Bento - 2.0v4Personal database for Leopard users. |
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Feedback Summary:
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| Overall Rating: | Not rated (0.0) | Features: | Not rated (0.0) | Support: | Not rated (0.0) |
| Ease of Use: | Not rated (0.0) | Quality / Stability: | Not rated (0.0) | Price: | Not rated (0.0) |
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Featured Reviews
Further limitations - Version: 2.0v4, 5/6/2009 03:22AM PST
(2 of 2 users found this comment useful)
NickCollingridge
A Great Beginning 



- Version: 2.0v4, 5/5/2009 10:20AM PST
(5 of 5 users found this comment useful)
jimmy-dI really wish Bento was the solution for me, especially now that there is an iPhone version, but the lack of files and passwords are a dealbreaker. It stores all data in a package somewhere on the hard drive. Not having individual files prevents me from sharing databases with family and friends, or sharing between my desktop and laptop. Yes, I can export the data as an unformatted text file, reimport and reformat every time I want to share every database file. This however is not an ideal or easy solution. Or, you can backup all of your Bento libraries as one file and completely overwrite the second computer's Bento data. Thus, no data can easily be shared without both computers being identical. Not very practical for families or friends who need to share data, or if you have a laptop and want to copy one database to it.
Speaking with Filemaker representatives, I was told the reason Bento doesn't use files is make it easy for home users, as if the concept of files is too complicated for the average person. That and because it ties into your Home folder, would make it challenging to have files and they want to differentiate it from Filemaker. Challenging or not, files are essential.
Filemaker developers also shared hopes that the ease of use in Bento would come to Filemaker. Maybe someday we’ll all have a database that is both powerful and easy to use.
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- TOO limited
Finally 



- Version: 2.0v4, 5/5/2009 07:23AM PST
(3 of 3 users found this comment useful)
Popeye
1. Apparently no ability to style text at all. Why can't I make some fields Bold or Italic? This is SO basic it's not true! And it's not as if keeping it simple is a defence for this - it's such a basic feature that no-one could be confused by it, and it's the type of thing that you don't have to use if you don't want to.
2. No calculations - at all! For example I have the requirement to calculate the yearly rent payable from the monthly rent for a property, but Bento can't even do this. I also can't set a field to be a total of a range of records (although to be fair there is the summary function, but it is very inflexible).
Filemaker need to get the balance right between being easy-to-use (which by and large they have successfuly done) and being underpowered to be useful. At present it is the latter which characteristic which sadly predominates.