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Oct
14
Bento 2 Review
Filed Under Editorial
Around one year after FileMaker Inc. released a public beta of a new application called Bento, version 2 has been released. The new version includes a handful of significant new features and quite a few minor improvements and comes with a price tag of $50 USD because, similar to Apple’s own model of software updates, there is no discounted upgrade price. Now, if you currently don’t own a copy of Bento then my advice is simple: buy one. If you want a more detailed analysis of the overall product and help in deciding if it will suit your needs then I would suggest reading an alternative review because this one if firmly targeted towards people who have or currently use Bento version 1 and need help deciding if it is worth buying the new version.I would imagine that in addition to their own ideas and plans the Bento team at FileMaker Inc. have been overwhelmed by suggestions submitted in the official forums. People have called for a massive range of additions covering areas such as report creation, improved Calculation fields, the ability to export individual libraries, theme editing capabilities, multiple Mac synchronisation, network capabilities, a version for the iPhone and much, much more. Obviously not all of these requests can make it into the end product but some have.
The Three Big Changes
The New Table View
The new table view is much more flexible and more like a spreadsheet. You can copy and paste data into and out of the table view, there is a Fill Down facility to allow you to automatically fill fields in records with data from the rows above and you can now add new fields by simply entering text into the right-most column, no more creating fields first — just start typing or paste some data in. The new view makes working with tables much more like editing data in a spreadsheet and it is a great addition, especially for newcomers.
Changing Field Types
It is finally possible to change field types. For example, if you initially created a text field but realised that you are only storing numbers and want to change it to a numeric field you can now do this without exporting your data, creating a new field, deleting the old one and then re-importing your data. This is a massive time-saver and is a long-overdue and most welcome addition.
Improved Import and Export Options
Bento 2 includes several new import and export options, including the ability to export template versions of your libraries. You can import and export data from and to Numbers, Excel or a text file. In addition, as mentioned above, you can also export your library as a template for other people to import and use. A clever feature of this is that if your library is linked to other libraries via Related Records Lists you can choose to export them too. This is a massive improvement and it finally makes sharing libraries possible.
Unfortunately there is a down-side associated with this and it highlights a major deficiency in Bento: the inability to export related data. If your template is based on two libraries and you decide to export the data from those libraries as well, any relationships created in the Related Records List are lost and you will have to manually re-map the data. This is totally nonsensical and a major deficiency.
Medium-Sized Changes
The New Split View
The new split view allows you to see both the table view and a form view simultaneously. One of the nice features about this is that you can now see, for example, photographs in the form view whilst you scroll through the records in the table view.
The Message List Field Type
There is a new Message List field type which allows you to associate emails with records in your databases. This also includes Quick Look and View in Mail capabilities. You can also link to RSS feeds and Notes in addition to emails.
From left to right the buttons are:
- Show Mail (so you can drag email into the Message List Field)
- Remove selected mail message from the list
- Use QuickLook the view the selected mail message
- Open the selected message
- Show or hide the field you can display in the Message List Field
Smart Collections as Sources for Related Records Lists
You can now use a Smart Collection as a source for a Related Records List which is great but it is not as fully automated as I would have liked. You still need to manually select the records you want to include in the Related Records List and cannot simply have the records automatically shown.
The More Minor Changes
- Form editing is no longer done in a special ‘editing mode’.
- Some additional themes.
- The field list has been moved to the left-hand side of the application’s window, below the list of libraries, to make room for the main data display area.
- The Source List has been renamed to Libraries.
- The New Libraries dialogue is split into New Blank Library and New Library from Template sections.
- The Address Book library now includes the Picture field.
- The Related Records List control includes a Go to Related Record button (with option to return).
- Link to Google Maps/directions/etc. from the Address field in Address Book.
- Field label size can now be changed.
- A Fit to Width print option for the Table view.
- In Form View, you can now print more than one record per page.
Conclusion
Bento 2 sees some very worthwhile additions and they strengthen its position as a simple data storage and retrieval application. Whether they are enough to spend another $50 on is entirely up to you but if one of your must-have boxes has been ticked then the answer should be a yes. However I suspect that for many existing users there will be an element of frustration with this release and I hope that version 3 addresses some of the more commonly discussed shortcomings such as report generation, theme editing and synchronisation. I certainly cannot recommend that everyone rushes out to buy a copy of version 2 but I can also see that some of the new additions will make it an essential purchase for others. Perhaps more importantly however, FileMaker Inc. have made Bento more accessible to new users and hopefully now that this has been done version 3 will add some of the long-awaited enhancements and additions.
Comments
42 Responses to “Bento 2 Review”
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Hi Simon,
Is it possible in B2 to have multiple databases, one for home projects, one for work stuff for example?
Or is everything still lumped together?
David
Hi David. Unfortunately you are still tied to the one data file so I’ll point you to my Bento Database Manager which might help.
http://www.bentousers.com/20080330-bento_database_manager/
Apple does have an upgrade structure, see example: Aperture. Buy for $199 or upgrade for $99.
http://www.apple.com/aperture/
But I guess it’s only prudent to allow “Pro’s” to upgrade and stick the home user with full price on beta software. A lot of us poured time and effort into the Bento forums, feature requests, bug reports in the hopes that ‘just maybe they will release an update next week to solve the issues’ only to wake up to this news. Fifty more dollars.
It’s an exciting product, maybe even worth the full price *again* if it were bundled with iWork (like it should have been in the beginning). But not like this, never.
Could you comment on any changes/improvements to the printing capabilities? Filemaker’s website says that there are more printing options.
There are two main printing improvements. The first is that when you are printing the table view there is now a ‘Fit to Width’ option which should make it easier to print long lists of records readably. The second is that if you are printing records from a form view you can now choose to show as many records as will fit on the page rather than being restricted to just one.
They’re not very far-reaching and are certainly a long way from a report-writer but they are improvements.
Hi Simon,
First of all thank you! for the usefull information you are providing around bento! I am following your Bento Users site for a wile already and I like it.
Do you know anything about the possibility to send serial e-mails from bento 2 ? which I know was a which of many ussers in the forum?
Klaus
Hi Kalus and thank you for your kind message.
My apologies if I have mis-understood you but are you asking if it is possible to send emails to multiple recipients? If so the answer is, I’m afraid, no. You can still only send an email to a single recipient at a time from within Bento.
Thank You Simon for your answer,
Yes, that was my question!
All the best Klaus
I have tried Bento 2 but unfortunately the Bento 1 data import process to version 2 left the layout of my forms all disorganized (alignements lost, field length changed,…). Moreover I found myself not liking the direct field edition by clicking directly on its name. The field footprint on the form is far too large when compared to Bento 1, thus wasting space on the screen.
So far I am back on Bento 1
I just downloaded the trial version of Bento 2 and all of my contacts in my address book are now out of alphabetical order. Is there a way to get them back in order without sorting them manually?
Thanks,
Donna
Hi Donna. If you mean that the order has changed in Address Book itself then you can change the sort order in the General tab of the Preferences screen. In Bento, simply click on the name of the column you want to sort by in the table view.
In Bento homepage, there is a picture says “Works with iPhone & MobileMe through Address Book and iCal” and there is no link and more explaination.
Could any one advise me how Bento makes MobileMe more valuable? Thanks. Regards. //Zhang
Sure. Bento can access and use the Address Book and iCal databases so any changes you make to the standard fields (not fields you create) in the iCal Events, iCal Tasks and Address Book libraries are also made in iCal and Address Book and are synchronised to Mobile Me (if you are a subscriber) and you your iPhone or iPod. To be honest, I think it is a bit miss-leading and over-sells the functionality but it is factually correct.
Hi Simon:
A really big “thank you” for your great review. Soon after I read it I purchased it as a new user. I’ve read a lot in the forums over the past six months or so and while there are a lot of complaints and feature requests, I found a lot of good things being said as well, so I took the plunge. I’m having a great time experimenting around before I settle on how I’m eventually going to use it. Incidentally, having read your comment in answer to David (comment #2) I’ve downloaded you manager. This will hopefully let me design several Bento boxes for specific needs. I used to use FMP ages ago but the need decreased as shareware houses sold special-purpose applications for the needs I had (the “pedias” to name a few).
Looking forward to more on this blog.
-Tod
@Poder: I didn’t need to import my Bento 1 data into Bento 2 at all. My original database just opened in Bento 2 and all my layouts remained unchanged.
I also don’t know what you mean about the field footprint being too large. I did create a checkbox field and the field footprint was large on that (apparently Bento anticipating a longer text label), but you can resize the “field footprint”. But so far, all my text field footprints seem normal.
I know to each his own, but I am actually enjoying the way Bento 2 consolidates the layout process.
Another feature that hasn’t been mentioned is how one handles columns in Bento 2. Instead of selecting predefined 1-column, 2-column, or 3-column layouts, Bento 2 now has a Column Divider object.
Works much better for me. Changing the number of columns in Bento 1 had its quirks, sometimes altered layouts, and was more time consuming because you had to drag the width of columns to resize them. In Bento 2, there is no “width” to set of columns with the new Column Divider. Simpler.
As an (ex) PC user and Access Database designer, I am happy to have found this site. I have just downloaded a trial version of Bento 2. Everyone is right, this does attempt to fill a major void in the Apple repertoire. It is perfect for those who have always used Excel spreadsheets to accommodate their database needs.
I am absolutely BRAND NEW to Mac entirely and am frustrated about not being able to whip up a little access database when I need one. But then I discovered Bento. Bento 2, really does have the makings of something fabulous. I have managed to get a couple of little databases together to suit a specific purpose (will have to buy it shortly as I am still using the trial version).
As with al products, they need to be trialled before they ascertain if it will be a winner or not. I reckon this one will be a winner and I pray that Apple will build it into it’s iLife series (Like Accesss is part of Office Pro).
Apple would then be complete me thinks! In the meantime I will learn as much as I can to catch up with you all. Thanks again.
Tanya
Hi Tanya. Just a quick note to say that I always consider FileMaker Pro to be the Mac equivalent (and Windows alternative) to Access. Bento is great to a degree but it is not as feature rich or as powerful as Access or FileMaker Pro.
Tanya:
As long as you are used to using Access, check out Open Office. Their database app “Base” will be very familiar to you.
Open Office is just recently OSX native.
I still prefer Bento, although disappointed with the lack of relationships, I enjoy the simplistic beauty of it.
Hoping for a new “modern” version of Filemaker Pro to emerge that has some of Bento’s lovely features……
Sorry if I’m too far off topic -
Don’t worry Jeff, you’re certainly not off-topic and thank you for the tip.
I’m currently using the new trial version of Bento 2. It’s a fantastic application, but it falls short in that it offers NO password/encryption protection. If you read the forum on Filemaker’s website, you’ll see that people have been asking for encryption long before this latest release came out. Yes, there are ways around this and other issues, such as the single db file, but why should there be a need for work-arounds?
Do you have different Bento Data Managers for Bento 1 and Bento 2? Or just the one dated 3/30/08?
Thanks Jeff and Simon. Def not off base Jeff. I would LOVE to purchase Filemaker Pro, but the $500+ is way out of my affordability range right now. I am just downloading Open Office at the mo to have a look at that – very exciting! LOL!
Cheers
Tanya
Deborah, there is only one version and it should work fine with both the Bento 1 and Bento 2 data files.
As a former veteran Outlook user one of my habits included pasting a complete address from a website into an address window as a single block of text. Outlook would then decipher the text and populate the appropriate fields. Can Bento do this?
Hi Bruce. No, Bento cannot do this and I think that, although the technology does exist in Leopard, only Mail can decipher blocks of text like this.
“The new version includes a handful of significant new features”
Must be very small hands. I’ve had Bento 1 since if first came out and found a lot missing. Over subsequent months, many users requested pretty basic features that Bento 1 didn’t support, and in the end, with Bento 2, very, very few of the requests were implemented – to my mind, practically none. Your review is quite optimistic to say the least.
Hey Simon, any idea if Filemaker plans on fixing the lag when searching any record that is connected to address book.
The lag is so bad that their forum support guys are recommending not using the address book library as a work around to the problem.
Or do you have any recommendations on how to live with this bug.
Hi Gene. Unfortunately I don’t have any ideas about this. I’d imagine (and hope) that if the advice in the forums is not to use the Address Book library then there will at least be a fix forthcoming.
Thank you Simon,
your help is greatly valued on both this and the Bento user forum site.
Well, after a week of waiting for the beachball to stop spinning on my addressbook library and collections, I have given up on my 2.0 trial and reverted to 1.0 purchase.
I really like the potential of Bento, but as has been posted many other places, 2.0 should be an update, not an upgrade and should not feel like a step backward in so many areas.
I still believe in the promise of Bento and look forward to the next iteration.
I’m with Pierre. I’m borderline depressed at this release. I think your handful is more like a thimbleful. No customizable themes, the Mail integration is sorely lacking, no ability to send emails to multiple recipients, no encryption option, …
This application has a lot of promise and the ability to have one centralized store of all of one’s contacts is even more compelling with the advent of mobile me and the iPhone. But I’m not coughing up $50 for this. This is just weak. And it actually makes me even more irritated with FileMaker because I’ve been using that product since version 3 and I don’t understand why, given the cost of FMP, the addressbook and iCal integration in Bento can’t find their way into FMP. And for that matter, why can’t that same level of integration happen with other Apple applications like Aperture, iPhoto, etc.
All of the things I mentioned in the first paragraph are things that were requested in the public beta stage of Bento 1. While I had no illusions that they would end up in the V.1 product, I certainly expected to see at least some of them show up in V.2. The primary reason I purchased the first version was so that there would be enough momentum to get to version 2 and see some of those changes realized. I’m extremely disappointed.
Hi,
Many thanks in advance for your attention.
Updated from Bento v1 to v2.0.3 and have several extensive Libraries (and Collections within them).
In the Table (list) view, what was in alphabetical order before is now all out of order (it seems now to be sorted by the day it was created).
How is this helpful for a Database?
I have several Databases, but I’ll use one as an example.
One Database is a list of Film Reviews.
In Bento v1 it was (very helpfully) in alphabetical order.
In v2 the list in Table View is all over the place.
When I try to “sort” it by clicking the heading – Title – nothing happens (it seems locked into a list in order of the day the entry was created).
On the Menu Bar along the top of one’s computer, I see no option to Sort alphabetically. Only “Sort By Date.”
Sort by Date? (date the data was entered)
I can see this would be helpful in some instances, but it doesn’t matter one whit to me.
Same with my Address Book, etc. Which changes and is updated all the time.
Is this an unfortunate consequence of Bento v2 being more Spreadsheet friendly?
A bug?
I have looked online and through these forums, but have not found any answers.
When I added a new film review to v1, in Table View, it fell into alphabetical order automatically.
I don’t have an answer for you I’m afraid so I’d suggest posting your question in the official forums at http://forums.filemaker.com/fmbnto/ and see if you can get a response from someone who works for FileMaker Inc.
I agree with Pierre and Peter.
I will not buy this version. I bought the family
version of B1. I will not buy the family version
again. I will wait and see if B3 implements
significant changes that were left out of B2.
In my opinion there were not enough significant
changes to make B2 a new version and not an update.
I also thing Bento should be include with iWork and stay with the pricing of iWork.
I am using bento 2 have set up a membership adress list.
How do I get the E-mail adress shown in the form mode
also to be shown in table mode?
Why will it not be shown automatically in table mode?
Your advise will be higly appreciated
If you are using an Email Address List field rather than an Email Field then you can’t display it in the table. A single Email Field will display but it is not set up so that you can select it to send an email.
You may want to create a post in the official Bento forums (http://forums.filemaker.com/fmbnto/) about this so that they can at least add it as a feature request.
Thank you for your reply.I now use split view and have the the form view half just to show the Email address.
Now I can click and send the E-mails!!! and still see the other details in table view!!
This serves me fine.I understand from your reply that there is presently no option to get the real Email fields shown in table view. Very odd seems to me I will certainly contact the web page you showed.I think it is quite a missing thing.
Johannes
Does anyone know the date Bento 1 was released?
Bento 2 release date?
I am trying to figure out when Bento 3 might be out and the above info might help me to guess.
Thanks.
Mike,
as Simon states in this article from October 08, Bento 1 was released a year earlier. So add another year and Bento 3 might come out in 6 months from now…
Hi, Is there anyway to sync my Bento with my phone and ipad without standing right next to them, being on the same wireless signal, and manually syncing?
Courtney,
no, I don’t know of another way, sorry.