Reviewed by Ted Bade
Filemaker’s Bento 2
$49 USD
Requirements:
Bento requires Mac OS X v10.5.4 (Leopard) A Mac computer with an Intel,
PowerPC G5, or PowerPC G4 867 MHz or faster processor; 512MB of RAM; 1GB
recommended; A CD drive is required for installation of boxed product
software.
Strengths:
Very easy to use database program, significantly improved import functions,
terrific visual layouts, ability to import or export completed templates.
Weaknesses:
Still lacks sufficient printing abilities. |
|
Previous
Reviews: Ted’s previous review or Harry’s previous review.
For a demo of this product: Visit Bento’s main page and click on the
“Try Now” link. |
Introduction
Bento 2 is the latest revision of Filemaker, Inc’s consumer
level database program. We reviewed the first version a few months ago, and
while we liked it, there were a couple of short comings that prevented us from
giving Bento top marks. As can only be hoped for in the real world, the people
working on Bento listened to us and their other customers, and made some
significant improvements to this program.
In this follow up review, I won’t go into a lot of detail on
how Bento is used. That really hasn’t changed from version 1. If you didn’t
read our previous review, I suggest you take a look at them first. Take a look
at Harry’s review, or take a look at Ted’s review.
In a nutshell, Bento is a database program. It was designed
by the people who are experts in database programs, the people who created
Filemaker Pro. However, Bento is aimed at the home and small business user
market. It doesn’t have the tremendous power of Filemaker Pro, nor doesn’t it
have the exhaustive learning curve! Perhaps more importantly for a lot of
people, the price is significantly less then Filemaker. But I should add, it is
still a pretty powerful program.
(New
feature - you can split the screen to see 2 views at once)
Here are the highlights of the update, as I see them;
Bento 2 is integrated with Apple mail. This means you can
drag email messages associated with a particular project into a special email
field. With the link to the message in Bento, you can review, forward, or reply
to the message from within Bento (it automatically runs Mail when you need it).
So instead of opening Mail, then creating a special mailbox for the project or
event, you can use Bento to keep track of various aspects of the event (names,
addresses, dates, and so forth), then include the email associated with the
project as well, making it easy to organize the event and the email associated
with it.
What if you need a map to the event you are organizing with
Bento? With Bento 2 you can easily access Google maps by clicking on a button
in the address field, this sends the information as a Google map search to
Safari. You can also use Bento to create a trip to or from the address. This
feature would be useful when inviting a group of people to an event. Use their
address information to create a customized map for each of them, and email of
snail mail this to them. Great feature!
(Lots
of options when importing a database)
Bento 2 now has the ability to import from several different
programs. You can import from Apple’s Numbers, Excel, and AppleWorks. If you
read my previous review, I mentioned that one of my main purposes for wanting
to use Bento was to be able to leave AppleWorks behind. I used AppleWorks to
maintain a few databases such as one for tracking charitable contributions and another for membership of a
computer club. I couldn’t do this import with the first version. With Bento 2,
I can now import these databases and start adding features right away. The
import process for AppleWorks is a bit odd, but it does work. All it requires
is that the AppleWorks database is saved as a text file. This puts the data in
the correct format for importing. The problem is that my version of AppleWorks
didn’t add the three letter file type designator onto the file name. All I had
to do was use the Finder to add the “.tsv” to the end of the file name and
Bento was happy to import it.
The import process is very nice. You can name each of the
fields. and see how the data of one record looks with these titles. It will
also use the data of the first record as the field names (some programs export
this information as the first field). The import window shows a three step
process. Fist you choose the file to import and tell Bento how the data in this
file is stored (comma, semicolon, or Tab separated), choose a name for the new
library (Bento will automatically select the name of the file as the name of
the new library, so it’s a good idea to name the file what you want when you
save it to save a step), and then name the fields and show the type of data
that is contained in them. Finally select import and you now have access to the
data in Bento.
Bento 2 has some improved printing features (but not enough
to satisfy me!) Say you create an inventory of teddy bears you have collected,
and what to visit each bear, perhaps to gather some information about them. In
order to make sure you don’t miss anyone, you want to bring a copy of the list
along with you. You might also want to make some notes as you go. You could
bring your MacBook along with you, but it might be easier to just take a paper
list and a clipboard. Bento 2 allows you to print a list in table form. Giving
the user to take a simple paper copy along!
(creating
a new filed in a database)
Where Bento still lacks, IMHO, is with printing labels. It
still tries to pass this task along to Apple’s Address book. While this is
terrific for people who have their entire address library in Address book, it
is of no use for people who don’t. We recently celebrated an anniversary and
decided to share our even through a party. We decided to invite 20 people to
celebrate with us. The list included friends and some family members. While the
friends are in my address book, some of the family members (my wife’s side)
were not.
We decided to use this event to see how Bento could help us
with organizing it. My wife gave me a list of the invitees, as an export from
Filemaker, which she uses to keep track of her addresses. I easily imported the
list and all the critical information she wanted to track. I then used some of
the nice features of Bento to track emails, directions, responses, and even a
reminder to send a thank you card. However, when I came to the task of printing
labels to mail the invitations or the thank you cards, I couldn’t. I guess I
could have entered the missing addresses into my address book, then created a
subset of my address book by selecting the 20 records, but I was looking for a
complete solution from my created database.
If you recall, Bento makes use of templates. The program
comes with a number of them which can be used to begin some very nice layouts.
You can also create your own. A feature new to Bento 2 is the ability to export
and more importantly import templates. Say a friend creates a template you see
that makes a lot of sense to you. She can export the template and share it with
you. As we were going to press, Filemaker Inc. released a winter holiday
template pack. Which leaves me to believe that Filemaker might release other
enhancements in the future. A great idea to add value to this program. The
holiday template pack is a free download for Bento customers. One, gives one
the ability to track the sending and receiving of holiday cards, which I
thought was really cool!
(Holiday
theme and template - cool!)
Using these templates and themes make working with the
database more then just organizing, it makes it fun. All you need to do it to
extract the data from an existing database or enter the new data. While the
appearance is not truly important, it is fun and just nice ☺.
In the first version of Bento, if you wanted to edit a
layout, you clicked on the edit button and went into the editing mode. In
version 2 by just clicking on the outside of a frame window, you are brought
into the editing mode. This can be better or worse for you depending on how you
use your Mac! I personally found it took a little getting used to.
There is a lot more to this program, so definitely take a
look at it if you are interested. For a while at least, they are offering a
free 30 trial period of Bento. So don’t take my word for it, download it and
try using it yourself. I think you will be happy!
Conclusions
Overall, I am really happy with this new revision of Bento.
It adds a lot of nice features, fixes a number of things I didn’t like in the
first version, but it still lacks what I would like for printing features. With
that said, this is the best consumer level database program I have ever used.
It makes full use of the Mac’s great graphic abilities, is very easy to work
with, and with themes and templates, it makes creating new databases easy ad a
lot of fun! It is a great move up for people who use AppleWorks for database
purposes. I highly recommend this program.
