You’re given a huge repertory of interface widgets – editable and non-editable fields, buttons, pop-up menus, combo boxes, scrolling lists, table-like matrixes, scrollbars, balloon help, charts, images, movies, and even a remarkably full-featured styled-text editor.Ī form displays data either from one record at a time or from all records arranged vertically. ![]() You design a form in a graphical mode whose features in some ways surpass most drawing programs I’ve used for example, there are truly superb ways to select an object and adjust its size precisely even in very cluttered surroundings, and to adjust multiple objects together. What data appears in a form, and how, is up to you. The data sheet is a great comfort and convenience it’s the simplest place to edit data, and you can always return to it for an overview of your data to make sure it’s safe.įorms are custom views that you create. The data sheet is essentially a grid or table showing all your data: each row is a record, each column is a field. Ways of Seeing - Panorama provides three ways of looking at a database: the data sheet, forms, and the design sheet. Indeed, volatile manipulation of data is a standard Panorama technique you might add a field, fill it with data, do something based on the results, and delete the field again, without ever saving. Combined with Panorama’s raw speed, this encourages free experimentation – if something goes wrong, you can always revert to the saved version. Panorama writes nothing to disk until you say so. Think how many times you’ve accidentally changed some data in FileMaker, only to discover it has written the change out to disk. They’re also safe – I can see my data with a text editor, and could extract it in an emergency. Panorama’s files are therefore small (typically less than half the size of the same information kept in FileMaker). ![]() A database file consists simply of its data, plus some display information in a compact binary form. The speed means there’s no need for indexes this in turn contributes to speed, as there’s no double-bookkeeping when a value is changed. ![]() Access to data is instant sorting, or running through all your data gathering information or performing some calculated change on a field, is lightning-fast. And the RAM-based approach has three great virtues: But RAM is now cheap and plentiful, and Panorama doesn’t waste it: a database of half a million names and addresses will work fine if you give Panorama 32 MB. Obviously if you haven’t enough memory to hold your data, you can’t use Panorama. The Big Picture - Panorama is RAM-based: it holds open databases entirely in memory. The recent maintenance release, 4.0.1, incorporates some further features and fixes some important bugs. It is now PowerPC-native and cross-platform with Windows. The new version, Panorama 4, includes many changes that bring it to a state of pleasing maturity. Panorama has been available on the Mac since 1988 (or 1984 if you count its predecessor, OverVue) but I don’t think I’d have liked earlier versions as much. Plus, Panorama is externally scriptable, so I’m using it to store catalog data and then driving it with Frontier to transform that data into Web pages. ![]() My address book, my inventories of books and LPs, my diary, even my system for archiving email digests as individual messages and reading them by thread – all these are now Panorama files. But for such purposes I’m so happy with Panorama that I have moved all my data into it, reproducing all the functionality I previously achieved using FileMaker, Helix, and HyperCard. I’m not running an "enterprise solution" – I just want my information kept safe and accessible. Granted, I may not be a typical database user. ProVue Panorama is the best general database program I’ve ever used. #1626: AirTag replacement battery gotcha, Kindle Kids software flaws, iOS 12.5.6 security fix.#1627: iPhone 14 lineup, Apple Watch SE/Series 8/Ultra, new AirPods Pro, iOS 16 and watchOS 9 released, Steve Jobs Archive.#1628: iPhone 14 impressions, Dark Sky end-of-life, tales from Rogue Amoeba.#1629: iOS 16.0.2, customizing the iOS 16 Lock Screen, iPhone wallet cases, meditate for free with Oak.#1630: Apple Books changes in iOS 16, simplified USB branding, recovering a lost Google Workspace account.
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