Request opinions on Analyzer 3.0 beta

September 22, 200124 yr

I have been a frustrated user of Analyzer 2 from Waves in Motion, as members of FM Forums have no doubt learned from previous rants. It promises a lot but I have found it to be unreliable, badly documented, and designed with an interface that varies from vague to baffling.

At the opening of DevCon WIM offered their new and improved Analyzer 3 on their web site as a public beta. I downloaded it, hoping to wring it out and see if they have addressed any of the problems I have bitched about, both in this forum and to Waves In Motion. Typically, documentation was non-existant (too busy preparing for DevCon was the reason cited). What they neglected to explain was that although it was offered as a public beta, use of Analyzer three requires the use of FileMaker Developer 5.5. A reply to a query from MIM confirmed that to use or test Analyzer 3 was necessarily limited to attendees of DevCon who obtained a pre-release version of Developer 5.5. So I gave up giving the new Analyzer a try.

I still hold out hope, however that WIM may have actually produced a usable analysis product for developers, but having sunk 250 bucks into version 2, I am very leary of dumping another 150-200 for the upgrade (which seems be be a very excessive upgrade cost), as well as the expense of buying Developer 5.5 upgrade as well, unless they really have scored with this version.

Finally, my question to you, brother developers. If any of you have tested Analyzer 3, could you give us Forum readers a rundown on its features, strengths, weaknesses, etc. Does it work? Reliably? Does the developer provide clues to how to wring the most out of it? In theory this product could be a real boon to us. However, once burnt, twice shy as they say, so I would really like to know whether to embrace or avoid it.

Thanks.