Slow refresh, List view, Bravo

[PierreBn]

Hi,

I am one of those (hopefully many) people who are switching to Tapforms. I use (used?) Bento, DVDPedia and Bookpedia from Bruji, and also a few “personal DBs” in Excel.

I have purchased the Mac version for now, and so far, it looks good!

Two immediate comments:
– When I edit a form, it seems the record list is refreshing twice (I have about 300 records, each with pictures <10Kb each). This isn’t a problem, but it “looks unclean”…maybe implementing a better “refresh” process would be good, with “hourglass” cursor/notification? I would surely feel better: for now, I am afraid editing the records too quickly after changing the form could corrupt the DB (even if unfounded, this is the impression I get as a user).
– I have one DB where I’d like to see the left column, another where I’d like the list on top. I think the display setting should be form dependent.

I have read a lot about Tapforms, and have come across Brendan’s forum contributions here and on other websites. I know you don’t want to overburden the software by implementing all requested functionalities. Frankly, this balanced approach convinced me to try Tapforms: I am an “geek” myself, and I need the developer to protect me from my love of complexity ;-)

Nevertheless, a few “low priority” suggestions:
1) Allow (basic) form layout customization
(this has been mentioned, and seems to be in the pipe already)

2) Allow language selection for the interface (override OS default)
My Mac OS Lion is in Frenc, but I occasionally need to show my records to non-French speakers. I would like to be able to set Tapforms to “English”, without having to change my OS settings.

3) Publish conversion guides for switchers!
I myself had to learn to convert DVDpedia’s Sqlite DB to Excel, then to CSV, then to Tapforms. All this while trying to understand how to “import” images with the Mac version without FTP server (to keep the cover images for 300+ records). I found the way, but I don’t think many users would have gone through the numerous google searches.
Your post about importing Bento images is very welcome. But there are many other potential switchers: Pedias from Bruji, Delicious Library… Those are all great, but I decided to switch because I did not want to have many DB management tools. I plan to use Tapform as my “one stop software” for all my personal DB needs. For that, I am ready to abandon automatic DVD/CD info fetching from Amazon.
That’s just my own view, just in case I’m not alone ;-)

Best,
Pierre

[Brendan]

Hi Pierre,

Thanks for the great feedback.

1. Yes, I’m currently working on a form layout engine. Multiple layouts per form. Lots and lots of work left to do on it though.

2. I’ll see if there’s a way to do this on Mac. I know on the iOS version when you switch languages within the app, all you need to do is fully quit Tap Forms using the multi-tasking dock and then when you re-launch it, it will come up in the language you selected before. For now though, on the Mac, you can switch your language, launch Tap Forms, then switch your language back. So then Tap Forms will operate in one language and the OS and other apps will operate in the system language.

3. Good idea. But I’d like to spend my time on finishing up #1 before I do anything like that. Submissions from customers are welcome and will be published on my website, just like the Bento photo importer article was.

Thanks.

Brendan

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