Reprieve for FileMaker Pro 8.5

Stephen Withers
Friday, 02 November 2007 07:34

Business IT - Technology

Mac owners that want to stay with FileMaker Pro 8.5 after upgrading to Mac OS X 10.5 may get their wish.

FileMaker has been testing version 8.5 on Leopard, and identified three main issues, of which two will be patched fairly quickly.

Like version 9, FileMaker 8.5 gets upset about certain combinations of language and region settings. In particular, the English version only works when the region is set to US.

The other problem being fixed concerns Save to Excel and Export to Excel.

Although the company will be offering updates for FileMaker Pro 8.5 and FileMaker Pro 8.5 Advanced to correct those issues, neither product will be supported on Leopard, and the company makes it clear that the patches are only intended as temporary measures.

"We hope that fixing these key issues will help affected customers make a smoother transition to FileMaker Pro 9. Please note - there may be other issues with FileMaker Pro 8.5 and FileMaker Pro 8.5 Advanced running on Leopard," FileMaker officials said. "We strongly recommend you use current certified software."

The update is expected in December.

The third issue on FileMaker's list is Instant Web Publishing, but that "was designed and implemented long before the Leopard release, and it is not feasible to update it for Leopard."

No earlier versions of FileMaker will be tested or supported on Leopard, officials added. Even though the company originally said that about version 9, we doubt another reversal is likely.

The Leopard compatibility update for FileMaker Pro 9 was released overnight.