Filemaker TP934LL/A Bento - Macintosh
by Filemaker
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Software Reviews of Filemaker TP934LL/A Bento - Macintosh
Customer Review: Excellent, Useful and Elegant
Summary: 4 Stars
Outstanding product. Have found several uses for it. Great features and elegant interface. The only complaint would be to have greater flexibility in working with data; i.e., filters are needed.Customer Review: Good for its target market
Summary: 4 Stars
Bento is not a pro's database. If you expect the features of Filemaker or Access you'll be disappointed. But the last time I looked those programs were more than 4 times as expensive and targeted to an entirely different audience. For what it is and what it costs, Bento is pretty (expletive deleted) good. It's easy to use, easy to learn and well integrated with Address Book and iCal. With that integration it can quickly be massaged into a capable project management database. For those missing the database in Appleworks it is a definite upgrade.
I wanted a bird watching database that would include photos, recordings of songs, places, sighting dates, descriptions, related species and miscellaneous notes. I'm collecting information, not doing calculations this is a nice fit.
Within 45 minutes of installing the program I had my forms ready and was entering data. Being a designer, I went back and prettied up my forms a bit but that wasn't necessary. I went back and looked at the tutorials later and they seem pretty good. My first inclination was to build the db in MySQL and put a web front end to it but that would be a lot of work. Bento was just what the doctor ordered. Bento is a little funky in the way it does joins but is a kind of relational database. But then I didn't want to mess with SQL anyway.
I would like to see some Applescript capabilities and a bit more flexibility in printing reports. I haven't tried to integrate Bento with Automator. With no Applescript dictionary, I'm not hopeful. But scripting a database is not something I would expect the target market for this app to even think of, or if they did, they would run screaming in terror.
Looking at the negative reviews all I can think of is that people were looking for a bargain Filemaker and not considering Bento on its own merits and in light of its intended market.
Customer Review: Still trying to figure out a real-life use for Bento
Summary: 3 Stars
This is a really cool, well designed app, but I am still trying to figure out what I could use this in real-life. It is not necessarily a must have for all households or businesses, including and primarily small, home-based businesses, but will definitely increase productivity in such households or businesses.Customer Review: Bento
Summary: 4 Stars
I have been using Bento for about 3 weeks now. It rounds out the capabilities of Apple's iWorks. I was previously a user of Filemaker, but find that I don't need a program of that capability. Bento offers me enough database capability and I find it quite intuitive to use.Customer Review: Bento
Summary: 4 Stars
Good consumer level database software. Not the powerhouse that FileMaker is, but it is not intended to be. Good tutorials and it integrates well with other Mac software.