Claris International Inc. today announced the release of FileMaker 19, the newest version of the company’s flagship low-code development product for businesses.

It represents the Apple Inc. subsidiary’s first open platform for developers, enabling the rapid production of custom apps using JavaScript integrations, drag-and-drop add-ons, machine learning via Apple’s Core ML and more. The features, the company added, will help enterprises boost productivity without the need for highly trained coding experts.

Development and information technology teams can also connect with Claris’ global community of developers, a marketplace of add-ons and existing developer resources to collaboratively solve problems and quickly customize apps to their individual needs.

“As cost pressure grows in our rapidly changing world, companies need to innovate quickly to boost productivity and deliver for their customers,” said Claris Chief Executive Brad Freitag. “That critical agility is at the core of FileMaker 19 as we open the Claris Platform to the most popular programming language on the planet.”

Claris currently supports more than 1.3 million active users globally across small and medium businesses, startups and enterprise. As a subsidiary of Apple, the company provides easy connectivity to Apple’s products and services.

Features of FileMaker 19 include complete tooling of scripts and triggers, total security built into Claris Core, automation that connects almost any kind of web service and plug and play capability using drag-and-drop to ease code building.

Developers will also be able to access technologies such as Core ML for sentiment analysis and text recognition for chatbots or image analysis on mobile devices to enable object recognition. Mobile artificial intelligence services can also connect to Apple’s Siri to create voice-activated shortcuts.

Apps created with FileMaker 19 are cloud-native and can be launched with zero configuration and deployment.

Potential add-ons from the Claris Marketplace include Kanban boards and photo galleries that use already written JavaScript code in order to integrate new functions. Since this integration is low-code, a user can merely select the service or add-on that they want, pull it out of the marketplace and then add it to their own code with visualized drag-and-drop hooks.

FileMaker 19 itself does the rest of the work in integrating the add-on or external app and figures out the configuration to make it work with the existing app.

For more complex systems, developers have access to a large library of JavaScript coding application programming interfaces that enable them to quickly customize hooks for external services and add-ons that are not in the marketplace. Those libraries can be mixed and matched and extended with programming experience to directly enable maps, animated graphics, data visualization and many more functions.

With today’s launch, FileMaker 19 is now generally available to the public and is accessible. On-premises pricing starts at $15 per month and purchases can be made at the company’s website.

Photo: Pixabay