Browser Navigation for FileMaker Solutions

Overview

Everyone uses a web browser these days and is familiar with the concept of back and forward buttons. I needed a fast way to add this type of navigation to existing database solutions irrespective of the existing methods of navigation.

BrowserNav adds web browser like layout navigation history and requires a single script, one custom function (Optional) and back and forward buttons. Once the script and custom function have been added to your file, just paste the back and forward buttons onto each layout you wish to include in the navigation history and you’re done. This module has been designed to be really easy to retrofit to existing solutions; deciding where to put the buttons on your layouts will probably be the most difficult part of the implementation!

There are now four versions:

• BrowserNav 9.0 (June 2026) incorporates the following changes:
  1. New option to include Save/Restore FoundSet in the navigation history for FileMaker Pro 2025 (v22) and newer
• BrowserNav 8.2 (June 2025) incorporates the following changes:
  1. New option to include Slide and Tab panels in the navigation history
  2. New option to limit the size of the navigation history
  3. New option to only support Backward navigation history
• BrowserNav 7 for FileMaker 16 and above (August 2018) incorporates the following changes:
  1. Rewritten to use the new native JSON functions BrowserNav now uses only a single global variable.
  2. The actual navigation now uses Layout ID rather than Layout Name or Number to avoid issues when multiple layouts have the same name or the order of layouts is changed.
  3. Additional error trapping has been added to handle the case where a Layout is deleted after being added to the navigation history.
  4. Both single and multiple windows are supported, the latter with either individual or shared history.
• BrowserNav Multiple Windows obviously added support for multiple windows.
• BrowserNav Single Windows is the original version for FileMaker pre version 16

All versions now have the option to turn off the saving of layouts to the history; this gives more control when running scripted processes that may move through several layouts.

To upgrade to BrowserNav 8 for FileMaker 16 and above, just replace the contents of the custom functions: ‘BrowserNav.SaveNavHistory’ and ‘BrowserNav.Tooltip’ and the contents of the main script ‘Browser Nav (forward or backward)’.

Features

• Very easy to retrofit to existing solutions
• Works with scripted and native layout navigation
• Back and forward buttons show tooltip of destination layout
• Button arrows grey if no-where to go
• History ignores layouts with no back and forward buttons (scripts going to developer layouts for example)
• Toggle history saving with a global variable
• No duplicate entries if the layout refreshed
• Separate button and button text layout objects for easy customisation
• Central customisation of Tooltips

Dependencies

None. I encourage you to use the version with the custom functions unless you do not have access to FileMaker Pro Advanced. This allows the save history function and tooltips the be easily modified in one place even if the solution has a large number of layouts with the navigation buttons.

License

Completely Free!