The original Filevision was one of the first Macintosh programs to use the special characteristics of the Mac to define a new kind of database program. It combines the attributes of a drawing program like MacDraw with those of a database filing system. You can create drawings and link the graphic objects to data records, forming a visually oriented database. Filevision is a much more radical departure from conventional database programs than Microsoft File, which lets you enter graphic fields in data records...
Many Macintosh pioneers were entranced by Filevision s unique capabilities. However, the original Filevision lacks the data capacity and report-generation capabilities that can be found in most other Macintosh database programs. Consequently, the program has never gained a foothold in the business world. Instead, the application is used for personal filing projects and educational presentations.
Business Filevision clearly shows its lineage. At first glance the only visible difference from the original Filevision is that the Tinker menu has been renamed Access. On closer inspection, however, you’ll see that the new version provides the database management capabilities that bring the program to an equal footing with other database systems, such as DB Master and Microsoft File. In addition, Business Filevision offers impressive enhancements to Filevision s graphic display features as well as to its capabilities for linking graphics and data.
Business Filevision, which requires a 512K Mac, comes with two disks. One disk contains the program, which takes up about 300K, and a customized System file. Because there isn't space on the disk for the Finder, the program disk automatically starts up the application. The second disk has a complete System Folder, sample files for the tutorial exercises, and two utilities. One utility converts original Filevision drawing/data documents to Business Filevision documents. The other utility is a hard disk installation program, which makes it possible to put Business Filevision on a hard disk and use it without having to insert the master when you start up from the copy.
As with the original Filevision, Business Filevision's strength is the blending of drawing and database functions in a way that gives you an impression of direct manipulation. One example of direct manipulation in Business Filevision is the new pop-up feature. This feature makes it possible to associate specific graphic subdisplays with particular objects in a drawing, hiding them until their associated objects are selected...
The Tool Palette
Like the original Filevision, the new program provides MacDraw-like tools for the construction of the graphic portion of documents. Selected graphic objects are highlighted with handles, like those used in MacDraw, or with inverse video or a black border. Graphic objects can be text, straight lines, polygons, rectangles, rounded-corner rectangles, ovals, arcs, freehand lines, or symbols-special 16- by 16-pixel icons. You can change the symbols with the program's built-in symbol editor.
Each Business Filevision document can have its own set of 20 symbols, which are chosen from a special menu called the symbol palette. Lines can be black, white, or gray, and 1 to 4 dots wide. Filled graphic objects such as rectangles, circles, and polygons can contain any of 18 patterns, which you can edit. You can reshape graphic objects created with the straight line, polygon, and freehand tools by adding new vertices to existing objects. You can easily convert a triangle into a pentagon, for example.
You handle text in the graphic display with the usual text manipulation methods, and you can display the text in underline, italic, bold, or shadow styles. Five font sizes and up to eight fonts can be selected. As with other Macintosh programs, you can use a utility program to add or remove fonts from the System file.
The graphic abilities of Business Filevision surpass those of its predecessor. A drawing can extend over an 8- by 10-inch area-more than three times the area of the original. An unusual scrolling method dispenses with conventional scroll bars and thereby saves screen space for the drawing. A dark rectangle below the drawing tools palette represents the 8- by 10-inch drawing area, and a white rectangle within it the 6- by 4-inch drawing window. To view a different part of a drawing, you drag the little white window to a new location in the dark rectangle. To help you find the right spot for the window, all currently selected objects show up in the rectangle as tiny inverse squares. In addition, you can view a reduced image of the 8- by 10-inch drawing area. All of the drawing and editing tools except the text tool work within the reduced display.
Data Management
As with the original Filevision, you must define the abstract types, or categories, that objects belong to in a Business Filevision file. You can include up to 16 types per file. Whenever you define a new type, you must define its record structure by building an information-entry form for objects of the type...
You can construct queries based on field values. For example, you can ask that the travel agent’s map highlight all the lakes with altitudes of more than 800 meters. Or you can ask for all the hotels in a particular area with overnight peak-season room rates of less than $100 per night... All the objects not selected by the query are dimmed, highlighting the selected objects. Business Filevision gives you more flexibility in queries than did Filevision, allowing comparisons between fields, rank comparisons, and nested query constraints.
One of Filevision s major drawbacks is that it does not calculate numeric data. In Business Filevision, fields can be computed, displaying values based on the values of other fields. In reports, the program can calculate statistics, including total, average, and standard deviation. Calculated field values can range from plus to minus 9,999,999,999 9999-enough to compute the national debt, at least for a few more years.
You can set up a field so that it displays default text during data entry, using the value of the field from the previous record or a constant default for the field. For example, to avoid repeatedly typing the same part number for a series of inventory records, you click the Copy from Previous Record option in the Field Setup dialog box for the selected field. Subsequent records contain the assigned part number.
You can also cut, copy, and paste data-entry forms for use in a variety of Business Filevision applications...
Data storage in Filevision is limited by the constraints of the 128K Mac; you are limited to 132K and 999 objects per file. In Business Filevision, a single file can fill up to 4 megabytes with as many as 32,000 objects. Naturally, it would be difficult to fit so many graphic objects in a single drawing, but Business Filevision permits non-graphic objects-tvpes that have only data records but no graphic objects associated with them. A single record may have up to 4000 characters, and a field can be as large as 2000 characters. You can put up to 99 fields in a record, and you can fill a 30- by 30-inch display area with fields for a given record. Vertical and horizontal scroll bars are used to move around the record form.
Report Generation
Business Filevision lets you print customized reports, labels, forms, and mailmerged form letters. Up to 20 customized report formats can be stored for each file.
You can select up to three fields for sorting in a report form, customize headers and footers, format fields, position or remove individual data fields, print graphic fields, adjust headers and footers, and print the date, time, and page numbers. You can save the report as a text file to download later to another filing or word processing program or even to another computer. In addition, Business Filevision lets you preview reports on screen before printing-a feature lacking in Filevision.
You can print reports on both the Imagewriter and the LaserWriter using any of the fonts available to the program. Like MacDraw, Business Filevision ’s graphics can take advantage of the LaserWriter’s 300-dots-per-inch resolution, clearly rendering lines, rectangles, ovals, LaserWriter fonts, and all other objects created with the graphic tools. Only bit-mapped objects imported from MacPaint or via digitizing applications are limited to the Macintosh’s original 72 dots per inch on the LaserWriter.
The Limiting Factors
Business Filevision is not without some of the limitations that plague the original Filevision. Although graphics highlight in response to queries, they don't automatically change in response to changes in their data attributes. For example, changing the data record in a catalog of a rare book collection to show that a particular book was moved to a new location does not cause the image of the book to move to the new location in the graphic representation of the library. Another drawback is that you can only search for data in one type at a time.
Some of the handy drawing features of MacDraw are absent, such as Rotate and Flip. Multipage drawings like MacDraw’s would be useful. It would also help if the graphic objects created by Business Filevision were built on the same underlying structure as MacDraw. As it stands, a Business Filevision graphic pasted into MacDraw for further enhancement is treated as a MacPaint-like bit-mapped object rather than as a typical MacDraw object. When you copy the MacDraw-manipulated object back into Business Filevision, it can no longer be ungrouped, and it may look skewed on a LaserWriter printout.
One other limitation is that Business Filevision cannot exchange data with other programs. Ideally, you’d want to be able to copy Business Filevision data to a spreadsheet lik e Multiplan or Lotus 1-2-3 for serious number crunching or bring in data from another data management program such as Helix, OverVUE, or Omnis III. However, Telos plans to provide a modestly priced import/export utility in the near future.
Overview
Although you can become productive relatively quickly with Business Filevision, the documentation is indispensable for making full use of the program. Certain techniques, such as creating a pop-up, can be performed only through keyboard combinations and have no corresponding menu option. Most menu selections have keyboard equivalents so that experienced users can work more quickly.
For most Business Filevision applications, you need a hard disk to gain the storage space needed to maintain large files containing significant amounts of graphic information. If any aspects of your business data can be made more comprehensible by portraying the relationships among your data records graphically, and you don’t require an elaborate relational database system, Business Filevision offers the only way to build a single file that can combine the visual information of a drawing program with the alphanumeric relationships of a conventional database system.
Munro, Allen. (March 1986). Business Filevision. Macworld. (pgs. 94-97).
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2021-12-02 / 
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Filevisionr_Business_PDS_0.sit
Emulating this? It could probably run under: 
Mini vMac
