Panorama User Testimonials
For over 25 years ProVUE Development has had some of the
most loyal users on the planet, as reflected by Panorama
5.5’s five star rating on both VersionTracker and MacUpdate. To read some “real world”
stories of typical Panorama users see Panorama User
Testimonials, Panorama Enterprise
Testimonials and The Making of
300.
You can also get involved interactively with the
Panorama user community using our Panorama QNA
on-line
discussion forum. If you’re already a Panorama users
thank you for your support, and we'll continue to work
every day to earn that loyalty in the decades to come.
Panorama in the Press
Panorama (and its predecessor
OverVUE) has been garnering rave reviews and prestigious
awards since 1985. We’ve gathered some of the more recent
reviews below.
Panorama 6 was Adam Engst's "pick of the week" on the May
25th, 2010 episode of the top rated podcast MacBreak
Weekly. Watch this clip
from the episode
as Adam and Leo Laporte discuss Panorama's long history
and features from the new release.
TIDBITS
Electronic Publishing has the distinction of
being the very first on-line publication in the entire
world, publishing their first issue via e-mail in
1990. They've been covering the Macintosh world ever
since, and the MDJ annual survey of Macintosh industry
insiders consistently ranks TidBITS Publisher Adam C.
Engst as one of the top five most influential people
in the Macintosh industry.
"Panorama Enterprise Offers Internet
Database Synchronization" (by Matt Neuberg, TidBITS,
August 2008)
In this article, Matt Neuberg takes a rather detailed and
geeky first look at Panorama Enterprise, and really likes
what he finds. “Panorama is a
remarkable database application that we've been following
in TidBITS for over 15 years ... In short, Panorama keeps
us going, in more than one sense: we rely on it, but also
it encourages use ... a somewhat unusual architecture for a
database - and therein lies its brilliance ... Panorama's
server-client architecture lets a database be distributed
among multiple Panorama users ... In other words (drum
roll, please), Panorama is now not only a software
construction kit, it's also a Web application construction
kit ... If this sounds exciting to you, as well it should,
your next step should be to head for ProVUE's web site to
learn more”
"Seeing the Light with
Panorama" (by Matt Neuberg, TidBITS,
November 2001)
Although this comprehensive review covers an older version
of Panorama (4.0), it is still about 90% relevant. The
review covers the advantages of Panorama’s RAM based
technology, multiple database views (data sheet and forms),
ease of use and powerful programming language.
“Let
me not beat around the bush. ProVue Panorama is the best
general database program I've ever used. ... 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. ... 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. ... In contrast to
FileMaker, there is no need to overpopulate your data with
extra calculation fields; the calculation takes place in
the form itself, where it belongs. ... Panorama's
programming language is extremely powerful and quite
ingenious — the range of what you can do is astounding. ...
the Panorama milieu is a tool-making environment
supplemented by tools made in that environment (again,
extremely HyperCard-like) ... Getting started with Panorama
is easy. It's one of those programs where 80 percent of
users probably use only 20 percent of the power, and you
can pick up that 20 percent quickly. ...
Have I communicated just what I find so wonderful about
this program? It's the fact
that my data feels safe and is easy to check on. It's the
ingenious anticipation of my needs. It's how the workings
of my databases are easy to track down. It's the generosity
of the supplied examples. It's the fact that easy things
are easy and hard things are not that hard, in contrast
with other database programs where you have to dance all
around the moon to get certain things done. Ultimately,
it's the total programmability, which makes me feel I could
build anything I like. ... This program rewards and
deserves exploration. I'm delighted with it, and am using
it more and more heavily.” By the way, the one "major
flaw" mentioned in the review, “a functional expression
cannot call a procedure”, has been resolved in Panorama
5.5. We've also written simplified documentation, as
suggested in the review.
"Panorama V for
Victory" (by Matt Neuberg, TidBITS,
December 2004)
When Panorama V was released TidBITS published a follow up
to the Panorama 4.0 review above. This review covers only
the new features in Panorama V without covering Panorama's
basic features. “The whole look
and feel of the program has leapt into the 21st century.
... Particularly slick is the Live Search feature ... the
native scripting language is greatly expanded in some
profound and thoughtful ways ... now’s the time to dive
in”
"When You Need a Panoramic
View" (by Adam Engst, TidBITS,
March 2005)
In this article Adam describes
how he used Panorama to set up a database to calculate
royalties for authors of "Take Control" PDF eBooks.
“I
knew going into my project that I didn't have a clue what
the database would look like in a year. And not only could
I not predict what I was going to want, I didn't have time
either to guess at what might be important or to spend a
lot of time creating a database that performed tasks I
didn't need. I knew I needed to calculate monthly royalty
statements for a couple of books based on the data in
tab-delimited text files that I received daily from
eSellerate. At that point, though, I could barely imagine
that some authors would be writing multiple books, that
we'd also be paying editors and translators (some of whom
could also be authors), that we might end up with multiple
authors sharing royalties on a book, and so on. Plus, when
I started writing the database, I knew relatively little
about my incoming data. I couldn't predict that we'd want
coupons for individual books, for bundles of books, and for
entire orders, and until some appropriate orders came
through, I had no idea how affiliate adjustments had to be
made. In short, I was flying low, fast, and blind, and I
needed a highly maneuverable airplane to skim through my
data. In a word: Panorama.”
"An Unusual Use for
Panorama" (by Adam Engst, TidBITS,
April 2005)
In this article Adam uses Panorama to process bounce
messages to clean up an e-mail list. “By using
Panorama's built-in capabilities, all accessible from
obvious menus, I was able to do some surprisingly complex
text processing in very little time.”
Macworld
magazine has
reviewed every version of OverVUE and Panorama since
OverVUE 1.0 in 1984. In their 2001 "Panorama 4.0
Review" (written by Geoff Duncan)
Macworld awarded Panorama "4 mice" and said that
Panorama "may be
the ultimate relational database for your desktop ...
lets you create powerful databases whose interfaces,
features, and performance blow FileMaker Pro out of the
water". William Porter, who wrote
the Macworld review of Panorama V, does not agree.
Although his review makes some favorable comments, many
users have called and written both ProVUE and MacWorld's
editors to express their concern about the many
significant ommissions, contradictions and outright
errors in this review. His review even neglects to
mention Panorama's most unique and distinguishing
feature — that Panorama is RAM based instead of disk
based. Most importantly of all, the original printed
review also fails to mention that the reviewer, William
Porter, is a full time FileMaker developer and the
author of an upcoming book about FileMaker (this
omission has been partially corrected after the fact in
the on-line version of the review). For more about this
review and the response to it see:
"William Porter's Panorama V
Review"
The
"Mac OS X Bible"
says that
Panorama V “is an
excellent program and a good choice for business
users.” You'll find the complete
story on page 491 (2004 edition).