Although I haven't played with the full version of FM 5.5. yet, I noticed an annoying bug in the trial version of both FM 5.5 for Mac OS 8-9 and OS X. Namely, some of my files open as if they were protected with a password (they are not) and I cannot access neither the layouts nor scripts. They can be opened easily in FM 5. This happens only with 2 files of my 6-file solution. Opening the files individually doesn't help and holding the option key to bring up the password dialog box doesn't do anything (obviously). I just hope that this behavior is unique to the trial version as I have already ordered the full version. By the way, is there a way to report bugs directly to FileMaker Corp.?

With the trial version copying doesn't work. Cutting and pasting work fine. I noticed several other minor bugs. I would think they would have fixed most of those problems before the final release. I'm surprised that they would release trial software with such serious bugs. I wish more features were added. It seems like they haven't progressed much since FM4.0

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Originally posted by kbata:

It seems like they haven't progressed much since FM4.0

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Are you serious? V. 5 is 2-7 times faster. New ways of doing things e.g. value lists. Better support for foreign languages. Better programming (I am 200% more productive) etc.

I just received my copy of FM 5.5 and have been playing with it over the weekend (on 500 MHz G4 with 320 MB RAM, running OSX 10.0.3). Here are some of my initial observations:

- FM 5.5 for OSX feels significantly slower than FM 5.0 running in Classic (I emphasize "feels", in fact some critical operations in FM 5.5 are definitely faster than in 5.0, e.g., Web Companion in OSX is much faster than in OS 9); screen redrawing is painfully slow

- copying doesn't work in "Specify calculation" window

- FM 5.5 for OSX doesn't seem to be able to handle certain types of JPEG images (they appear as corrupted and crash FM 5.5 although they open with no problems in FM 5.0)

- because of the heavy use of anti-aliasing in OSX some font types are unreadable; some graphic elements appear misaligned.

But on the positive side:

- the bug that prevented me from opening certain files in the Trial version is gone in the final release

- scripts and calculations run noticeably faster

- several new script steps are very useful (on the other hand, they cannot yet be used with current versions of FM Unlimited or FM Developer, despite claims to the contrary on FileMaker website)

- "Recover" function runs very fast (I wish I would never have to use it, though)

- and finaly, it takes advantage of protected memory in OS X

[ May 29, 2001: Message edited by: Kudu ]

RE: screen redrawing is painfully slow

That is probably due to the lack of graphic card routines written for X.