[rjpotts]

Yes thank you for the tips on the other products. I'm going to check them out as well.

[sporobolus]

despite it's serious limitations from the technical perspective, FileMaker developers can very rapidly build applications; that is what keeps its large developer community growing; many of those developers do not have depth in software development outside FileMaker, so there is not as much pressure as one might assume to add features that are old hat elsewhere (this is to the continual dismay of more worldly FileMaker developers)
for those who want to know more than this fairly shallow review, try here:
http://sixfriedrice....g-filemaker-10/

[Cesium133x]

Does it finally introduce scroll wheel support in text fields?

[EP]

PoetCSW, an unbiased roundup would be great indeed.
I'm no database expert. My needs are simple and I got into databases out of curiosity a few years ago. After getting FileMaker Pro 7 I've seen no reason to pay for an upgrade, given my needs and the expensive upgrades.
Last month I purchased Panorama and I've transferred most of my FM databases into it.
Since FM 10 came out I decided to check the upgrade price. There's no upgrade path for me, but the full $299. I'm glad I switched to something else.
Before purchasing Panorama I tried to find comparisons with 4D and FileMaker, and there is some information out there but it's not recent. For example:
http://www.mail-arch...m/msg00799.html
http://www.macintouc...atabases02.html

[wideEyed]

Hey rjpotts, the only people wasting time at FM with Bento are the marketing department folks pitching it as a database instead of what it is, a list manager with manual links (glorified address book). Many Bento users were persistent with v1 (which was really a beta) hoping v2 would come to the rescue :(
Oh and did I mention no upgrade price despite so many users participating in user forums reporting bugs/limitations. Apparently bug fixes are too expensive so they just whacked out a new version with new 'features' like 6 new coloured themes. Off topic I guess but I bought into the (pig with) Lipstick hype for Bento only to be really let down by the 'product'. Shame on MacWorld for the glowing Bento v2 review which parroted the FM press release.

[MichiganJim]

kimbarator said:

Are pivot-tables or the like easy to set up with Panorama?

In Panorama they're created using a feature called Cross Tabs which include multiple tools and aids for their creation.They've been there long enough that most of us using Panorama forget they're anything special - but of course they are. I use them heavily in my checkbook and general ledger reports.

I was just looking on their site for more info on CrossTabs. There's a little bit at http://www.provue.co...ures/index.html

In our office we use Panorama as a very fast sharing system and its running our web sites.

I do look at other products periodically to see if we're where we're best served. They all have their strengths and weaknesses. FileMaker is considerably better in a cross platform situation; Panorama is years behind on a Windows update. If you're a Mac shop, Panorama is considerably faster and has a much more extensive programming capability.

[MichiganJim]

rjpotts said:

Still no Pivot Tables. ...Still no Graphs.

Ouch! Both are long standing features in Panorama

[cindeeSF]

@rjpott: I couldn't have said it better! I knew I wasn't the only one seeking more features for the price!

[cmorse]

Glorified address books?

When was the last time you plugged 250 concurrent desktop and web clients plus odbc connections to an Access file? (How many small businesses do you know that have 250 users even)

You may want to look at FileMaker's customer stories webpage where there are plenty of very impressive multi-user, mixed Mac and Windows, networked, desktop-desktop, and desktop-web systems built entirely using FileMaker Pro's product line.

filemaker.com/solutions/customers/index.html?nav=community-customer-stories

So you don't have all the features you'd wish for; big deal, no one program does, but you've got the features that matter, ease of use to create simple solutions, and extensive developer support when you need to add complexity to it.

Sure, Pivot tables would be nice, but it may be the kind of feature for someone doing number crunching in accounting. Ultimately those users might be better off extracting the data from the database and using MS Excel or Apple Numbers, which are designed for analysis, graphing, and number crunching.

Many companies certainly run their business with FileMaker, and a well designed FileMaker solution can give companies like Act!, Sage, even QuickBooks, whose products you cannot customize, a run for their money. And, at a fraction of the cost of a solution built using other database systems,be they open-source, or commercially available.

[EP]

It's not surprising that FileMaker's site has such testimonials. That doesn't make it a great product.
For some people the lack of features is a big deal. For some people alternative programs are a better choice.
Is FileMaker easy to use? Sure.
Does it have great marketing. Absolutely.
Is it popular? No doubt.

rjpotts was very clear in mentioning why he uses other applications and why in some cases he can't use FileMaker.

PoetCSW's suggestion of a "desktop database" roundup seems very reasonable. Preferably this should be done by an independent reviewer or better yet reviewers, and not by a FileMaker developer.

For my simpler needs, for example, FileMaker could suffice, but I dislike their upgrade practices so I moved on to a different application (Panorama). It turns out that it has excellent support, and so far:

I exported a database from FileMaker into a 70 MB Tab Delimited text file.
1. Importing the Tab Delimited file took 2 seconds in Panorama, and I stopped counting after 35 seconds in FileMaker.
2. Databases are smaller. 30,000 emails in FileMaker occupy 104 MB but only 72 MB in Panorama. After indexing took place, FileMaker's database was 123 MB.
3. Searching within this FileMaker database typically yields less results than searching within Panorama. I'm really glad I can now compare both applications. In this case FileMaker found 21 records, while Panorama more accurately found 131.
4. Searching took 2 seconds in Panorama. FileMaker was still "Updating index for field" after 5 minutes and then found the 21 records. The second time I ran the search, FileMaker took about one second, but still found only 21 records.

This was just a very simple test. Fortunately there are demos for these and other database programs. People can try them, compare them, and make an informed purchase. Even if people don't want to download and test the programs, there are screencasts available:

http://www.provue.co...asts/index.html

http://www.filemaker..._tutorials.html

http://www.4d.com/su...quickstart.html (No video)

FileMaker 10 does have a prettier interface :)

[wideEyed]

cmorse said:

Glorified address books?

All your comments re Filemaker are correct.

You may care to re-read my post ? it was regards to Bento which most decidedly doesn't have the tools that matter in a database. The negative experiences were more to do with (the company) FM's attitude towards v1 users (early adopters who provided much feedback to FM in the forums) than the feature-limited beta sold as v1.02. Also to do with Macworlds pathetic parroting of Bento PR instead of user based assessment (see Bento forums). As I said a bit off-topic but reflecting on a worrying trend developing at FM and Apple to load up new versions (particularly of consumer grade software) with so called new features that are gimmicky one-click features (eg. new themes instead of tools to customise your own) rather than address underlying problems with and limitations of existing tool set.