positive offerings

[daveinc]

Why? Are you getting commission on FM 9 sales? If so, please let us know so we can find a place where we can voice our frustrations as well as praises without offending the moderators. I come here to get information that I hope is uncensored and truthful about my favorite development platform. I read here to find out if I should suggest upgrades to clients and or get them myself. Imagine all the poor decisions we would make and time we would waste if we could not get quality feedback from other real world users and were left to browsing advertising brochures and cheerleader posts. This is one of the best places on earth to gather the thoughts of a diversified set of FM users who have plenty of relevant comments to share (both positive AND negative)on the software we use to make a living every day. It would serve FMI/Apple well to make this forum required reading for their development team and seriously consider the comments here in their development efforts. The reason I can't comment on the positive offerings of FM 9 at this point is I have to waste half of a day and $145.00 setting up an XP Pro machine so I can check it out. I do not own XP Pro as I have never found a credible reason to use it, much less buy it. Sorry for ranting but I would love to dig into FM 9 as soon as possible but obviously have been preempted from doing so. I suspect that the requirement for XP has something to do with External SQL, PHP, or the Web Viewer. I wouldn't be terribly upset if those particular modules just didn't work. On the positive side, the marketing department has done a fantastic job of promoting the new features, and the FMstore made it very easy for me to purchase my new version. I can't wait to try it whenever I get around to putting the OS I swore I would never buy on a machine.

[fmpwnerer]

I think if you take a look at a few of the other threads you'll find the moderator's message has been pretty much ignored. The "disappointment" thread its a perfect example :

I think the warning is more to deter people from just bashing FileMaker without having supporting arguments.

Honestly buying an OS and installing it on your machine seems a little extreme to just play with FileMaker 9. The features you wouldn't be upset not to have are the big features in 9.

This release really isn't for everyone. If you're an active developer, its awesome. The enhancement to script debugger is probably the biggest. Its hard to imagine how we got anything done with the old Script Maker.

I wish you luck with the installation of XP. Most will agree that 2000 still stands as the best OS Microsoft has ever released. However, XP has matured to the point where its a pretty reliable system.. its not like they're forcing you on vista :P

[Ocean West]

My suggestion is just that - a way to keep the forum focused.

Granted if you are are upset at the an issue with the release your welcome to post.

[Genx]

LOL!!

Stephen, Get commissions?? Kinda Funny.

I think the message header came in a as a result of an overwhelmingly large initial negative response to the lack of a "new" product. But the fact is, there are still new things with FM 9, and some of them are rather cool and worth discussing.

Besides, if there's anything negative, I believe most of the moderators (including myself) have probably already mentioned it :

As for the XP upgrade requirement... it's 2007 - its been 6 years and xp is long past being the standard Windows OS - I mean its not like you're still sitting around on FileMaker 5.5 is it...

[David Jondreau]

Most of the negative posts on FM9 aren't "quality feedback" but rather the opposite of cheerleading, which is just as bad as the cheerleading.

[Vaughan]

Daveinc: Ahhh, complaining about a new software release not running on a 8 year old operating system... sweet.

BTW: line breaks make reading easier.

[daveinc]

Take it easy folks! I was merely bemoaning the

loss of one of my favorite things about FM since

the bad old days, the fact that it was relatively

OS independent compared to most software out

there.

I understood the change at v7 as there was

a complete revamp of the engine and accepted this with no complaints.

But it seems the bolt-on feature additions of v9 wouldn't require the banishment of win2k. As far as win2k being 8 years old, the point I was trying to make is that buying winXP at this point sucks as I'm sure Vista will be ready for prime time within the year and XP is essentially win2k with some eye candy and wizards bolted on.

One of the biggest problems I run into in my everyday work is people in a business situation who buy a new PC, OS or software upgrade only to find that some critical application or device simply doesn't work anymore or is slow or crashes periodically.

Then it's 8 hours of experimentation and tech support calls and the $150.00 upgrade ends up costing $700.00 or more with no appreciable gain in functionality and a rather large increase in frustration.

I am an FM developer, but also a business consultant who is trying to optimize business processes at minimal cost, so if I can save a company $1500.00 in OS licensing and thousands more in frustration costs, I consider that the right thing to do.

And yes, I do still develop using FM5/6 for small companies with existing databases that don't require any of the newer features.

My goal is not to purely maximize my own (or Microsoft's, or Filemaker's) enrichment, but to get my clients what they need to function as cheaply as possible.

Most of my customers are pleasantly surprised at what they can accomplish with their existing hardware and software and it pays dividends in their loyalty and satisfaction.