11427 Now that Apple has killed off AppleWorks, with its database module that many Mac-users valued as a a sort of "Filemaker Lite" for non-geeks, the developers of Filemaker itself perceiving a need that had been created by AppleWorks' discontinuance, has stepped up to fill the gap with Bento, a new Mac-only personal database and organizer application that sells for an affordable $49 ($99 for a family pack).

While Filemaker itself is an excellent and powerful program, it's overkill for the needs of users who just want a user-friendly "electronic Rolodex" and organizer, and the cheapest version of Filemaker sells for $299, while AppleWorks used to be bundled for free with consumer Apple systems. Bento is conceived as a less powerful replacement for FileMaker that still draws on Filemaker technologies, but designed to help you organize a variety of non-structured data, including contacts, calendar events, projects, tasks, photos and media.

There is evidently a robust market for a sort of application. Filemaker, which is incidentally a wholly-owned subsidiary of Apple Inc., reports that hundreds of thousands have downloaded Bento since it was released earlier this year.

"Bento's popularity is propelled by the need for easy-to-use organizational software tools such as Bento, and by the rapid adoption of Mac OS X Leopard," commented FileMaker's president Dominique Goupil.

Speaking of Leopard, it's required if you want to use Bento, so the new program is definitely not a solution for AppleWorks users still running OS 10.4 Tiger, OS 10.3 Panther, or earlier versions of the Mac OS. The reason for the limitation is that Bento leverages some of Leopards core features - Core Animation, live linking to iCal data, Time Machine backups, and certain other Leopard-specific capabilities so it only works on Mac OS X 10.5. Consequently, it's been happy for the Bento folks that Leopard adoption has been strong, in contrast to Windows Vista's lackluster sales performance. I digress.

I was originally puzzled by the "Bento" name, which at first hearing left me in drawing a complete blank. Bento? Turns out that "bento" is in Japanese cuisine an entree with a variety of different foods usually consisting of rice, fish or meat, and one or more pickled or cooked vegetables as a side dish. served in a multi-compartment dish or tray. Ergo, Bento takes its inspiration from the compartmentalized trays used to serve bento lunches and dinners. Everything is in one place. And yet the contents are not all jumbled together, but rather stored neatly in stylish compartments. Its organized, simple, aesthetically attractive, and perhaps just a wee bit obscure. I've dabbled in Japanese cooking for more than twenty years, and had never heard of bento before. Maybe it's more of a west coast thing here in North America.

Bento isnt intended to be a general-purpose database that you would use in a business organization or institution to share data over a network or add scripts to. Its a "personal" database intended to help organize and simplify the details of one individual's life. Indeed it is much more like Apple's iLife applications such as Pages, Numbers, iPhoto, and iTunes in look and feel than it is to FileMaker.

Bento's designers have even chosen to dispense with Filemaker naming conventions like "database" and "table," substituting what they evidently hope will be the more familiar (at least to iTunes users) "library" and "collection." Bento organizes data into three levels: "libraries," which consist of "collections," which in turn contain "records."
I'm not sure that this doesn't actually confuse matters a bit, but what do I know? At least, text entry boxes still retain the FileMaker term, "fields."

Bento's main interface window is divided into three panes called Libraries, Source and Fields, which is a bit different from iPhoto and iTunes whose main windows contain two basic panes. Libraries are analogous to tables in FileMaker. Most OS X users are familiar with the Library concept in OS X and Apple applications. For example, iPhoto is basically a specialized database for storing and organizing image files, but uses the library metaphor to conceptualize how photos are grouped and displayed, for example as events or slideshows. Similarly, iTunes creates libraries for music, videos and podcasts. In Bento, your databases are called libraries and their subsets of data are called "collections" - ergo: your Address Book is a library and each address group for particular group of friends or associates is a collection. Each pane of the main interface window has its own Add, Delete, and Tool buttons, so you have to concentrate a bit on choosing which button to click.

Installing Bento was reasonably straightforward, being a simple drag & drop operation rather than requiring an installer run, although you do have to type in a 35-character alphanumeric license key to use the program in licensed mode.

When you launch Bento, you are given the option of importing your existing Address Book, iCal Events, iCal Tasks and Projects, data, although you don't have to. Once that information has been imported, it will be subject to two-way synchronization, ie: If you make a change in Address Book or iCal, the change will appear in your Bento databases, and vice-versa. THis feature is especially useful for iPhone users who sync their iPhones with Address Book and iCal.

If you prefer, you can also create your own libraries from scratch or using one of the provided templates for categories like projects, contacts, to-do items, events and files and so forth. Bento templates contain sample data fields with sample text that you can replace with your own information. Fields my also be deleted or added, but you have to use the default field location grid.

In summary, three unique characteristics distinguish Bento from other personal databases.

First, Bento is designed from scratch to look, feel and work like the Mac OS and Mac applications. Bento is a Mac-only application and as previously noted it closely resembles Apple's own iLife apps such as the Tunes, Keynote, iWeb, iPhoto, and the Finder.

Organizing your your contacts, calendars, appointments, to-do lists, projects and other personal data by creating Bento collections is analogous to organizing your music by creating iTunes playlists. Bento's user interface window follows the familiar three columns motif. the left pane containing a list of your databases, which Bento calls libraries, and their collections, which would be the Bento equivalent of playlists.

Befitting a database application, everything stored in or linked to Bento is searchable via a search bar that is always on, and databases can be easily cross-linked. Searching for any record in any library using Bento Search or Advanced Find feature compares to searching for a song in iTunes or searching for any file using Spotlight.

You can also create "Smart Collection" of all information that matches one or more criteria. For example: all people whose City = Santa Clara and whose Company Name = FileMaker; or all iCal Tasks for which Priority = High and Completion Date = Empty. Collections can also contain links to related documents, URLs contacts' email addresses and instant messaging accounts, for clickable access.

The Bento window's middle pane is where you configure content and toggle among different views. Each Bento library has a table view, which displays your data in a spreadsheet-style motif, and a form view, in which you can view, enter, and edit details about a particular record.

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Among the OS 10.5 Leopard integration previously noted, Bento takes advantage of Leopards advanced drawing and Core Animation and Advanced Find features. You can also add special effects to your pictures directly from within the Media field via Image Kit.

Bento's right-hand pane displays fields for the current library, and provides you with a list of selections with which to create and configure new fields from any of 19 different included types, such as checkboxes, drop down menus, and text boxes. Adding a new field to a form view is conveniently accomplished via drag-and-drop, and you can also embed images, sounds, and videos into a record, though there is no direct integration with your iLife media. Bento also accepts drag-and-drop of files from the Finder, although dragged-on files are not stored inside the database itself but simply referenced for the copy on your hard drive.

A second major Bento distinction is that it lets you create comprehensive databases to organize virtually any type of information without needing to understand database concepts or possessing any experience with databases there is a relatively shallow learning curve involved, although there definitely will be a learning curve, especially if one has never used databases before.

For example, creating a library to store your data is easy. Just choose one of the templates included with Bento and it automatically displays all the forms and fields you need. As you proceed, you can easily add and delete fields and forms to tailor your new library, and will create a two-way relationship between, say, digital photos and the people who have expressed interest in them. When you look at your photos, youll see a list of interested people; and when you look at your contacts, youll see the photos theyre interested in.

Bento comes with several libraries already set up: Address Book, iCal Events, iCal Tasks and Projects. You can add as many other libraries as you need to organize your information. Just select from among 23 supplied Library templates, such as digital media, projects, contacts, files, expenses, exercise log, home Inventory, event planning, time billing, equipment, issue tracking and so forth.

Thirdly, as we mentioned above, Bento has that Apple application look and comes with more than 20 color and font themes. When you choose a theme, your forms look - colors, fonts, font sizes - will all be coordinated and update automatically, just as they do, for example in iWork's Keynote.

Collections you create in Bento might include a library of digital photos or work, personal and volunteer tasks. Bento can also import spreadsheet and any other files that can be saved in the CSV (Comma-Separated Values ) format such as Excel and Numbers files which you can just drag and drop it into Bento. You can also export Bento data as a CSV file that will open in Excel or Numbers. Unfortunately, Bento;s limited data format support will not be much help to the presumably substantial cohort of buyers looking to move over from AppleWorks. Unhelpfully, AppleWorks 6 has no export function and saves database files only as AppleWorks or ClarisWorks database formats for which there is no provision for importing to Bento - a serious oversight on the Bento developers' part IMHO.

Stuff you do with Bento that you can't with Address Book:
• View and print all of your records in a table that show multiple contacts at once instead of just one contact at a time. You can sort records by any field in the table, get quick stats in the summary row, change the width and order of any column,
• Enrich and extend the information youre able to store in about the contacts in your Address Book and event in your iCal entries by adding new fields. The fields you add will only be visible when you view your Address Book and iCal
applications from within Bento.
• Connect related data together on one screen, such as seeing a contact, and the tasks theyve been assigned, projects they are involved in, gifts youve given to them, etcetera.
• You can view all of your Bento records either as individual forms or in a table, something you cant do in Address Book or iCal.

To wind things up, if you're looking for an application to help organize your life, but don't want to climb the learning curve (or pay the cost of admission to the FileMaker world) and are familiar with the way iTunes and iPhoto work, Bento is well worth checking out, especially since there is a free 30-day demo available.

Bento's system requirements are basically just any Mac capable of running OS 10.5 Leopard. The program is usably responsive on my old 1.33 GHz G4 PowerBook, but I wouldn't use the descriptor "lively." I expect it would be a lot snappier on any Intel Mac.

System requirements:
• Mac OS X 10.5

At any time during your Bento 30-day trial, you can unlock the software to convert it to the full version by simply purchasing the software and entering a valid License Key.

For more info and to buy Bento, go to
http://www.filemaker.com/bento250Kpr

Charles W. Moore

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