Re: ViewPoint

In article <1tgpue$ivh@news.cerf.net> hptasins@nic.cerf.net (Henry Ptasinski) writes: >Hi, > >I've recently heard a few juicy rumors about a new Informix product called >ViewPoint,which is supposed to make it much easier to generate a GUI front-end >for Infromix databased. Does anybody out there have any information about Assuming that there is an Informix ODBC driver you could take a look at Impromptu 2.0 from Cognos. It is aimed straight at the end-user but contains aspects for administrators to control who does what etc. Their showing it at Windows World in Atlanta next week - I think we're on the Microsoft booth. Here is a quick dump of some of the features. (a.k.a sales pitch!). The admin can limit such things as outer-joins, #tables in a join what tables etc they can see, #rows processed etc. The user never knows about the structure of the underlying dbms because they s ee tables/views organised as folders (like File Manager in MS/Windows kind of idea). You can have columns from multiple tables/views in any given folder and folders in folders and so on. You can also apply alias names for those systems with cryptic column names. There is no programming effort for the DBA to connect to the DBMS - just point and click stuff. The end-user uses a point and click approach to building queries without explicitly defining joins (thats some of the smarts in impromptu) including intelligent cut/paste between multiple active queries in different windows. Users can click on a column and via icons/menus/fast-keys they can apply sorts,filters,aggregates (running aggregates included) etc. Calculated fields can be defined with many functions/case/if then/lookup kinds of things - again point and click. Queries can be undone to any number of levels, Impromptu will also do smart caching of queries to save pounding the network. Users can even save result sets to local pc storage - good for nomadic clients. Queries can be saved for later use and result sets can be exported to various popular PC formats. Reports can be made visually appealing again with point-n-click/drag-n-drop kinds of things to apply footers/headers/bit-maps/truetype fonts/ colours and all the usual pretty stuff they want. Supports Paradox, dBase, ODBC, Oracle (SQL*net), MS and Sybase SQL-Server (Open-Client), Rdb, Allbase, InterBase, Ingres etc. for more info, try 800-426-4667 in the US, 800-267-2777 in Canada, +44 344 486668 UK, +61 2 437 6655 Australia or drop me a line and I'll forward your questions. regards. -- Nigel Campbell Voice: (613) 738-1338 ext 3016 P.O. Box 9707 Cognos Incorporated FAX: (613) 738-0002 3755 Riverside Dr. UNIX and RDBMS MCI: nigel campbell || 307-4729 Ottawa, Ontario UUnet: nigelc@cognos.COM CANADA K1G 3Z4