The Live Clairvoyance wizard has had a major facelift, and now supports formula based searches (in addition to plain searches). You can type in any formula and Panorama will instantly display the matching records — even updating the display as you modify the formula. The screenshot below illustrates a search for all improperly capitalized city names.

The updated wizard also allows you to save your favorite searches for later re-use. Simply pick the formula you want to use from the pop-up menu.

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See the new Live Clairvoyance wizard in action

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The new Excel wizard can directly exchange data between Panorama and Excel, with no text file required as an intermediary. The wizard can directly transfer the current Excel selection into a new database or an existing database, or it can directly transfer current the Panorama selection into the currently selected cells in an Excel worksheet.

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See the Excel wizard in action

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The new Financial Data wizard makes it easy to import data from your Quicken files and from your bank or other financial institutions. This wizard supports the three most popular financial data formats.

• QIF [Quicken Interchange Format]
• OFX [Open Financial eXchange]
• QFX [Quicken variation of OFX]

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See the Financial Data wizard in action

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Panorama 5.5's new Image Drop feature makes bringing images into your Panorama databases as easy as dragging and dropping a file or folder . Better yet, this feature only requires adding one short line of code in your database! Simply drag the images you want to add onto the form.

When you release the mouse Panorama adds all of the selected images to the database. In this case 281 images have been instantly added.



You can continue to add as many images as you like. Just drag and drop to add more. And remember, adding this feature to your existing databases only takes a single line of code!

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See Image Drag and Drop in action

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Now you can add maps to any Panorama database with just a single line of code! Maps are zoomable and resizeable, and you can open multiple map windows simultaneously .

Just like the new Image Drop feature, it only takes one line of code to add maps to any Panorama database.

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See interactive maps in action

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Panorama 5.5 now comes with eight PDF books including two brand new ones — Welcome to Panorama and Panorama Essentials.

Welcome to Panorama includes installation and activation instructions, as well as tips for using the learning materials included with Panorama (34 pages). Panorama Essentials is a guide to the most commonly used features of Panorama. It’s organized with the same chapter structure as the Panorama Handbook, but with only the most important and commonly used features, making it much more approachable (~650 pages).

To help you keep track of all of this documentation (as well other learning and reference tools) we've created a new Help & Documentation wizard (just choose Help from the Panorama Menu). This wizard provides easy access to the PDF files, programmer’s reference, screencasts, formula wizard, and FAQ pages.

If there is published information about Panorama, you'll find it right here. This wizard can even download PDF files for you automatically if you didn't download them with your original Panorama installation.

Panorama has always had it's own built-in programming language. Panorama's language is powerful, but it is only one of many galaxies in the programming universe. Now Panorama 5.5 takes you to six of the most popular programming "galaxies" with the ability to embed alternate languages directly into a Panorama program. Six languages are supported: AppleScript, UNIX shell scripts, Perl, Ruby, Python and PHP. Here's a typical example:

The ability to embed these alternate programming languages allows Panorama to tackle jobs it couldn’t handle on its own, and allows you to avoid re-inventing the wheel by leveraging the huge (and generally free) code libraries available for these alternate languages. Some examples of the libraries available for Perl, Ruby, Python and PHP include tools for manipulating complex numbers and matrices, pattern matching, statistical calculations, linear equations, image manipulation, sql database access, cryptographic services, xml parsing and various internet protocols including dns, ftp, smtp, pop3, imap, telnet, ssh, bittorrent, soap and low level tcp/udp access. Some of these tasks could be done with Panorama, some could not, but either way using a pre-built library is a lot easier!

Panorama's support for embedded languages is more than skin deep. Data can be be passed back and forth between Panorama and the embedded code, and Panorama integrates with external tools to help you debug your embedded code.

If you are already programming in one of these languages you already know the power each one brings to the table. If you are new to these languages you'll be amazed at the possibilities.

The new Recent Databases wizard keeps all of your databases at your fingertips. The nine most recently accessed databases can be re-opened simply by pressing 1 thru 9, and you can even search recently opened databases to instantly find that database you were working with last week.

The Recent Databases wizard can be opened from the File menu, and can also be set as the default when you double click on Panorama (we use that option on our own computers here at ProVUE).

The new Reveal in Finder command makes it easy to find the location of any open database.

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See Reveal in Finder in action

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Panorama V brought support for third party mice with scroll wheels (Logitech, etc.), now Panorama 5.5 adds support for Apple's Mighty Mouse scroll ball as well as two finger scrolling on Apple laptops.

     

Note: horizontal and diagonal scrolling are not supported (only vertical). However you can scroll horizontally by holding down the Shift key while you turn the scroll wheel. You can also jump to any spot in a scroll bar by holding down the Option key and clicking on the desired spot.
 

Panorama now allows you to specify that individual forms always be printed on specific printers. For example you can automatically print checks or invoices on a special printer, while other printing goes to your normal printer.

Printer selection can also be controlled by a procedure, and procedures can find out what printers are available.

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See printer control in action

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If you are using Mac OS X and have the open source (free) CodePoetry CUPS-PDF Package installed your procedures can use the printpdf statement to print directly to a PDF file with no user intervention (no dialogs appear, etc.). Here is example code that prints an invoice to a PDF file.




printpdf {file="Invoice }+str(«InvoiceNumber»)+{.pdf" }+
    {path="}+subpath(dbfolder(),"Printed")+{" }+
    {onerecord=true}


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See printing to PDF in action

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Creating a new database has never been easier! The New Database wizard has been transformed into a one-stop launching pad for Panorama . The new toolbar makes it easy to create databases, open favorite and recently used databases, and get help and information about Panorama. You can quickly access this wizard from the File menu and also automatically launch this wizard when Panorama is launched.

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See the New Database wizard in action

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The new Error Detail wizard displays detailed information about the type and location of any procedure or formula errors that occur, making tracking down these problems a breeze.

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See the Error Detail wizard in action

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Have you ever used message statements to help debug a procedure? The new TTY wizard is the modern version of this ancient technique. Simply insert tty statements into the code instead of message statements, and use the wizard to view a log of the result.



The output of the tty statement can also be displayed as a Growl notification.

Panorama 5.5 has far too many new statements and functions to list them all here, some of the highlights are listed below. For a complete list open the Panorama Reference wizard and select 5.5 from the Version menu.

• New call( function allows a procedure to run inside a formula (and return a result). Now the full power of Panorama's powerful procedure code is accessible within any formula, including when using Formula Fill, SpreadSheet mode, in Live Menus and when displaying or printing a form.
• Panorama 5.5 has a special pipe constant delimiter that is very handy for creating text constants that have other types of quotes within the constant. The constant starts with a series of pipes, and doesn’t end until an equal number of pipes. Pipe constants are especially handy for use when embedding other programming languages (AppleScript, Perl, Ruby, etc.).
• New functions for working with arrays (compare arrays, find different or common elements between two arrays, extract a column from an array, table lookup in an array, randomize an array, convert an array to HTML).
• New functions for sorting, filtering and manipulating text arrays (previously this could only be done with statements, not in a formula).
• Programmable printer operation (list available printers, select current printer, check printer status).
• iSight™ camera support (take and display iSight photos directly from your database).
• Hidden password support in forms and dialogs (display ••• instead of password text).
• ProgressAlert statement (automatically displays a dialog with progress bar for time consuming tasks, automatically closes dialog when complete).
• New statements for creating and modifying procedures (write procedures that create other procedures automatically).
• New functions for encoding and decoding common web and e-mail data formats, including URLs, HTML and Base64.
• Panorama 5.5 has new statements specifically for manipulating JPEG images, including finding the size of an image and scaling an image to fit in a specific rectangle without distortion.
• New text and tag parsing statements and functions.
• It’s now possible to create a log or audit trail of all changes made to a database (with the .ModifyRecord and .ModifyFill procedures), so you can see who changed what when.
• New batchreplace( function (previously this could only be done with statements, not in a formula).
• New SizeWindow statement (resizes window without moving it, much less "flashing" than ZoomWindow)
• New statements for comparing and merging dictionaries.
• Growl support for transparent, non-modal notifications (see Welcome to Growl for more information).
• New functions for working with video time codes.
• The new formulavalue statement is similar to a set statement but gives you more control over how errors are handled, allows you to specify the formula using a variable, and allows you to specify what database is to be used for the calculation. It’s especially useful for processing and validating user supplied formulas.
• Nth( function converts 1, 2, 3,etc. into "1st", "2nd", "3rd", etc. (other new conversion functions include commastr(, constantvalue(, formatphone(, naturaldate(, obscuredigits(, padzero(, places( and pluralpattern( ).
• If called by AppleScript a procedures can return a result.
• Execute UNIX shell commands with root privileges (password required).

 

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See the call( function in action

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Web image display: This new feature allows a form to directly display images from any web site without having to download the image in advance (this feature requires the optional Enhanced Image Pack).

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See web image display in action

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New Email Channels: Panorama 5.5 includes two new e-mail channels. The Apple Mail channel sends e-mail using the standard Apple Mail program included with every copy of OS X. The XMail channel sends e-mail using the free open source XMail OSAX. No application needs to be open, XMail sends the mail directly to your SMTP server. Unlike some of the earlier e-mail channels available for Panorama V, neither of these channels requires a separate commercial software package to operate.

Window menu: This menu has been promoted from being a submenu of the File menu to a full fledged menu in the main menu bar.

White Pages: Panorama 5.5 includes three new White Pages search channels (Lycos PeopleSearch, Yahoo!, and AT&T AnyWhoo). If you can't find the person you are looking for with one of these, try another!

Improved compatibility with OS X 10.4 (Tiger) and 10.5 (Leopard).

Quick Search wizard: This wizard provides an alternate method to quickly search for combined criteria in multiple fields.

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See the Quick Search wizard in action

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If you are upgrading from an earlier version of Panorama we've been very careful to maintain 100% compatibility with all previous versions of Panorama. That means that your existing Panorama version 2, 3, 4 or V databases will open immediately with no changes. Whether you are a Panorama novice or an advanced programmer we're confident that Panorama 5.5 will empower you to work faster and smarter than ever!