Comments on: FileMaker Goes Indie

By: John Flack

John Flack — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 19:59:07 +0000

If Bento requires MySQLlite, does the iPhone have any signs of mySQLlite?

Flack

By: Rogier

Rogier — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 02:28:29 +0000

Apple needs a light database program for “iWork” to compete with the MS “Acces”….

By: Adam

Adam — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 12:18:59 +0000

Hi,

I have just started using Bento and I Love it.

One thing i have to complain about is that when you choose the black theme, its hard to see the text in Related data fields.

I understand that you can change themes with an editor ?

Im not very cluey and dont understand how to accses it.

Can you please explain ?

Cheers.

By: leeg

leeg — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 16:33:48 +0000

@colleen: “Hopefully it will have the great label-printing options that Address Book does.”

Erm, it does…the contact information is synchronised with Address Book so you can use the label-printing options…_in_ Address Book :-)

Personally, I think this is an argument for more sync APIs in applications and more use of the Services Menu…if one application already does something particularly well, I shouldn’t wish other apps do it the same way. I should wish I could get to that thing from the other apps. So if OmniFocus lets me note that I need to write my thankyou letters, it doesn’t need great WP so I can write them…it needs to let me get to Pages. Then I need to be able to get my contacts; neither Pages nor OmniFocus needs to be good at storing contacts, they need to be good at letting me use Address Book. If I want to send a photo to my aunt of me wearing the three-armed sweater she knitted me, none of Pages, OmniFocus nor Address Book need a photo library, they need to let me use iPhoto. And so forth.

By: Kremlin

Kremlin — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 03:35:17 +0000

Good introduction to non tech db users, but how about at least offering an .xls import/export option. Non db users will use this to get an introduction and .csv is not enough. I do think that Bento should allow multi user access via the web….personal database is so “selfish” dont you think?

By: Colleen

Colleen — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 19:08:03 +0000

“Database programs are not consumer products. The will use a word processor or spreadsheet way before they will figure out what a record or a field is.”

I beg to differ. I have several cliens still chugging away with Appleworks for their Christmas card list and similar applications. I’m happy to see something less aged for them to switch to. Hopefully it will have the great label-printing options that Address Book does.

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 12:16:35 +0000

Got to be FM Mobile replacement. From http://www.filemaker.co.uk/support/fmm_eol_faq.html: “Apple has announced that an iPhone SDK will be available in February 2008. Will FileMaker be developing an iPhone solution?
Once the iPhone SDK is available to us (in February 2008) we plan to take a close look at it and evaluate our options for further support of the iPhone.

By: That One Dude

That One Dude — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 07:23:00 +0000

petermar is on to something with the iPhone theory… Notice on FileMaker’s site: they’re discontinuing sales of “FileMaker Mobile” for Palm and PocketPeeCee…

By: petermar

petermar — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 06:27:36 +0000

My first take is that Bento is iphone drive. At least the time of the release is: January, iphone opens up in Febuary.

Database programs are not consumer products. The will use a word processor or spreadsheet way before they will figure out what a record or a field is.

Data, on the other hand, is a consumer product. How nice to have it all stuffed in a pretty package, downloadable from itunes , on my iphone.

So put Bento on my iphone, give me a few templates that I think I will use, but wont, then post twenty data filled files on itunes, like “San Franciso’s Best Kept Secrets” under travel or a Spanish word lookup, or the hundred best novels, albums and movies. But the best part will be the developers finding endless almanacs that iphone users will pay .99 for.

By: delta

delta — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 21:08:09 +0000

“does Bento support connecting to databases via a LAN (that is, can several clients connect to the same database)? And can it import FileMaker databases?”

In my opinion YES. Bento connects to the Adressbook at least in my test - the addressbook was immediatley there. Meaning Bento does when the Server version is out and Bento is active mid February - sync/replicate to the Server Addressbook

No it’s not like Openbase, Frontbase - more like the older Novell Database.

Bento has nice layouts. Even the addressbook export works - there are other workarounds too of course - but Apple doesn’t deliver a proper export function.