VW 2008 PLANT DATABASE DOES NOT WORK IN OS X LEOPARD

[James Dawson Design]

I have just discovered that the plant database built with Filemaker 9 does not work on Leopard.

This is a known Filemaker issue as the following link will take you to their announcement of a "leopard Compatability Update".

http://www.filemaker.com/support/leopard.html

I have spoken with OZCAD in australia who is guessing that this update may be the solution and to resolve the problem, i.e. the plant database will need to be built with the updated filemaker.

I have submitted a bug report and am posting it this information here to raise the profile of the issue and make other users aware.

NOTE: it is frustrating to see that a core change has not been tested in a current OS. I would be curios to hear from those controlling software change management regarding this issue. Sackable offence I think!

Seriously, if anyone at NNA picks this up and can help getting it resolved ASAP it would be appreciated.

[Guest]

This is something we've been looking into.

[Petri]

Dear me! Not only is NNA responsible for Apple's operating system changes but also for software by third parties.

Fiorello: Hey, wait, wait. What does this say here? This thing here.

Driftwood: Oh, that? Oh, that's the usual clause. That's in every contract. That just says uh, it says uh, "If any of the parties participating in this contract is shown not to be in their right mind, the entire agreement is automatically nullified."

Fiorello: Well, I don't know...

Driftwood: It's all right, that's, that's in every contract. That's, that's what they call a 'sanity clause'.

Fiorello: Ha ha ha ha ha! You can't fool me! There ain't no Sanity Clause!

[Guest]

The FileMaker Database is version 8.5, not version 9.

FileMaker does report regional issues between 8.5 and Leopard.

This is from the FileMaker website:

"Region/language issue: On Leopard, each language version of FileMaker Pro 8.5 works only when the Mac OS System Preference "International Formats Region" is set to a specific region. For example, the English language version of FileMaker works only when the region is United States. It does not work when the region is United Kingdom, or Australia, or France, or any other region."

FileMaker states a patch for 8.5 should be available in December. You can see this information by following the link at:

http://www.filemaker.com/support/leopard.html

and following the link at the bottom where it says ?Click here for info on earlier versions of FileMaker software and Mac OS X Leopard.?

[Petri]

So there. A fully-owned subsidiary of Apple Computers can't get obsolete versions of its software to work with the latest Apple OS.

Who should be sacked?

[James Dawson Design]

thanks katie, looks like I got the filemaker version wrong

regardless, it is pretty dissapointing to see this major problem go undocumented as part of the release

i would have held off my upgrade until the filemaker patch arrived

QUESTION: any chance of someone building me a filemaker 8 version of the plant db as an interim solution???

[Guest]

As an alternative, if you own the full FileMaker version of 9, which seems to have a patch available, you can use the full FileMaker version and not the standalone version included with VW, to edit the Plant Database.

I wish it was as easy as simply building the database in an earlier version! Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case. Additionally, I'm not entirely sure versions prior to 8.5 are stable in Leopard by the context of FileMaker's website.

This was a tricky one for us to catch since the problem seems to exist in situations where the United States is not used as the Operating System setting. It works fine when the OS setting is set to the United States. As a temporary workaround, you may find the drawbacks of doing such outweigh the benefits for the purpose of the plant tool.

[James Dawson Design]

Filemaker 9, I only wish. maybe NNA could use my upgrade cash to pickup a version ;-)

FYI, I can open and edit the Aus Plant DB that Ozcad distributes. It is version 8.

If this problem stems from Aus OS set leopard, then I think I need to retract some of my comments poo, pooing NNA software testing ability.

Maybe a beta testing program would be useful, aimed at international registered users. I know of one devco who make a specialist CAD program that do this. The result is that they end up picking up most localisation issues.

Specialist users can be the best testers.

[Guest]

We do have an international beta program, but the Leopard OS (of which few people have access to in the beta stages) triggered this. At that rate, FileMaker is only affected by non-US Operating Systems. This really reduces the number of beta testers that might come across this situation.

We apologize for the situation. We are working with FileMaker to provide a resolution to the issue as quickly as possible.

[James Dawson Design]

thanks for the updates, lets all hope mr. filemaker is proactive