Re: Want to find an Access Online utility program

There are several possibilities for PC-spreadsheets connecting to an Informix database. Common prerequisite for all is that you have I-Star running on the server (I-Net if you use Informix-SE) and TCP/IP-network hard- and software. On the PC, you also need TCP/IP network hard- and software and I-Net/PC. On top of that, you can either use Informix-WINGZ (a spreadsheet with good graphical tools) which connects to the database via DATALINK (comes with the package) or any ODBC compliant MS-Windows application with the Informix ODBC driver. Currently, MS-Access 1.1 and Word4Windows 6.0 are ODBC compliant, soon-to-be-released MS-Excel 5.0 will also be ODBC compliant. I am not quite sure about the present status of Wingz, it could be that you cannot buy it separately any more but only in a package with Informix HyperScript Tools, a graphical frontend development package for Informix databases. We have some applications running with Wingz 1.1, they work quite well. Wingz is also available for other platforms (Mac, OSF-Motif on UNIX-workstations), but I don't know if they will be further developed. I saw some impressive demos of Excel 5.0 with ODBC connectivity at the German SYSTEMS93 trade show in October. It might be well worth waiting for that product; when you buy 4.0 now, you get a voucher for free update to 5.0. Hope that helps, Richard -- +----------------------------+-------------------------------------------+ | Dr. Richard Spitz | INTERNET: spitz@ana.med.uni-muenchen.de | | EDV-Gruppe Anaesthesie | Tel : +49-89-7095-3421 | | Klinikum Grosshadern | FAX : +49-89-7095-8886 | | 81366 Munich, Germany | | +----------------------------+-------------------------------------------+