Canto Cumulus for Mac

User Reviews

• Canto really hit the mark with this version

  Press-DudeAugust 7, 2006

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  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />I think they really hit the mark with this version. Stable, OSX native and waaaay faster! The new features are great. I just wish that there were more modules to use with the actions functionality out of the box. The Quark integration is great, the InDesign integration is not as strong but is still a leap in the right direction. They are still on top of it for Digital RAW formats. It may not detect parent child relationships with files but you can now create Master/Slave files or "variations". This goes well with the new split panel thumbnail screen, where the lower split screen displays the relation assets to the one you have selected in the primary screen. I Haven't done much with the scheduler yet, so I really can't comment too much on it. Web Publisher Pro and Internet Client pro have a completely different feel. Same ideas just much faster. AJAX is behind the new sites so it requires a little more know how to edit. But fortunately not as much editing is need since record view sets now work with the client and the web, all configured just from the client. This goes for saved queries, collections and category view sets. The only downer is that you can't set independent action to convert each asset the same way you did in 3.0 when downloading. Using the Cumulus 7 Java Classes to update the Helios Companion yields a huge jump in performance. The JC handles the loads much better as well as cataloging and updating files much faster. All in all its the best release Canto has had yet!! Two Thumbs up!

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• Finally an improvement and some

  strahler2001@aol.comJuly 24, 2006

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  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />After not so satisfying Cumulus 6.5 I am back to being happy (and getting things done) using Cumulus with version 7. User Interface has much improved and now I can finally split the veiw to see the relationships between my media. Haven't checked all new features but so far so good and our admin seems delighted as catalog size can now be 1TerraByte and he now finally has the power over our creative team (an admins dream!) as he can set our permissions for each single asset. We are using a Cumulus 7 Business Server Solution with 35 people, so far no complaints, let's see how this develops.

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• This does not sound very good

  mfix--2008May 23, 2006

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  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />...unfortunately I have to agree with the other posters. Cumulus is slow, buggy and complicated. Product &amp; upgrade costs are to high, you have to pay support fees in order to be able to report bugs &amp; are treated like stooopid if you have stability problems with the product. We've started with the OS9 Versions of Cumulus when it was still a good product years ago. But everything of Worgroup/Server which came later from OSX 10.1 up to 10.4 was less usable &amp; all the integration of Web services &amp; DB &amp; SalesSystem was complicated and each little Upgrade (bug fix) costly... so long Cumulus.

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• Poor progamming, poor GUI, constant publisher...

  zimbakinJanuary 17, 2006

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  ...crashing<br />This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />Spent over 2 years and $10,000+, including 1 apple engineer, in an attempt to get this thing working. Local and parent company support were unhelpful to say the least. After 'techy' paid the additional, exorbitant developers fee, to gain major support access, problems were simply passed off as user error or ignored.

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• I canto believe this is software

  _talentMarch 11, 2005

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  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />My boss has spent the last four years and almost $20,000 in trying to make Canto Cumulus work. The last $6,000 has been spent on the promise that if we upgrade to v.6 all our problems will be over. Ah salesmen! they sure promise a lot but we still cannot use this so called program to achieve anything except frustration. I have personally used iView for many years, first when it was given away with Toast software many moons ago. It is now multi platform, able to do what Cumulus users can only dream of doing. Photos, Illustrator files, Photoshop files, font files, text files, you name it and iView can show it to you. Crapulus does a fair job of photos but try anything else and you're in for a challenge. It took the smooth sales team three months before our Illustrator file thumbnails in cumulus look like they're made up of more than ten pixels. Until they rebuilt our server, our 4 license software allowed one person to open four catalogues and no one else. It was more like four catalogue software than four user software. If you created a collection, saved it and closed the window, you could never open it again as cumulus told you you had the wrong version of Cumulus! Shall I go on? We were promised that Cumulus could communicate with another program like FileMaker to give us reports on who bought what, when, who produced what, who sold and how much, where the assets were. Ah to dream and wake up in a nightmare that is Canto Cumulus. If you're considering buying this program please do yourself a favour and DO NOT! Save your sanity, your time and your money.

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• In the process of replacing Cumulus

  sbornemannFebruary 8, 2005

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  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />Our design dept. has used Cumulus Workgroup for approx. 6 years and we're in the final stages of installing a new DAM software solution. Our biggest problems with Cumulus include... 1. Workgroup software and updates are usually buggy 2. No longer supports Quark drag-n-drop (they took it out without a word) 3. Crashes the G5 OSX server it's on several times a week 4. Web Publisher doesn't have a collection basket feature 5. Tech support can be unresponsive or unable to provide solutions (see 1 &amp; 3) Cumulus suited our needs when we first purchased it, but now I would strongly recommend doing some research, you can find better DAM software for less money with more features and stability.

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• Stay clear from this

  VersionTrackerUserOpinionJanuary 4, 2005

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  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />This must be the worst, unfriendly tech support in the world. So RUDE. I bought the product, one day after had problems crashing, CALLED tech support, they did not answer my tel call. Was on hold for over 30 min. Finally called the sales office. WHAT RUDE People. I would never buy anything from your company again. You should limit yourselves to the PC market. Your product does not even work. I want stupid to not read first what was said here on VT, well again I learn from my mistakes. People if you are looking for a company who cares about you and whatas you to be a happy custmer,. FORGET THIS COMPANY! They Su*k and they just do a lot of talking about how well this product works. All bull! Does not work and if it does then it works like for a day and then crashes, Stay away

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• !! CRASHES LOADS IN OSX !! :o(

  cookymunsterNovember 12, 2004

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  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />We have had Cumulus for years and it has always been difficult to use and very crashy &amp; buggy. We upgraded to 6.0.3 SP1 but it didn't fix all the crashes. Not only does it crash but if it does it in the middle of cataloguing the your whole catalogue ends up corrupt and takes ages for it to mend!!!! When you spend an absolute fortune on it you then have to spend further fortunes on 'Extra Option' that should already be included!! Email upport is very slow! If Portfolio wasn't so slow we would use that instead, If iView catalogued Quark doc without having a file suffix '.qxd' then we would use that as well. As a graphics company wanting to catalogue all types of files we feel all programmes need sorting out!! Cumulus is the fastest when it works properly and doesn't crash and corrupt catalogues!!

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• Nevermind...

  gskibumSeptember 11, 2004

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  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />...it is still junk. Same issues as before. It just worked for a day.

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• RAW files and more

  strahler2001@aol.comAugust 1, 2004

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  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />think 6.03 ist the best version yet. I also bought the photo suite option with the new version - wow, i had almost switched to portfolio for my pro photo stuff, but this does so much more. great they finally have all the features we need - incl. RAW file support. I'm sticking with cumulus! have to study the manual though, as it is very complex - but really stable and fast version and worth the while. and the price is very ok.

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