I am new to this program so forgive me.
#1 I have transferred a database over from Bento which contains more than 4,000 Diary records. Each record has a date attached to it in the date field and an entry etc in a different field. In Bento the dates were listed as 1/3/19 but in Tap 5 they are now Jan 3, 2019. How do I get them all to be 1/3/19 again? (It’s easier for me to search for them in 1/3/19 format).
#2 How do I seach for a date but not the year. For example if I want to see what happened on January 3 each year (not just 1/3/19) how do I do a search that will show that date?
#3 Lets say I want to teach for each time my friend Zack came over. How can I search and get a list of all the entries that have the name “Zack” typed into them?
Thanks in advance for this novice.
Hi Brendan
I have a problem with Tap Forms in that when printing labels on each consecutive page the text migrates slightly upwards, so by the time I reach about page 8 or 9 it is off the labels. It’s becoming a real problem as I need to print over this number of pages on a regular basis. Any suggestions? At the moment I’m having to export everything out and use Bento to print, which somewhat defeats the object of having moved to Tap Forms.
Many thanks
Andi
Thanks for the reply Brendan. The font size changes worked but alas, bolding, italics, etc that I’ve been tweaking for some time for the sake of rapid readability are all gone now. I’ll have to start over.
As to the update, every time I open Tap Forms now, I get the Finnish Sample window and have to separately open my database. And that database has been included in the original samples window from the first time I imported from Bento a couple years ago. Is there an easy way to simply have my databases (3) open without them being included in the samples?
Sorry for the naive questions :)
Thanks for the answer.
I tried a different approach: Search für empty fields in a row and fill them with zeros. But this went wrong – and there was no undo! I investigated further and it seems there are a lot of actions which have no undo! Make mistake and you are dead.
This is horrible and not akzaptable for me, because every mistake or false entry can cost a lot of money. Its my acounting database. Every (!) action must be undoable! In Bento deleting the whole database is undoable.
Still waiting for a more stable version…
Hello MMM,
The transfer of the Calculation field type from Bento to Tap Forms is not a perfect translation. You’ll just need to edit the formulas for the Calculation fields and make them correct again.
To return a 0 for an empty number in a Calculation field, use the IFEMPTY() function.
For example:
IFEMPTY(Price; 0; Price)
What that means is if the Price field is empty, then return a 0 value, otherwise return the actual Price value.
Hope that helps!
Brendan
Hi,
as Tap Forms now includes table fields I tried another time after some years to switch over from Bento. I have one customer, project and invoice database with several thousands of entrys.
Transfer from Bento was okay, just no layout.
But:
There is a huge number of empty cost calculation fields – options not used by customers. This prevents any sum calculation in Tap Forms.
Question:
Is there a way to set empty number fields to Zero in calculations?
Impossible (and stupid) to fill them all with zeros. So in the moment still no working transfer from Bento for me.
Hi Tyson,
Perhaps I need to either move it to the Edit menu or add a copy of it to the Edit menu so as not to alarm people who are used to seeing it under the Records menu.
By the way, Bento had “Advanced Find…” under their Records menu, so that’s why I put mine there too. A ton of my customers are Bento refugees, so I did what I could to make them more comfortable in using Tap Forms.
Hi again
When using the format from the web site it worked perfectly so thanks.
One other query, in one of my databases, to get round Bento’s 5 star rating issue, I used a simple text field for rating and input what I needed as stars and 1/2 if I wanted. So if something was 3.5 stars I would enter ***1/2. Would the script work on that and if it did, could I then change it to a proper ratings field? I’m guessing it won’t because a * is not an integer in this context.
Also, is there an undo for this script or would I need to recover from backup if it went wrong. I have about 420 records in this database so could enter them in a new field manually if necessary but if the script would work, that would be great.
Many thanks
Hello
My databases were imported from Bento. I have a rating field in most of my forms which are all 0-5 stars, because that is what Bento provided. I would like to make them 0-10 stars which I can do in Tap Forms but this means changing all the existing values: I have thousands of records.
Is there a way to automatically double the ratings value in all records please? I have looked at scripts and at this forum but can’t find anything obvious that would do it. The closest I could manage was to make a new calculation field that takes the existing rating and doubles it. However, this does not allow me to enter data directly so it would not enable me to have a rating of say 7 because I can’t enter 3.5 in the original.
Many thanks
Andy
Hi Brendan,
as a creative professional, I have a love-hate relationship with the ‘boring stuff’ that keeps my business running, that includes keeping databases up to date.
I turned to Tap Forms when Bento was discontinued by Apple and I just recently realised what a good decision that was. I’ve been organising participants that are to appear in my next search-and-find children’s book that it due out in the Spring of 2019 and I love the flexibility of building (and styling) the templates.
One of the most important features for me is the picture files, where I add the photos of the participants, but also the flexibility of adding letterheads so that I can generate invoices and delivery notices, as well as labels for envelopes has undoubtedly saved me hours of work. (Some of the people that are going to be illustrated in the book have ordered portraits – I only realised after the file was almost filled in with client data that I needed to figure out the tax owed – and even that was no problem to handle).
So, once again, THANK YOU! You have created a very useful program that I actually like to use.
Kind regards
Kimberley
I’m guessing the Note Field was not designed to be used for data import and was meant to be typed into. But if I use a simple text field I’m limited to viewing text in a fixed box size. There is no scrolling effect. I’m looking to scroll through long text that would otherwise be hidden below the set text box size. If I must use a text field to keep text formatting stable on import, I understand.
I have a future request for Tap Forms then. I would like to see all text fields allow scrolling. The text fields in Bento allowed scroll bars for long text so using a text field was not as limited as it is in Tap Forms. I’m a former Filemaker/Bento user. Sorry.
Regards, :D
Ugh. I don’t know why that is happening. It happened to 2 other emails too. I just replied to your email and sent you the exported Bento template files.
Sorry for the trouble.
Just want to say thank you for tap forms and Steven, I feel your pain. I used bento for my pantry manager. And I was able to move it over a year or 2 ago. It’s unfortunate that apple hasn’t enabled more interations with the contacts data. The built in contacts app hasn’t changed in 10 years. I just cleaned up my contacts 3 days ago, so I’m still grumpy about all the “should be”s around this issue.
Thanks very much, Brendan. In the manual, there are a lot of forms shown under “All Forms”. Is there perhaps a place online where you can find more “sample forms”? Bento used to have lots of libraries you could download and use.
Much appreciated.
Kathy
Hi Graham,
Right-click on the .bentoTemplate file and select “Show Package Contents”.
Navigate into the folder hierarchy and find the Template.xml file.
Tap Forms also usually tells you which line number the error was on. It’s a helpful hint at where in the file the problem lies.
You can still email me the .bentoTemplate file and I’ll look into it for you.
Or if you want to just email me the Template.xml file and a screenshot of the Tap Forms error, then I may be able to figure it out. Although I wouldn’t be able to test the import to see if I fixed it without the full .bentoTemplate file.
Thanks,
Brendan
