Provides bug fixes and compatibility updates related to importing Bento data into FileMaker Pro.

Which bug fixes? Details please?
Like in the past, Filemaker, Inc. is not very talkative. Sigh.

Let me repeat the most recent issue:
Before you migrate from Mobile Me to iCloud or otherwise turn on on iCloud,
do this:
Make sure you have Bento 4.06
Launch it.
Quit Bento.

After that, you should be ready to surf the new Clouds.

Since Mobile Me will be available until June 30, 2012, I personally am not in a hurry to get OSX Lion and iCloud. But since there are very few issues which have been reported in the Bento forums, I have to assume that Bento is generally ready for the transition. That doesn’t mean that the problems reported here on BentoUsers are not real. But they are not the norm, but rather horrible bad luck.
Still, let’s all keep our eyes and ears open…

Bento 4.0.5 is supposed provide full Lion compatibility. You can download it through the in-app update feature (Bento Menu).

Good luck…

TS Gal, the main tech person on the Bento forum, confirmed that we have an unsolved problem. Here’s a direct quote (response to user report):
“I am able to replicate the problem (=frequent crashes) under Bento 4.0.4 and Lion, as it works properly under Bento 4.0.4 and Snow Leopard. During the time the beach ball was spinning, I ran Activity Monitor and captured a sample. I sent this file along with your data file to our Development and Testing departments for review…” So now we wait.

Simple recommendation:
If you haven’t adopted Lion yet, hold off until Bento 4.0.5 is released.

P.S.: BTW, I had failed to report that Bento 4.0.4 under Snow Leopard seems to be more stable than 4.0.3 – I don’t experience any more crashes.

With Bento 4.0.2, I had absolutely no crashes, and I worked with it extensively almost daily. But 4.0.3 quit unexpectedly several times. And the strange thing is that it quits over night, while I’m not working on it at all. That same problem existed with an earlier version of Bento, but had been fixed. Now it’s back!
There are no indications that the datafile gets corrupted, thank God. Bento always works fine after I reopen it. And I used two independent datafiles: both trigger overnight crashes, but both work fine afterwards. And Bento 4.0.3 hasn’t crashed on me while I’m working on a database. Only while I’m actually sleeping…

Sorry Bento 4.0.3, but you’re not a sleeping beauty!

I can only hope that the next update comes soon and that it will fix this problem!!

Additional observation: at least Bento has learned to bow out gracefully. When the buggy 4.0.1 version crashed it didn’t even quit. Now the program quits and the little pop-up even has a “reopen” button. Nice. Thanks, Filemaker, Inc., that you gave Bento 4.0.3 a nice funeral. It still counts as an improvement.

Today I figured out how my friend created a Column Divider image!

Here is the solution:
When you edit a theme to customize it (see my tutorial on theme creation/customizing), the plist file contains this line that I had never even noticed:
<key>columnImageScaled<⁄key>
<⁄true>
… which is very similar to this line:
<key>separatorImageScaled<⁄key>
<⁄true>
… which refers to the image of the horizontal separator you can add on a form. That image is called Separator.tif. That told me everything I needed to know…

So this is what I did to create an image for the otherwise invisible column divider, and it worked like a charm:
I opened the Separator.tif image in Preview and simply rotated it to make it vertical. Then I saved it under the name Column.tif. That was it!

After re-starting Bento the column divider became visible for that theme – like Magic!

Have fun!

You are taking great care designing a form that looks great on your particular screen – be it a 13″ Macbook or a 27″ iMac. Then, big disappointment: the printout looks horrible. Why? Because Bento automatically squeezes any screen layout into whatever paper size is selected in the print dialog, therefore often making text sizes much smaller. In most cases that kind of printout is frustrating and not usable at all!

Bento needs page guides that should fetch the current print settings. It should be possible to switch them on and off.

Dear Filemaker: Thanks for listening.

Let’s face it: The Bento List Fields are pretty ugly, but they are even uglier with scroll bars. Whenever possible I am trying to avoid them.

The Simple List field contains a bug (or to put it nicely: an oversight) that makes avoiding horizontal scroll bars very hard:
The rightmost column is always called “new column.” It’s very unsightly because it’s like constantly displaying the edit-mode. Even though you can re-size it like the other columns (making the words disappear), Bento does not remember the new column size! It always expands back to the full size if you click on a different form and then go back. Only the sizes of the active columns are remembered.
This also falls into the category “Unexpected Results,” because first Bento let’s us resize the column, then later just ignores that action and reverses it!
Dear Filemaker: please fix this or at least tell us that you won’t. If you never address these valid concerns you are giving us the impression that you simply don’t care. Bento is branded as a database designer’s dream. Unsightly problems like these spell trouble in paradise!

Another Simple List field bug – same Category: unexpected results.
You can copy data and paste them into a Simple List field. But even though the Simple List field looks and feels exactly like Bento’s Table View, it acts differently all of a sudden:
You can not paste into multiple columns, and first you have to create the correct number of empty cells before you can paste anything!
In Table View on the other hand, you can simply click into the last row (the one with the “+”) and paste muliple columns!
Dear Filemaker: please fix this. Thanks.

Next issue – Category: missing basic feature.
For a while now, Smart Collections can also be used as Related Data fields which is very useful. But they still won’t be filled automatically with records to match the functionality of the Smart Collections. This feature is so logical that I really don’t understand that it hasn’t been implemented yet.

Finally, I really wish the option of creating a one-line Related Data field would be re-implemented, therefore eliminating the need for an ugly List field in many situations.
Dear Filemaker: why did you not reconsider this yet? The initial design of this feature had so much promise, and many users had requested it.

There are a few things I have learned to live with, and I’m pretty sure that they will never change:
I know that you will never guarantee that they will even be another new version of the program.
I know that you will never tell us in advance what new features/refinements are considered or in the works.
I know that you will never add certain advanced features, so not to compete with your own Filemaker Pro (i.e. scripting).
(I’ll add more items to this list as I think of them)

More importantly though, there are a few things that you could communicate to us, the users:
Could you please give us a complete list of advanced features that will never be added to Bento? We can take it
(Similar request) Could you please tell us occasionally which user request will never be added? (That one’s important: users requested simple features since Bento 1: will they ever come?)
Could you please include a list of ALL new features/improvements in a new release/upgrade/update? (i.e. I found out that you reduced the minimum size of the Spacer, which is a great help in form design)
Could you please include a list of ALL fixes of reported and/or acknowledged bugs? (i.e. I found out that Bento 4 fixed this bug in forms: now all elements in a duplicated form are independent)
(my brain’s tired; again, I will add to this list as needed)

Summary:
I strongly believe that any effort on your part to increase communication with your users will benefit everyone involved.
As it is now, we, the Bento users, feel a little abandoned between new releases. The Forums are helpful, but they don’t really address any of the items in my lists without a lot of lucky coaxing.
Still, the great TS people at the forums could be the middle-men for items on my lists.
Another middle-man could be the Bento e-newletter.

Thanks for listening quietly.

Sincerely,

Florian Keller
Daily Bento User/Tester/Evaluator/Teacher

So today I would publicly like to offer my bilingual iChat services (English or German). If you’re stuck with Bento or any project, just leave a comment here and I’ll email you to set up an online meeting.

Patrick, one of our BentoUsers contributor had told me yesterday about the world-wide Bento 4 crashes which were piling up in the forums, so it was only a matter of time until it reached me as well. Now it did.

Two things would be real nice: to fix the actual crash routine which never worked correctly; at least bow out gracefully, Bento 4! Second, a faster fix than with Bento 3. Good luck, Filemaker, Inc.

First I’m giving you a list of the new features, in three categories: main feature, smaller features/improvements, and convenience features.

Sorry to burst your bubble right away, but when it comes down to it, there is really only one main feature:
Comprehensive and flexible Label Printing: you can print any kind of label (countless Avery and Dymo label sizes provided; custom sizes), from any Bento library, with images, custom text, and any font/styling/size.

Smaller features/improvements:
One new interesting field type: Location field (pin-points and maps your current location, or you set it). Note: using the Location field on the iPhone requires Bento 4 for Mac for initial syncing.
Simple List field now accepts many field types (previously just text)
Export data with templates (previously template and data files were separate)
Improved form printing (two new clean templates, hide field labels and borders)
iCal Tasks support (iPad & iPhone)
Integrated voice memos
(iPad & iPhone – can then be synced back to Bento 4 for Mac)

Convenience features:
Directly post templates to Bento Template Exchange
(Bento even creates a screenshot)
Locking/unlocking forms (to prevent accidental editing)
Four new handy date searching options (Is today, not, before, and after today)
Auto-create media fields and file lists (by dragging files onto a form)
Auto-create first record in newly created library
Auto-add newly created fields to form

Double-click to move from tables to forms
Six additional languages for iPhone/iPad
Improved overall performance (speed boost)

That’s it!

Features still sorely missed (please add your own in the comments):
Report creation of any kind
More options for Calculation field, especially IF – THEN
Styling of fonts (this should have been part of Bento 1!!)
Single-line related data (briefly appeared in Bento 3 beta version)

Reviewer’s comments:
I only got the Bento 4 review-copy yesterday, so I couldn’t do extensive testing, but I noticed one little important fix: “Check spelling while typing” now finally works as expected for the first time! I also noticed that when you quit Bento it says “saving database changes.” This seems to be another fix, because Bento 3 only completely updated the database file the next time you launched Bento. What would be nice is a “revert to saved” File Menu item, so you can undo extensive “playing around.”
Bento 4 was not able to set my location for some reason (all preferences were set correctly), so I couldn’t play with the new Location field. But I’m mostly using a desktop computer now, and the Location field makes more sense for laptops and iPhones/iPads anyway. It’s potentially a fun and very useful feature.
I’m scared of the new feature “include data with templates” on export. I still have to do extensive testing on that. The problem is Related Libraries. First I’ll test if they fixed the iCal and Address Book mess of the past (as I reported earlier), and I can’t imagine what exactly will happen if you include your iPhoto library as related data; we’ll see.

The label printing has been requested by many users and it’s a jewel. You can include up to five lines of text/fields and any image on your computer. Besides address labels, you can make any kind of label imaginable, like inventory tags, name tags, invitations, you name it. The feature is also fun to use and very intuitive.
I always liked the Simple List field, introduced in Bento 3. I’m using it a lot. And now it’s really useful, with all the different field options.

My bottom line: it’s not a sensational upgrade, but if you can put your anger aside that your own feature requests have not been granted (again), and you can find two or three of the new features really useful, you will take the (discounted) plunge. For new users, it’s always a good point in time to give Bento a whirl, especially since everyone has a free 30-day trial!