feature set of "new" FMP 5.5

[kraftyman]

I wonder what others think about the "new and exciting" features in FMP5.5?

I for one am somewhat disappointed. The prices charged are reminiscent of a full version upgrade , rather than what looks like a maintenance fix.

bidirectional ODBC ?- that should have been there in the first place

retained and resizable windows? - hold me down..

script runs on loading a page? - ditto

windows 2000 compatibility? - not for everyone

direct send mail? - that should have really been present in the first place.

etc etc

Oh, and they have still retained that evil repeating field...

I don't publish to the Web, bcause my workplace has >10 clients, and maybe these features are worth the extra money.

Of course I applaud the FMP people for creating and maintaining a very good cross platform database but I was hoping for a bit more in the way of event driven scripts and proper handling of variables, more compatibility with other systems etc if they want more of my money. I will probably be skipping this upgrade.

Bring on FMP6!

[Chuck]

I have to agree. FMP 5.5 seems more like a $20 or $50 upgrade, but given what I do for a living, I have little choice in upgrading, and truthfully, I suppose that the saving of resized dialogs will save me $150 of frustration.

Chuck

[garhop]

Chuck,

Agreed...but shouldn't one expect retaining window sizes would have been a basic feature several versions back??? Even as far back as v.1? I have several under $75.00 programs that incorporate the feature. There seems a little hint here from FMI of looking for the "Cash Cow" that an upgrade brings.

I still treasure the program.

Gary

[Moon]

Yep. Overpriced and overhyped. Like Chuck, I bought it anyway, but at the 30 buck upgrade price thanx to a recent purchase of Developer 5. I think this issue will prompt me to write up my own set of desirable features and post. There is a lot of stuff they could do with the interface to make the Developer's job easier. Thank you FileMaker for making the windows remember what they were set to, but that is old hat.

Still, it beats the hell out of Access.

[rmsherman]

FM does beat the hell out of Access, but I have to find an easy way for clients to move data back and forth between FM and Access. I now use Excel as my intermediary step. Does anyone know if FM 5.5 will allow a direct link? If so, that would be my reason to invest in the upgrade. The published claims are a little fuzzy on detail.

[dylan]

Well, I'd say it's the OSX version that has merited the .5 number increase. It isn't like they jumped straight to 6.0 ... but equally, as Filemaker is the first "proper" app to ship for X it wouldn't have looked so shiny and new if they'd just done a 5.1.

I'd guess there are more features in the pipeline, but Apple were pressuring them to get it out the door now.

And it's presence on X is great ... at least to me. I never had a bad FMP crash all the time I've used it, but it's going to feel much more sturdy with a *nix underneath. Of course, you could run on W2k but there are many other reasons why that's not a viable solution to me.

I'll probably wait for MacOS10.5 and FMP 5.6 before making the switch, but I'd be interested to hear from early adopters.

[Anatoli]

quote:

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Originally posted by dylan:

And it's presence on X is great ... at least to me. I never had a bad FMP crash all the time I've used it, but it's going to feel much more sturdy with a *nix underneath. Of course, you could run on W2k but there are many other reasons why that's not a viable solution to me.

I'll probably wait for MacOS10.5 and FMP 5.6 before making the switch, but I'd be interested to hear from early adopters.

---

I've switched to NT4 from Mac 8.6 something like 95% of work, because it increased my productivity by 500%.

If the X will be better than NT4 (we do not like the W2K at all and we did not bother with them 95-98-Me gizmos) I might switch back. The promise and concept is there, but so far it's slow and hungry.