Bento 4 (for Mac)

Bento, Filemaker's personal database software for OS X, continues to prove that it's a must-have application for Mac users looking to stay organized. Bento 4 ($49, or $20 if you're upgrading) builds upon Bento 3's foundation by adding custom labels, the ability to lock forms, location-based features, and enhanced database sharing. In short, if you enjoyed Bento 3, Bento 4 is a no-brainer install.

Getting Started With Bento 4
If you're familiar with Bento, skip to the next section. If you want to know how Bento works, here it is, in a nutshell. Bento organizes information in a hierarchy: Your database contains libraries that are collections of records, which are entries consisting of fields (individual data items, such as name or date). Libraries can also be subdivided into Smart Collections (groups of records based on criteria you specify), and folders to group related libraries. But thanks to templates, you can use Bento without worrying about all that, if you'd rather just organize those recipes or club members without thinking about the mechanics.

Bento 4 offers tutorial videos to get you started, or you can just dive in, if the thought of a database doesn't scare you. And, really, it shouldn't. Without prompting, the average user might not even think of Bento as a database, seeing it, instead, as just a cool visual way to organize data. Thankfully, Bento performs as slickly as it looks.

The Bento desktop software ties into Address Book, iCal, iPhoto, and Mail. In fact, the first time you start Bento, you see entries for these features in an iTunes-like pane along the left side of the page. The usage model for these libraries revolve around dragging information into the appropriate field. For example, you can drag the iCal Events library from the pane onto a contact form to associate events upcoming happenings with a particular person. It's extremely user-friendly. Changes made in Bento 4 reflect across Address Book and iCal and it syncs up nicely with the Bento for iPhone and Bento for iPad ($4.99, 4.5 stars) as well.

Useful Templates
Bento 4 includes useful templates, such as Vacation Planner, Health Record, Job Search, My House Search, Wine Collection, Party Planner, and Meeting Notes. You can also access Template Exchange, the online gallery that features user-designed templates.

To create a new library from a template, you either click the leftmost icon with the plus sign, or choose File > New Library from Template. A window drops down showing thumbnails of the available templates, which you can limit to Education, Personal, or Work categories. When you hit Choose, your new library appears in the right panel list, with the main window open to a sample record.

When I tried creating a library from the Vacation template, I was a little disappointed at first, because I only saw fields on the form view for the title, location, dates, pictures, and notes. But checking out fields available on the lower-left panel, I saw Flights, Hotel information, and rental car?very useful additions if you want to have all your trip particulars all in one place. With this library, not only could I keep track of all my flight, hotel, and car rental information in one place, but I could also import photos and videos I took on the trip?I liked the choices offered here. Likewise, the Home Inventory library let me catalog household possessions with their date of purchase, description, a photo, condition, and insured values?indispensible in the unfortunate event of a burglary.

Alternatively, you can just start with a blank template, and add the fields of your choice. The Create a Field dialog lets you choose from Text, Number, Choice, Checkbox, Media, File List, Message List, Simple List, and Related Data field types. Simple Lists, a featured introduced in Bento 3, now has a spreadsheet-like functions that lets you perform calculations?an incredibly handy feature for those using Bento for business purposes.

After you choose your fields, you can drag them into a form view, and arrange them however you like. You can set the size of grid elements, and choose which field from the associated table should be used for their titles. You can also display a split screen that shows individual records in the bottom half and either grid or table view in the top. In short, Bento 4 gives you lots of flexibility in shaping your databases.

One potentially overlooked features is the ability to lock forms. This insanely useful addition prevents any unwanted changes from occurring. You can lock/unlock a form by clicking the lock icon in the record's lower-right corner. The app also lets you record voice memos.

Next: Expanded Database Sharing, Custom Labels, and More

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/wF8awlloyFA/0,2817,2353077,00.asp

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