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20 November 2008
Posted in
Office
Bento takes its inspiration from the compartmentalised containers used to serve bento lunches and dinners - everything in one place with the contents not all jumbled together, but stored in neat compartments. The marketing for Bento seems a bit confused about what it does - the material from the company that makes it (the database specialists FileMaker) calls it an "amazing personal organiser", a "stylish personal database" and is pitched at those keeping track of their lists in spreadsheets wanting extra features. Having given it a good test run, I'm pretty happy with what it is and what it does.
Ease of use
Value for money
Price approx
$ 89 NZ
Software/Hardware Requirements
Mac OS X v.10.5.4 Leopard
Intel, PowerPC G5 or PowerPC G4 (867MHz or faster) processor Mac
512MB of RAM and
1GB hard drive space recommended
Available from
Apple Store NZ and
Buyers Guide
It quickly became apparent to me what Bento is and what it isn't - it's a great tool for managing your data (including your disparate digital information on your hard drive) like a database. It's just not a database. That's not a problem - not all of us need a relational database or need to know how to programme and manage a relational database. If you're an expert in Excel or Numbers, you probably don't need Bento. If you're not an expert, then Bento will really improve what you can do with all of your digital information and I recommend it.
Installing Bento was simple, apart from the request to update it straight away with a 77 megabyte download. That aside, it's easy to use. I'm not one for reading manuals or using pre-loaded templates, so was interested to see how it would go with just launching into it with little preparation. Whenever I hit a problem, a quick glance through the manual set me right.
The first thing you notice that Bento does is sets up libraries for Address Book, iCal events and iCal tasks. For me this is the real strength of Bento - it can pull in data from most Apple applications, including media files from iPhoto or iTunes. You can set up libraries that use the information in your contacts or your calendar. If you set Bento up to edit some of the core data in these applications, the changes you make will go straight through to those apps.
So I set about doing some "personal organising" that I've been meaning to do for a while. We have a number of cook books that we've used over the years, but struggle to sometimes remember the recipes that have worked and we should try again (and conversely, the ones that haven't and we shouldn't!).
The first step is to set up a library. When you do this you're given the option of a range of templates to start off with, or you can use a blank library (which I did). After starting with the blank library you set your fields. Creating the fields was easy, with options for each type of field you create, although I did find I couldn't customise some of the fields as much as I wanted. I set up three text fields, a URL field (for any recipes found on websites), a rating field (out of five stars), a choice field, a number field and a media field.
The media field highlights the strength of Bento I mentioned earlier - the ability to link into material held in Apple programmes on your system. For example, I download the Jamie Oliver video podcasts on iTunes at the moment. I can link it to the record in Bento and play it from within Bento.
Setting up forms for data entry took a bit of getting used to, but after ten minutes was straightforward. Data can be entered directly into a table (like a spreadsheet), into a form, or you can have a view that shows you both.
To me a strength of Bento is creating a smart collection.
In my recipe collection I set up a smart collection to tell me every recipe with fish in it. And voila, it shows it to me. I can then sort it by rating or title.
Within a couple of hours of starting up Bento I'd done exactly what I'd wanted. Another little project I have is to set up a ranking list for various distance running events for a group of us in my running club. Again, it has been incredibly simple.
Bento was easy to use. The documentation was easy to understand - I didn't start off by reading it, but when I hit a problem I found the answer quickly.
I had some frustrations in setting up forms and trying to customise the fields. I have an idea of what I'd like to do with the forms in terms of design but can't do it. And the fields seem to be a bit too pre-determined for my liking. The other problem I have with them is that the auto-fill feature doesn't seem to work.
If you're not an expert with spreadsheets but want to use your information a lot better, you'll get a lot out of Bento. If you're the sort of person who can play a spreadsheet like a concert pianist plays the piano, then you'll find Bento a bit basic. Bento costs $89, but you can get a free 30 day trial download at the Filemaker Pro website.
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Darryn Lowe
said:
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This is only scratching the surface of what Bento can do. I've been looking for a database that is easy to use but has a degree of power and Bento is that. Bento has calculation abilities albeit basic. Checkout my database layout here:  You'll notice the three boxes at the bottom. Doing a simple calculation I can calculate how long doing the job has taken me, how many kilometres I have driven and how much money from I get for the travel. While Bento isn't a relational database as such there is a field you can create that IS relational and can get information from another database. It is extremely limited though so of only marginal benefit but a step in the right direction. I don't personally use the iCal and Address Book databases because I have no need for them. Bento is definitely a must for anyone who wants to manage a lot of data easily. Spreadsheets are alright but they should never be used to handle databases. People make this idiotic decision all the time and wonder why their data is getting corrupted all the time. Databases have internal functions to maintain data integrity whereas spreadsheets are really designed for manipulating numeric data. A spreadsheet cannot do what Bento can reliably just as Bento can't do what a spreadsheet can do. A combination of the two is a good idea though and that's where Bento's spreadsheet exporting is a great idea. It could be better though we have to remember that Bento is only a year old just like Numbers is. Personally Bento is the database I've been looking for since SuperBase 4 on the Amiga over 10 years ago although it still has a very long way to go before getting to that level of complexity. If FileMaker Pro had such a nice interface and was as easy to use but with the complexity it is famous for then I would lean towards that but currently it's just not as nice to use as Bento and Bento currently fulfils my needs. Kudos Apple/FileMaker. |
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