Reaching beyond traditional data access tools, InfoMaker for Windows is the complete personal data access, management, and reporting tool for developers and end users. InfoMaker allows you to create presentation-quality reports and powerful queries without the complexities of programming. It complements client/server business applications and development tools as well as desktop productivity suites.
InfoMaker combines the latest technologies in information access OLE 2.0, mail-enabled objects, ODBC with Powersoft's DataSmart tools for flexible and powerful reporting.
Yet InfoMaker extends your capabilities even further. It provides facilities for building quick data entry forms, it performs database editing and maintenance, and its Data Pipeline feature enables the migration of data from one database to another with just a few clicks of the mouse. And it comes with a built-in version of Watcom SQL, a powerful, full-featured 32-bit database engine that lets you get up and running without connecting to a back-end database.
InfoMaker provides easy-to-use tools for creating queries, reports, and forms, including multiple query options, powerful DataSmart tools and QuickForms for database editing.
Choose the query method most suited to your needs the simple and fast QuickSelect, the powerful Graphical Query Builder, or Query-by-Example, Query-by-Form, and more. You can quickly set up multi-table queries through automatic joins predefined in the database catalog.
InfoMaker makes it easy to build sophisticated queries and reports quickly with freeform, tabular, group, composite, label, and other QuickStyle report templates that allow you to create a finished professional-looking report in minutes. All this adds up to an amazing increase in productivity over traditional reporting products.
You can customize and enhance reports using a rich palette of tools, including context-sensitive menus, expressions, and objects that adjust to the actual data. Create referenceable calculated fields with more than 100 built-in functions, including context-sensitive predefined sums, totals, and other aggregate values. You can combine information from multiple tables into a single report, and exploit the flexibility of unlimited multi-level sorting and grouping both locally or at the server. Multi-pass reporting capabilities support generation of complex values such as percentages of totals. Multiple options for selecting data subsets for analysis and design purposes provide the ability to focus queries on specific values.
2D and 3D multi-color charts and graphs let you add visual impact to reports. A wide variety of graph styles are included, and they can be fully integrated with report data and embedded at any location from header, to detail, to summary. Create complex cross-tabulation reports with the wizardry of a drag-and-drop interface that anticipates format, layout, and totals.
The InfoMaker environment is intuitive, easy to learn, and simple to use. Toolbars are movable, customizable, and quickly configured to your personal work style. PowerTips give you the name and function for each toolbar icon. The right mouse button lets you access the properties of any object or area on the screen, and the built-in PowerGuides and context-sensitive help give you step-by-step guidance for complex procedures. Highly visual tab dialogs and drag-and-drop control enhance InfoMaker's usability. If you make a mistake, undo it; if you like what you see, copy it to the clipboard and reuse it. It's that simple!
You can set up InfoMaker as an OLE 2.0 server for reports and incorporate InfoMaker reports into compound documents through OLE 2.0. InfoMaker offers the complete range of report embedding and linking capabilities. Broad distribution of reports is made easy through a special InfoMaker report object that encapsulates the report data with a report design. Operating as an embedded OLE object, this report and its data will be viewable without requiring connection to the database, greatly reducing demands on the database server. You can also send InfoMaker reports via electronic mail to other InfoMaker users.
Information Where You Want it ... When You Need it
InfoMaker's server and desktop database drivers provide corporate-wide connectivity and information access. Support for more than 30 databases is built-in, including connectivity to desktop databases like dBASE, FoxPro, Paradox, Clipper, Access, and Watcom SQL, as well as full-featured, high-performance drivers to server databases such as SQL Server, Oracle, Informix, DB2, and others. InfoMaker comes with an open ODBC interface so you can install standard ODBC drivers from any vendor to access virtually any database.
InfoMaker's powerful Data Pipeline capability lets you move data from one database format or location to another. Data can even be restructured on the fly. Ideal for database replication, warehousing, and migration, the Data Pipeline also solves everyday problems such as moving a subset of data onto a laptop computer. Table structures are defined automatically.
InfoMaker anticipates user needs for quick form layouts. With the ease of point-and-click selection, InfoMaker can build an appropriate form ready for data entry and database maintenance. Create freeform, tabular, and master-detail forms in seconds using customizable QuickStyle form templates. For each field in a table, you can use predefined descriptions, label names, edit masks, and graphic display styles stored in the graphical data dictionary to generate a finished layout automatically. Then you can add buttons, list boxes, and other controls to the form, and enable them through selection from a drop-down list of predefined actions and events. No macros need to be designed or coded, no language needs to be learned.
InfoMaker includes the powerful Watcom SQL 4.0 engine, a full-featured, 32-bit local relational database that allows you to get up and running immediately. Use Watcom SQL to build local databases, to work remotely from a server, or to distribute stand-alone applications to other end users. Plus, reports or forms created against the single-user Watcom engine can be scaled up for use on any multi-user Watcom server without modification.
Reducing support needs and enhancing productivity, InfoMaker's query and report management tools allow groups of users to share query libraries and database Connect Profiles. InfoMaker also allows database administrators to limit the size, type, and duration of queries to protect servers against runaway queries.
With InfoMaker's highly flexible installation, a user or administrator can match product capabilities to a particular set of needs or skill level. You can set up InfoMaker in a variety of configurationsÑsuch as query and reporting only, query and reporting with form and database control, query and reporting with Data Pipeline capability, and more. InfoMaker also provides the ability to bundle reports, queries, and forms into standard Windows applications for distribution to others. No licensing or runtime fees are required.
Reports, queries, forms, graphs, and other objects created for applications in InfoMaker or PowerBuilder, Powersoft's premier application development tool, can be used interchangeably by either without modification. PowerBuilder developers can enhance reports designed in InfoMaker, then pass them back again to InfoMaker users. PowerBuilder developers can also create custom form styles, network-based query libraries, and shared Connect Profiles and pass these to InfoMaker users.
InfoMaker is part of the Powersoft Enterprise Series. This family of scalable development tools increases user productivity at every level of complexity throughout the enterprise, promoting an integrated environment for IS developers and end users alike. The Series includes PowerBuilder Enterprise, PowerBuilder Team/ODBC, PowerBuilder Desktop, and InfoMaker.
386SX, MS-DOS or PC-DOS operating system (version 3.3 or above), 8 MB RAM, Microsoft Windows 3.1 or Windows NT, 19 MB hard disk space
ALLBASE/SQL, DB2®, DB2/2, DB2/6000, Informix, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, SQLBase, Sybase SQL Server, Watcom SQL, XDB®, Rdb
Watcom SQL, Paradox® for DOS 3.x, 4.x, 5.x, dBASE III, IV, V, Paradox for Windows, dBASE for Windows, NetWare® SQL 3.x, Clipper® Summer 87, 5.x, Access 1.x, FoxPro® for DOS 2.0, Btrieve® 5.x, 6.x, FoxPro for Windows, ASCII text, Microsoft Excel
Other databases are supported through ODBC connectivity and ODBC drivers provided by the DBMS vendors and third parties.
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