Search Results for 'bento'

[Kjetil Håkon Pettersen]

Thank you very much for your verification!

Thanks Kjetil

BTW! TF is a much better DB to work than Fm Bento.

[David Butenhof]

This is the most recent topic I can find on importing linked forms, so I’m going to reply here. (Simple logic.)

I’ve been looking for quite a while for a Bento replacement. Actually, I was looking long before FileMaker dropped Bento. What I wanted was an iCloud sync-ed database that would work on my Mac, my iPhone, and my iPad to keep everything up to date. I never really found anything that met the basic requirements. The closest was probably the venerable old HanDBase; but it doesn’t do cloud sync (which I’d find much more convenient than local WiFi sync), and the Mac client is primitive, ugly, and despite recurring promises virtually unmaintained for years.

And then today I almost accidentally found a recommendation for TapForms.

After spending some time today playing with the Mac demo (thanks for that, by the way!) and reading the forum and documentation, I’ve come to the conclusion that you’re almost there. I think I could use TapForms as I’ve used Bento, with only a few minor inconveniences… and with many advantages (including, not least, supported software, which is always nice).

Except that moving my data from Bento to TapForms would be unacceptably complex without the sort of import infrastructure being discussed in topics like this.

I never tried to use related Bento databases, because I didn’t like the UI. I think your UI for linked forms is a little better, though perhaps still not quite perfect. But my solution in Bento, which did just what I wanted, was the “simple list”. So now, to migrate, I need a solution for simple lists.

You don’t have such a concept, and that’s fine — I’d be satisfied with your linked forms. The challenge comes in converting thousands of Bento records with simple lists into a set of TapForm linked forms — and until that can happen, I’m stuck with Bento.

I can import the Bento data in CSV form. Obviously it’d be convenient if TapForms could just read that format and create the appropriate linked tables; but I’d be happy to write some Perl or Python to massage the data into an appropriate set of separate CSV files — which of course requires that I be able to define the SQL foreign keys that link the tables.

Although that leads me to a possibly more immediate question, since a topic from several years ago seemed to suggest that you’re using sqlite underneath. How sensitive is TapForms to which aspects of database & table structure? Would it be feasible for my hypothetical Python script to tear apart Bento’s CSV export and build a set of tables directly that TapForms would transparently “adopt” as if you’d created them?

(Whether or not I get an answer, when I have some time I’ll probably poke around to find your sqlite files and look inside them to see what I can figure out; but some hints would be appreciated and could be the key to selling a Mac, iPhone, and iPad version of TapForms… because if I can get the Mac demo looking the way I’d like, I’d be ready to go “all in”.)

[ct4]

Hi – I want to make a list of events that are in my ical calendar in Tapforms. When using Bento there was a library that had all the iCal events in it. Can I do a similar thing with Tapforms? What I am trying to do is have a list of events that are either completed or not completed. So does Tapforms integrate with iCal?

Thanks

[czuch]

Hi Brendan,

Thanks for the reply.

My Forms shows you only those forms which have 1 or more record in them.

But I have a form with 2400 records in it (imported from a Bento template) which doesn’t show at all on My Forms (OS X) or iOS at all.

The iOS version’s “All Forms” list is displayed when you tap on the + button to bring up the Select a Form list.

Seen that thanks, but that only works if I want to add a record, if I want to simply browse the existing records on iOS, for a form that contains a bunch of them and is not on the My Forms group, how do I do that?

Thanks in advance!

czuch

[czuch]

Hi Brendan,

First of all, thanks for your reply.

I have indeed now used the Bento Template Importer option as described and it worked without a hitch.

So thanks for the tip and for acknowledging the issue. Perhaps you should consider naming the feature “Bento Template and record importer” since I overlooked the fact that it could import actual databases/records and not only templatess. Since my template was trivial to create on Tap Forms, I thought I didn’t need to transfer it from Bento and went on to the CSV option to transfer the records themselves.

Unrelated to that (let me know if you want me to create a new topic for this) I have a few comments after importing my database:

1) On multi-column view, the “Date Created” and “Date Modified” columns do not display the date at all (except the first few ones) although the records themselves do now contain the correct dates (verified in single column view). Instead, they are simply blank.
edit: I just found out that the records that *do* show the dates on multi-column views are the ones that have been at least *viewed* once on single-column view. Could this be a bug?

2) On multi-column view, is there a way to hide the “<Month> <Year>” separators that appear in between records when the month changes?

Thanks in advance!

czuch

[Brendan]

I just fixed this bug yesterday. It will be in the next update.

However, you’d have much better success importing the Bento template directly rather than using CSV as the intermediary format.

Thanks!

Brendan

[czuch]

Hi there,

I am trying to import a simple database from Bento using CSV as an intermediate format. Everything goes well except for the “Create Date” and “Modified Date” fields. I select the proper options and formats in the “Import Records” dialog but once the database is imported into Tap Forms, the Create and Modify Dates of all my records are set to the date (and time) at which I performed the import, and not the ones exported by Bento and that I can clearly see by editing the .csv file with a text editor.

Here’s the first 2 lines of my CSV file:

“Date Created”;”Date Modified”;palabra;definición
2011-05-19T00:29:16;2011-05-19T00:29:16;exiguo;”insuficiente, escaso”

And attached you can see a screenshot of both the import dialog options and the result of importing for the particular line of the CSV shown above.

Thanks in advance!

czuch

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[tonyt]

Hi

Is it possible to use the above to print multiple address labels per sheet? Is there someone out there who could help me if it is? Somehow I doubt it! Don’t want to spend out on a separate app, unless anyone can point me in the direction of open source / free? Have tried Avery.com and don’t like it.

Cheers

tonyt

[Robert Chadwick]

I am a former Bento user and am now going to migrate to Tap Forms. I plan to keep a number of databases in the program for Mac, iPhone & iPad … such as movies owned, books owned, home inventory, client records, etc.

Is there a maximum number of total records one can have in a database or in the total of all databases? Does having more records slow the program down? Any other information regarding how the program stores and retrieves records as related to performance would be much appreciated.

THANKS.

rOBB

[Jack Herlocker]

Brendan-

Ah! Totally obvious — once you know it’s there! :-) I’ll remember it from now on.

Great product btw! Appreciate having something to turn to after being abandoned with Bento, and *really* appreciate your migration tips.

-Jack

[Steven Horn]

I don’t know the preferred method or know what goes into various search method logic, but I would assume that “ssipp” would need to produce instances of Mississippi considering the way words are combined, truncated, camelHumped, and so on in file names, email addresses, urls, and more.

I apologize for being relatively new and naive to Tap Forms and for the expectations I bring coming into the arena. With Bento on the way out, you carry the torch.

[Jack Herlocker]

Is it possible to make a database readonly? Or more importantly, if a database is already readonly (through a process somewhat mysterious, but probably something I did when I was playing with Tap Forms after I installed it on my iPhone5), how do I unlock it? The synch works fine, so changes on the Mac and iPad come through fine, but attempting to change any field in any form on the iPhone yields no result (not even edits that do not get saved — just no attempt to make any edit at all).

Or is this an “uninstall and reinstall and synch” thing?

BTW, other than a couple quirks (this one, and a synch problem that turned out to be something I did, and was fixed thanks to a tip on found on this website) I have been very successful in transferring my Bento data to Tap Forms. Great UI, and I can now synch three iDevices!

[mrbill]

Hello Everyone- Thought I’d share the power of TapForms 2.0 layout editor.

I’m an x-Bento user and switched to Tapforms. Very very happy I’m off the restraint of Bento and on TapForms.

As an example of TapForms flexibility, I’ve enclosed a picture of an invoicing solution I built in TapForms. Not totally complete, but it only took me about an hour. Don’t think Bento could have done this as well or easily.

Thoughts, tips, advice, or ideas?

Thought it would be good to bring this discussion up so we can all learn from each other.

image enclosed

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[John Dempsey]

Hi Brendan

Are there any plans to bring the forms layout functionality to IOS?

This is about the only feature I miss from Bento.

Kind regards
John

[Steven Horn]

I use that function in Bento to show me a list of entries that meet all the criterea. When I search movies that are comedies with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Charlie Sheen, I can get very specific results.

If you can replicate that, I’d say it would be a good feature in days to come.

Thank you for your quick reply.