Panorama X and Hindsight software

I’ve been a VERY long-term user of your products (going back to Overvue) and I’m hoping that you folks can provide some info on whether or not Jim Cook’s Hindsight software (for me, specifically Inview and Stockview) will work with Panorama X without complications. As you very likely know, Hindsight has folded its tent and there’s no support available for their product, so upgrading to Panorama X, as exciting a prospect as that might be, might be a problem for those of us who still adore both products.

Also, if Hindsight will NOT work with Panorama X, does Panorama 6 have a (definably?) limited future as macOS evolves? Any feedback will be appreciated…

I don’t think that is correct. The web site is still operating, and I received an email from Jim Cook earlier today.

http://hsltd.us

Since Jim is a member here, I’m sure he’ll pipe in, and I’ll leave that to him in regard to his product. But I do know that the current versions of Inview and Stockview do not work with Panorama X.

Panorama 6 is definitely going to stop working on future versions of macOS. At the recent WWDC conference in June, Apple announced that it would be dropping support for all 32 bit software in a future version of macOS. They didn’t specify exactly when that was going to happen, but it could be as soon as 2018. On the iOS side, support for 32 bit apps was dropped this year, so I would take Apple’s statements about this seriously, and plan accordingly.

That’s incorrect. Support is and has always been ongoing for all HindSight products. Our support forums have activity, with responses, as recently as within the last hour.

What we have announced is that there will not be a Panorama X version of our products. That has nothing to do with Panorama. It’s a complete reflection of the state of professional photography and the willingness/ability of the few pros remaining in the business to invest in software. While there are at least a few hundred still using the software on a daily basis, the market simply is insufficient to justify the investment of several hundred hours to rewrite InView & StockView.

So yes, HindSight Ltd is shutting down in the near future and we’re declining new sales. Our products DO work on High Sierra.

But, I’m among the many people who depend on what those products do. They were, after all, inventions of necessity. I still have many needs not satisfied by Adobe Lightroom or any of the few contact management systems. What I’ll do about that remains to be seen.

But #2, I’m very excited about what Panorama X has to offer and have already been working with it for some years. I haven’t done any new programming in it since last night. :wink: I’ve worked from scratch to build a new contacts manager in Panorma X. As you know, there simply have never been any contact managers that covered as much ground. Photo cataloguing…? I have to figure that out.

Meantime, it’s been years since I received a paycheck from HindSight Ltd. My work there has been mostly out of goodwill to customers like you who go back decades. My bread and butter these days is custom projects on Panorama Enterprise. I’m looking forward to the day that it’s on Panorama X. It’s absolutely on my radar.

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Regarding Shameless Self Promotion…

Many might see some of my posts and uploads as being self-promotion. Yes, they are.

Panorama has become my livelihood and I vigorously promote that fact - and Panorama in the process. Those of us who are professional Panorama developers should. It’s good for us and for ProVUE. Jeff Kozuch and Robert Ameeti are also professional developers and should do as much. There are others who are at least serious contributors to the community… David Thompson, Gary Yonaites, Michael Kellock and others that I’ll regret omitting.

Ultimately it’s all about supporting an incredible piece of software and we all benefit in seeing it grow.

WOW…is my face red…so sorry, Jim. Of course you know how much I love
your software and the engine that drives it, which has clearly required so
little support over the years that I’ve almost never needed to contact you.
I used an antiquated URL to Hindsight that led me to think that the support
forums were unavailable, but I’m thrilled to hear they are still up and
running. I remain committed to your work with Hindsight and Panorama for
as long as my index finger can click a shutter and the rest of those
fingers to click-clack on a keyboard.

Best,

http://www.richardpasley.com

Richard Pasley
Richard Pasley Photography
cell 617-571-7829

James, your talents well deserve ongoing promotion. Yes, the Macintosh database world is changing and we must adapt and adjust. Many of us look forward to the Panorama X Enterprise Solution as the pc world expects multi-user as a standard and Enterprise X will bring us that together with the new Panorama X. And yes, the products that we created, sold, and supported in the past have sometimes outgrown their usefulness to the market, so we adjust.

I look forward to your continued sharing and insights to how we can best make use of and show off the creative options that Panorama X allows. What you and I do with Panorama makes people smile and isn’t that a fun thing?

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Jim (Cook), you have done some incredible things with Panorama and I appreciate the acknowledgement.

With the release of Panorama X, I have chosen to forgo the madness of L.A.traffic and on-call tech support mania to focus on programming and support of Panorama exclusively (along with being a professional musician). I have rewritten most of my DispatchIt! program in Panorama X. It is often used as the basis for many of my client’s custom solutions. I am beginning to update client files, though 90% of them are utilizing Enterprise server so, again, I am anxiously awaiting that announcement.

I also look forward to new training opportunities, although I must say that the Help files which come with Panorama are the best I’ve ever seen and may eliminate the need for organized training.

Finally, with the official announcement of Panorama X, I want to congratulate Jim Rea on such a huge accomplishment. He has been a friend for many years who I have always thought of as a genius and totally driven entrepreneur. He codes nonstop but still has the time to field our questions and concerns with rapid response time. I’m sure he will continue to amaze all of us as this program evolves.

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That’s very kind of you to say, but I’m sure there will still be people that prefer to be taught rather than self-learning, no matter how good the documentation is. Hopefully the good documentation will just whet their appetite to go even further.

Is anyone aware of any kind of current and / or ongoing support or forum for Hindsight software?
Many thanks. Ray

The HindSight website was shut down in June 2018 and the company is being dissolved. The entire product line is built on Panorama 6 and has now dead ended, as it will not run on Panorama X.

As I wrote here last year, I too need products such as those that were sold under the HindSight name and Panorama X is the best environment for building them. They will not be sold as commercial products. I have no desire to start and run a software business again. My intent is to share what I build for myself as open source software so that others can join me in building something for us all to use and share.

I’ve already posted a new image database in the Database Exchange and have a Contacts database just about ready.

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Would anyone happen to know if upgrading to macOS Mojave will have a negative impact on this version of HS 6.0.2? Also, if anyone has a solution for a new software to migrate contacts, invoicing/estimating, equipment… I would greatly appreciate it! Lost without my HS… probably been working with it for over 20 years…
Thank you!

Hi George,

Your InView 6.0.2 will run on Mojave BUT the first launch of Panorama after a restart will always have a Gatekeeper dialog appear asking permission to access certain system files. I’ve found no way to defeat it.

I’ve already uploaded a free ImageLog using Panorama X and have nearly completed Contacts and an equipment database that I’ll be sharing as well.

Hi Jim (or anyone else),

I’ve been using InView & StockView since about 1994 or 1995. It’s a great program, and I hate to quit using it. I just bought as new computer that is running High Sierra 10.13.6. I noticed in this thread that you said that InView & StockView will work with High Sierra. The Panorama 6.0.0 transferred to the new computer, but not the InView & StockView. Any suggestions?

InView & StockView DO work on High Sierra.

I can’t tell you why they failed to transfer other than it would’ve been something in your configuration and/or transfer choices. You can certainly transfer a copy of the whole folder though and as long as Panorama 6 is there it should run just fine.

I transferred it manually, and it appears to be working well. Thank you

Hi James, Well, since I’ve been using Inview since 1990 I’m sad to have to hunt down an alternative. Two questions: #1: Do you have any suggestions on photo business software? I’ve looked but they all fall short. #2: Do you have documentation on how to export all of the data out of Inview or is it possible? 28 years of data wrapped up in there.

It sounds like I can’t rely on PanX to have something to replace it, at least not at this point. Thanks for all the years of Inview.
Patrick Bennett

There is no real alternative. Those built on FileMaker or other databases have always been at a disadvantage. As noted in another thread here, I’m busy building for my own needs - because there is no other choice.

Panorama X is very promising but nothing of the scale you’re seeking occurs overnight.

Thanks for clarifying what I was afraid of. Once it stops working in the future OS I might keep running it on a Powerbook G4 along with my rarely used Nikon Coolscan. Crazy that this one piece of software created all those years ago is the most robust, it not slightly dated.

I failed to answer about exporting. One of our ongoing objectives was that your data should never be captive. Every one of your databases has an export capability. In Contacts and Catalogue, for instance, it’s among the Reports. In each, the export format can be edited in the export form’s Graphics Mode.

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Hello, Jim Cook. Thank you for writing your version of Contacts for Panorama X. I, for one, would be happy to pay for this.

Frankly, I cannot understand why ProVue has not seen fit to hire YOU to write a contact database for them that would run on Panorama X. It would certainly help sales - everyone needs a good contacts file and your was excellent!

I love InView software and I’ll settle for your version of Contacts only.

John Whitman