Bento: Intuitive Personal Databse for Mac with ILife Interface

Named for a Japanese boxed lunch with compartments, Bento is a personal database targeted to the home user or small business professional that needs a little more organization in their life. Many users will see Bento as the missing database from Apple's iWork productivity suite.

Bento comes with several pre-designed templates, including membership lists, event planning, time billing and inventory. Bento can pull or publish information to Address Book and iCal, so tasks and calendar events created in the database will synchronize with iPods and iPhones.

The interface is iTunes inspired and the iLife design theme is carried throughout the program with a three-panel interface. The left panel is a list of sources of information like contacts and other databases. The current database resides in the middle column and fields available to the database sit in the right column.

Bento tries to simplify record keeping, even down to the names it uses. Databases are called libraries and groups of records are called collections rather than queries or searches, much like playlists in iTunes. Saved queries are called smart collections. Custom databases are simple to create with this program, so a degree in database architecture is not needed. To modify a database or create a new one, just drag the data fields onto the database pane.

Part's of Bento's magic is that it hides the fact it is creating relational databases where information is shared and synchronized between multiple information sources. Relational databases are a feature is typically reserved for larger, more costly, database programs.

Filemaker International, the Bento developer hopes Bento will fill a gap left by its flagship product FileMaker Pro, which started out as a simple form-based database like Bento, but has grown into a powerful multi-user, multi-platform business-class program. While Bento does not have any support for network or multi-user functionality like Filemaker Pro, it does share some interface design with its big brother. For example, the calculations screen where fields can be manipulated will remind longtime users of the same screen in Filemaker Pro.

Previously, Apple integrated a simple database application into its AppleWorks productivity suite, but the database had its limits primarily because it could not support a relational database. AppleWorks was abandoned after Apple released its iWork productivity suite that integrated with iLife in 2005. iWork does not include a database program.

Bento is perfect for soccer team rosters, simple billing and home inventories. It retails for $49 and a trial copy can be downloaded from www.Filemaker.com/Bento.