![]() First I created the moth species library with its various fields. I did have to resort to the manual a little here, but once I knew how to do it this was simple. Of course I wanted to join these together so that any recording of a particular species in my trap was linked to the description ot the moth species. I wanted to have one library that contained records of the moth species, with descriptions and photos of that moth, along with another library that contained records of the moths I collect in my trap. It isn’t trying to be, but it is trying to be a useful database application for personal use. Now Bento isn’t a fully-fledged powerful relational database application. The next thing to try was creating some relationships. I was up and running with a basic database of moths in no time. The records can be displayed as individual cards or as a list.Īdding new fields and arranging them within a record card (form) is easy and just a case of selecting the field options and dragging the field to where you want it. There is a pane to the left of the window which contains your various libraries (tables), a smaller pane below this which lists the fields (columns) used in any library and the main screen which contains the records (rows). I downloaded the trial on Saturday and had a go at building a database without reading any of the manual! The look and feel of Bento is very Mac-like and the interface resembles that of iTunes. It isn’t a cut down version of Filemaker Pro, rather it is a completely different product with a very user-friendly approach to database design. Bentoīento is built by the makers of Filemaker Pro but at £29.95 is much more affordable. However, with the moth season approaching I wanted a way of recording my moth counts and having heard good things about Bento I needed an excuse to satisfy my need for a database! There are bespoke biological recording applications out there such as MapMate, but nothing for a Mac so I decided to give Bento a go and build my own. In most cases these bespoke applications are much better and have features that wouldn’t be possible with a database. In most cases if I wanted to keep track of certain things such as my bike rides or my finances I would use a bespoke application – Ascent for my bike rides and other exercise, Moneywell for my personal finances. I hadn’t used a database application such as FileMaker Pro for a few years. More recently if I needed a database I was more likely to develop a quick online one using a MySQL database and PHP, and to be honest as my “Simple Life of Luxury’ has developed I’ve had less time for cataloging things I didn’t really need to catalogue and haven’t been using databases at home. Once again, I put it to similar uses and created some nice relational databases for things I needed (wanted) to keep track of. Of course, HyperCard didn’t last long and I soon moved onto FileMaker Pro. None of it was particularly good but it worked and served a need. I used to make my own financial recording stacks, exercise training stacks, databases of my books and music and so on. ![]() Right from the early days using an Apple Mac one of my favourite things to do was create HyperCard stacks and little apps within Hypercard for all sorts of things. As a man obsessed with order, data and lists I’ve always had a softspot for databases.
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