Bob,
As a former Bento user, I can see that setup must have been some work to have set up and maintained. I presume you mounted the drive of the iMac host onto your individual Macs and worked on the DB from there. Downloading to the iPads is not hard, but uploading and merging any changes made on the iPad must have been fun.
I can think of several ways to get the same functionality out of TF, depending on how you use your DB and how much effort you want to put into it. One way is to simply create an iCloud account for the main DB. Login to that iCloud account to use the DB and all machines stay synced. You’d trade the pain of logging in/out for the pain of synching across multiple platforms.
Another possibility is to put the TF DB into either your or your wife’s iCloud account and then export the records to the other account. You’d be faced with a similar problem in re-merging her changes, but I presume you’ve worked that out with your Bento files.
If you want a truly automated solution, then you a probably looking at something much more expensive like FIleMaker.
Just some thoughts….
Hi Pandora,
Yes, that’s the right folder when iCloud is enabled.
So is everything ok now?
Thanks!
Brendan
Hi Pedro,
I’m not quite finished it, but it’s in beta testing at the moment. I’m also working on a Bento template importer for it.
Thanks!
Brendan
Hi Brendan, Thanks for the suggestion – however the issue is moot as I’ve been adding images manually. More to your question: I’m not sure I went to the right folder. If I recall correctly, I had not tried to add images to any of the records prior to that point in time. I was following Giacomo’s instructions and had only imported the CSV (text) part of my Bento database, so there would not have been a Photo folder auto-generated.
Since I have cloud sync enabled, there is nothing in
/Users/tod/Library/Containers/com.tapforms.mac/Data/Documents
However, all the images I’ve manually inserted are here:
/Users/tod/Library/Mobile Documents/FXLPHZS84D~com~clickspace~tapforms/Documents/Photos
Helo Brendan,
nice to hear from you. That already sounds good to me! When will Version 2 will be ready to launch? I hope it will be a good look and feel experience like other great apple applications. Your App is without compettition now, since bento was dropped.
I would like to hear from you if your version is out or even earlier if there is a way to test or purchase it previously!
Thanks, Pedro (Germany/Hamburg)
Hello Pandora,
Are you sure you went to the right place? When you set a new photo in any record, Tap Forms will auto-generate the Photos folder for you.
Can you please send me or post a screenshot of the ~/Library/Containers/com.tapforms.mac/Data/Documents folder?
Thanks,
Brendan
@Brendan: Thanks for the clarification. However, I’m about to throw in the towel. I feel so incompetent at times. I went to the /Documents folder in both locations and neither had a /Photos subfolder. I created this and copied all my images (that had been separated from their folders per the script ./bntfolderstofiles) to first the /Mobile… folder but when neither device saw those images, I copied them to the /Containers… folder. I’ve clicked the sync action on both my Mac and my iPad and the field for those images is still empty.
By throwing in the towel I mean I will copy/paste these images from the Finder into the appropriate field in my form. It will take time but certainly no more than I’ve already spent trying it out per Giacomo’s fine tutorial. Fortunately, there are only ~300 images. :-)
In the meantime, enjoy the rest of your weekend!
-Pan
Hmm as I thought then. We need to keep our separate iCloud IDs so, sadly, I need to look elsewhere. A great shame because I really like the look of Tap Forms and thought I had found my Bento replacement.
Hi,
Sorry I thought you were talking about the Mac version as you didn’t say what platform you were using in your first email. When people talk about importing a Bento export into Tap Forms, I usually infer that they’re using the Mac version.
You can certainly change field types, but only from some field types to others. For example, from Text to Note or from Number to Rating, etc.
You can also pre-set your field types in the header row of your CSV file or you can create a form in Tap Forms, set all the field types there, then import INTO that form rather than letting Tap Forms make a new form for you. You can do that by going to the Edit Form screen for your form, then tapping on the Action menu button, then tapping on “Import Records”.
If you export a form and enable the Export Field Type Tags option, you’ll see an example of the tags you can use for the header row of the CSV file.
Thanks!
Brendan
Hello Pandora,
The ~/Library/Containers/com.tapforms.mac/Data/Documents/Photos folder is where Tap Forms will look for photos when the iCloud checkbox button is turned off. When it’s turned on, it will look in the other folder.
The Cyberduck instructions were just for copying the photos to Tap Forms on the iPhone or iPad. But it’s certainly easier to just drag them to the right folder on your Mac.
If you’re using iCloud sync, then you just need to copy the photos into the iCloud Photos folder at ~/Library/Mobile Documents/FXLPHZS84D~com~clickspace~tapforms/Documents/Photos. They will automatically be sent to your other devices which are logged into the same iCloud account.
Thanks!
Brendan
I’m blind. In reading the instructions it says
copy all your images into this folder if you’re NOT using iCloud sync:
~/Library/Containers/com.tapforms.mac/Data/Documents/Photos
Can’t seem to get Cyberduck to open a connection to my iPad at 192.168.1.102 port 8080. What is the purpose of opening a cyberduck connection if all I need to do is copy the images to the
~/Library/Containers/com.tapforms.mac/Data/Documents/Photos
folder (if not using cloud sync) or to the
~/Library/Mobile Documents/FXLPHZS84D~com~clickspace~tapforms/Documents/Photos
(if using cloud sync)? It seems like an extra few steps if all I could do is copy the images directly by Finder into these two folders on my Mac.
Can I drop my images into Dropbox (a Dropbox icon shows up in the Imports window)?
If I just copy my images to ~/Library/Containers/com.tapforms.mac/Data/Documents/Photos, will the sync up with my iPad version?
Interesting ideas.
All this mention of Forklift and Cyberduck reminds me that I have Transmit that I use to upload files to a remote host and that could probably work.
@Brendan: I just looked and I don’t have a Photos folder in that location. Actually, in the /Containers folder there is no /Data folder. Does Tapforms create this while doing some setup action?
At the moment I have around six simple Bento databases which reside on an iMac. From time-to-time myself and my wife both access the databases from our individual Macs (not the host iMac) and read and edit records as required. Non of the databases are held on our individual Macs.
We also sync (or rather copy) the databases to our iPads so that we have access to reading the data when out and about. (I say copy because we only sync from the iMac to the iPads, not in the other direction, out of choice).
If we migrate to Tapforms can we have the functionality we have now with Bento?
Ideally we would love a cloud based solution (similar to the spreadsheets on Google Drive) but realise that Tapforms isn’t going to be able to do this for us.
Thanks for listening.
But it’s also easier to use the Finder if you’re using the Mac version. You can just drag the photos into the Photos folder that Tap Forms uses on the Mac (not the same as your Photos folder in your Home folder). This one’s stored in ~/Library/Containers/Data/Documents/Photos
You can use ForkLift or CyberDuck FTP clients on the Mac to transfer the image files to Tap Forms on your iPad. I used ForkLift (paid app from the Mac App Store) but CyberDuck is shareware and free to download and try.
