Filemaker 13 - Hidden Labels

Remember the days when a developer wanted to make one of those fancy fields with placeholder text? Conditional formatting, 500px text tricks, etc.  Well, thanks to FileMaker 13's "Hide Object" calculation field, it is now a breeze! This method is especially useful for iPhone layouts as screen space is at a premium.

The topic was discussed some time ago in this thread on FMForums.com for earlier versions of FileMaker.

Here is an example if the solution:

Demo Field Labels

Demo file attached.  Read on...
These labels are much like those seen on Web forms.  The field label is a hint for the user to enter the data in the proper field.  First name, middle, last etc.

Here is a partially filled in form:

Form with first, last and nickname added.

And here is with a field in focus:

Field in focus - label gone

With FileMaker's new "Hide Object When" calculation, it is now easy to just hide the label when the field has data.

Example: Hide object when… not IsEmpty ( Field Label Demo::nameMiddle )

The same can apply to other elements on the layout.  For example when a field contains data, the letter indicators as to the data type could be displayed as shown here at the right of the field box.

The same principle applies to other elements such as navigation.  As you can see in the example above the Left and Right arrow indicators for navigating the records disappear at first or last record depending on the found set.  The sample file can be downloaded below.

Demo File FileMaker 13

EDIT: FM 14 makes this all obsolete with the new "Placeholder Text" calculation field!  So good.  There are many ways to take advantage of Filemaker's calculation engine using the "Hide when".  For example, one can set a local or global variable to display custom text or calculations.