I finally got the chance to download and have a first look at Bento 2, the second incarnation of what could be called “FileMaker Light”. Since the initial version Bento is not that “fresh” any more, I won’t go into full detail of Bento’s main features and rather limit this review to what’s new in Bento 2.
New Features
Below are some of the top 10 new features of Bento 2 which we are going to look at in more detail (click on any feature to jump to the respective section of the review):
- Apple Mail integration
- More Spreadsheet-like Behavior
- Direct Numbers and Excel Support
- Import and Export Tab-Delimited Files
- Template Import and Export
- Split View
- Faster Form Customization
Apple Mail Integration
In Bento 2 you can link emails, notes and RSS messages to a database record. The way you do this is by simply dragging the items you want to link from Mail into the appropriate field in a Bento form. From there, you can quickly view messages with QuickLook, or you can hit the reply button, which will open a reply email in Mail. This feature, along with the capability of linking to iCal tasks and events, gives you basic CRM (customer relationship management) functionality, although being able to link items based on queries or filters, and not manually, would be desireable.
Spreadsheet-Like Behaviour
Bento lets you look at your data in form view or table view. The table view is similar to what you might know from spreadsheets, such as in Apple Numbers, or Microsoft Excel. It lets you drag around columns to reorder them. You can fill down data in rows by dragging with the mouse, too, but data is only copied, not incremented like in a real spreadsheet app. You can also tab from one column to the next, with a new column (field) being reated automatically, once you reach the edge. Easy sorting and changing of the columns’ data types is also available via the column header contextual menu. And if you set up a Bento library in table view with exactly the same columns as a spreadsheet, a simple copy and paste gets your data from, for example, Numbers into Bento.
Direct Numbers and Excel Support
As stated above, you can insert your data from Numbers or Excel simply by copying and pasting it into Bento. You can also import a complete Numbers or Excel spreadsheet by dragging the file onto a Bento library and then selecting which spreadsheet to import (if there’s more than one). You can decide which columns to import and which columns to assign to which Bento library fields. Copying and pasting works both ways, so you can export any table back into Numbers and Excel after manipulating it in Bento. You can do this either by copying and pasting a single table, or by exporting a complete library into a worksheet.
Basic column functions similar to those in Numbers and Excel are also available via the summary row. They let you apply functions such as Sum, Count, Average, Minimum and Maximum to columns. You can also filter a table by applying powerful filter criteria to columns. If you use certain filters often, you can save them as collections.
Import and Export Tab-Delimited Files
The heading says it all. You can now import from and export to CSV (comma-separated values) or tab-delimited text files.
Template Import and Export
In addition to importing and exporting text files and Excel and Numbers documents, Bento 2 can also export and import library templates. A library template is basically a library with the actual data removed. This is useful if you want to share your database design with other users of Bento.
Split View
Split View lets you view your data as a table and a form at the same time. The window is split horizontally and the upper section shows table view, while the lower part shows form view. Naturally, a large screen resolution will benefit this view mode.
Faster Form Customization
In Bento 1 you had to switch between modes to customize a form’s layout. In Bento 2 editing data and editing form layout is done in a single mode. This feature has caused a little controversy, since users of Bento 1 seem to have trouble getting used to the new mode of selecting a form element. I tried it and I really didn’t have any problems with this new feature. The best way to select a form field for changing is to click next to or on its label. You’ll know when an element is selected when three small white boxes (”handles”) appear on the right and bottom side, which enable resizing of the element.
What else?
Apart from the features above, printing options have been improved, you can jump from an address straight to a map with driving directions, you can start an iChat chat session from within Bento and you get 10 new form templates. All in all I think the new features justify the jump to version 2.
Conclusion
Since I only really took a glance at the initial version of Bento, I can’t really say how both versions compare. Bento 1 was just too basic for me to justify a closer look, much less actually using it for work. Bento 2 looks very interesting and I think I’m going to take the leap and shell out the $49 to turn my trial version into the full version.
By the way, there is no upgrade pricing. Yes, you read that right. It’s $49 for everyone, even if you paid $49 for Bento 1. Not an all too friendly upgrade policy IMHO, an upgrade price of $29 would seem fair. Anyway, it’s still a good deal, and at this price, there’s no real alternative I know of.
If you’re going to buy Bento 2 and you enjoyed this review and found it useful, please click the image below to purchase. That will earn me a couple of bucks and you won’t pay a dime more for Bento.
Click this image to purchase Bento 2 from the FileMaker.com online store:
To correctly import a tab-delimited CSV file into Numbers, rename it from .csv to .txt.
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