Jun

26

Bento 4 Delayed?

Filed Under Bento News, Editorial | 3 Comments

First of all I would like to apologize for the absence of new posts in recent months. Again, I would like to encourage any requests for specific content by you, our followers.

Otherwise, there is a lack of new developments, except for two template kits Filemaker released, the most recent one is a “survival kit” for students. In general, the template exchange is the only place with constant activity.
There is no known progress on Bento 4 to report, which is slightly disconcerting. I was really hoping on a similar schedule as last year – didn’t happen. We users are waiting for some simple features that are years overdue – notably styling of fonts. So the wait continues…

I do have one bit of positive news: I’m using Bento almost daily again, mainly to update my various tennis adventures. I added and edited lots of form elements, and I didn’t have a single crash in recent months. Filemaker didn’t eleborate ever on this, and there was no news about it in the forums – but somehow those few little updates to Bento 3 didn’t just fix bugs but also added program stability. Knock on wood…

Feb

3

Bento 3.0.3 Update Is A Hit!

Filed Under Bento News | 2 Comments

Get your Bento 3.0.3 update as soon as you can, it includes a big improvement:

Now, all iCal events with an End Date on or after 1/1/2008 will never be removed by Bento. In case you didn’t know, Bento had a four year window for events, based on the current date. Any event which was older than 2 years was automatically deleted from Bento (not from iCal). In case you had added custom information, that data was instantly gone for good, even from back-ups!

Good job, Ryan!

Dec

10

Free Bento 3.02 Update Released

Filed Under Bento News | Leave a Comment

Filemaker, Inc. finally released a bug fix update of Bento 3, you can download it here if you don’t use the automatic update feature (Bento 3 preferences):

Bento 3.02 info and download page

Only two specific fixes are listed (both had been reported here on BentoUsers.com), for the rest it just says “other user-reported issues.” It would have been very helpful to get a complete list of bug fixes, or if it would have said something like: “Bento 3 is now more stable.” The latter would be the most important fix.

Well, let’s try to be positive: this update is a step in the right direction, since it shows the willingness of the Bento team to keep testing the program and at least address SOME of the inconsistencies. I will report any specific bug fixes I might find by chance…

Nov

17

User Finds Bento 3 Easter Egg

Filed Under Bento News, Bento Tips | 7 Comments

Bento user Mark found a Bento 3 easter egg (a hidden, undocumented feature): when you hold down the Option key upon launching Bento, a dialog box pops up which lets you choose any database file, set a default file, and more.

I tried it out and it displayed some strange behavior. Luckily, I had copied the database file I tested the feature with. Bento moved the file (removing it from my back-up folder where it resided). Since I didn’t specify that file as the default database, it later automatically reverted to the previous file, and the other file was gone, I couldn’t find it anywhere! I had to move the copy back into its old location by hand. Sounds a bit dangerous and complicated, right?

I recommend to use this hidden feature with big caution! So far, the documentation never mentioned the possible use of more than one database file, even though many users are using them, including myself. This would be another reason for the release of an updated version of Bento 3 that includes a new users guide! The users guide would need to include instructions on how to create additional database files.

Nov

17

Lame Bento 3 Free Holiday Pack

Filed Under Bento News | Leave a Comment

Dutifully I’m reporting the release of the Bento 3 Holiday Pack.

It consists of two ugly themes and two templates. The templates are designed for Bento 3, the themes should work in any Bento version.

The first Holiday Pack was very nice. The Themes were also designed in a way that I found many good uses for them. This time no special fonts, a color that hurts your eyes and background pictures that tile badly… I have nothing else to say.

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