
5. Clear elements that you want to exclude from the report.
By default, all elements in all selected files are reported. Each selected
element, if present, will be reported on for each selected file.
6. If you do not want the report to be published in the default HTML
format, select
XML in the Report Format section.
7. If you do not want the report to automatically open when done,
clear the checkbox for this option in the File Handling section.
8. Click Create.
Troubleshooting files with the DDR HTML output
You can use the Database Design Report to identify problem areas in
your database. For example, you can search the DDR output for the
following text to locate problems:
1 Missing Field
1 Missing Table Occurrence
1 Missing Base Table
1 Missing File Reference
1 Missing Layout
1 Missing Value List
1 Missing Custom Function
1 Missing Script
1 Missing Account
1 Missing Privilege Set
1 Missing Extended Privilege
1 Missing Custom Menu
1 Missing Custom Menu Set
Keep these points in mind:
1 If you have any inactive accounts that have a blank password, the
DDR HTML output displays a password mask “******”. In the XML
output, the emptyPassword="" node will report FALSE. To get
accurate password information from these inactive accounts, make the
accounts active and select
View Source.
1 Mac OS: To view the HTML report, use web browsers such as
Safari, Mozilla, and Firefox. Internet Explorer for Mac
OS is not
supported.
1 Mac OS: To view a DDR in XML format using the Safari web
browser, open the file in Safari, then choose
View menu > View Source.
1 The Database Design Report feature creates XML files in UTF-16
format. To view a report in this format, use a text editor or web
browser that supports UTF-16 text.
Compressing and optimizing files
Use the File Maintenance feature to improve the performance of your
database files. The
Compact File option removes free disk space from a
file, reducing the file size and streamlining data access. The
Optimize
File
option improves file access speed by moving logically related data
closer together. Both features reduce disk-head movement.
Improvements will be especially noticeable when you are using large
files and performing finds or sorts, or executing scripts that operate on
all records.
The Compact File option compresses the file by removing free space,
combining partially full disk pages and eliminating gaps in the data.
This feature is useful in reducing the size of a database file. If there is
going to be more data added to the file, you might not want to use the
Compact File feature, as it will increase the amount of fragmentation
occurring when new data is written to the database in the future. If you
do add data to a file that has been compacted, you can defragment it
with the Optimize File feature.
