Table of Contents

Introduction

Welcome to August Software's ODBC OverDriver for PowerMac ODBC 3.51. This software allows your PowerMac applications to use Network Data Sources through Windows ODBC drivers installed on a centralized NT/2K/XP server.

To use ODBC OverDriver, you must have already installed ODBC 3.0-3.51 on your PowerMac, as included with MS-Office98 and FileMakerPro 5.X and many other popular MacOS applications. (MS-Office98 users simply check-off "Data Access" in the ValuePak Installer included on the CD-ROM.)

Installation

Installation of ODBC OverDriver for PowerMac ODBC 3.51 is a simple process. Open your Mac's  System Folder, then open the Extensions folder and then drag the ODBC OverDriver^TM PPC file into the ODBC folder. If your Mac does not have a ODBC folder, then first insert your MS-Office98 CD, launch the ValuePak Installer, check off DataAccess and click Install.

Configuring Network Data Sources

With your trusty new ODBC OverDriver safely stored in your Mac's ODBC folder you are ready to tell your Mac about the network data sources you plan to use inside of your ODBC-aware applications (MSOffice, FileMakerPro, etc..)

STEP 1:Open your Mac's Control-Panel and double-click on an icon which looks something like . If you can't find this icon in your Control-Panel, then repeat your installation of the PowerMac ODBC 3.11 software. (MS-Office98 users: insert your original CD, launch the ValuePak Installer, check off DataAccess and click Install.) You should now see the ODBC Data Source Administrator dialog, as follows:

STEP 2: The above dialog is listing all of the User Data Sources available to the ODBC-compatible PowerMac applications (MS-Office, FileMakerPro, Tango, etc..) that you may have installed on your Mac. Click Add and let's set some up.

STEP 3: Select the AUGSOFT OverDRIVER™ PPC list entry and click Finish. If you can't find this entry in your list, then you may not have placed the file in your ODBC folder (see Installation) or you may need to rebuild your desktop, run DiskFirstAid or reboot.

After activating the ODBC OverDriver, you will be greeted with a simple dialog that will allow you to create a Network Data Source:

STEP 4: Here we will tell MacODBC the name and network location of a data source. Activate Balloon Help by clicking on the ? icon for detailed descriptions of any of the fields.

• Start by entering the name of the Network Data Source that you want to use in the Server DSN field (capitalization, punctuation and spacing in the name are important) -- this name must exactly match the name of an entry in the System DSN property-tab of the ODBC32 control panel on the NT/2K/XP server hosting your ODBC ROUTER.

• Next, select whether your Mac will connect to the ODBC ROUTER via AppleTalk or TCP/IP. If your Mac will connect to the ODBC ROUTER via AppleTalk, you will need to enter the name of the Network Zone that contains the ODBC ROUTER (name defaults to GEOHUB). If your Mac will connect to the ODBC ROUTER via TCP/IP, enter a valid IP address or domain name in the ODBC ROUTER field. You usually will not need to adjust the default Port number (unless directed to do so by your Administrator.).

• Next, you may elect to disable the OverDRIVER's username and password "pop-up". If your application does not supply a username and password, then the "pop-up" may appear (if not disabled) when connecting to this Network Data Source. For databases such as MS-Access that lack username/password security, it is a good idea to check this. For multi-user databases, you will not want to check this.

• Next, you may also enter a "default" value for the Username field in the OverDRIVER's username and password "pop-up". (This is ignored if you disabled the "pop-up".) For security reasons, you cannot specify a default value for the Password field.

• Certain Network Data Sources or Macintosh applications that you may encounter might require database-specific connection options. Under the direction of your Network Administrator, you may enter these options (of the form KEYWORD=VALUE;) into the "Connect Options" item, as desired. If you are using FileMakerPro (but not later releases), you may choose to enter II=1 into this field when working with SYBASE or SQLServer data sources.

• When you're done filling out this dialog, click OK and repeat STEP 2 through STEP 4 for each additional Network Data Source you want to use on the NT server hosting your ODBC ROUTER.

NOTE: If you have multiple Macs to configure with identicle lists of data sources, you can perform all of your configuration and testing on one machine and transfer the resulting "ODBC Preferences PPC" file (from System Folder->Preferences folder) to your other meachines, as needed.

Use with Microsoft's Office98/2001 for Macintosh

The focal-point for integrating data from your Network Data Sources with the Microsoft Office productivity suite is an application called MS-Query. (On MacOS, MS-Query can be found in the Shared Applications folder at the top level of the folder where you installed Office98 or in the Microsoft folder where you installed Office2001). Microsoft Excel will launch MS-Query when you select Get External Data... from the Data menu:

The process of retrieving or updating your database in MS-Query is called a "query". To create a new query, select New from the File menu. MS-Query will prompt you to select a network data source to work with:

Because MS-Query keeps its own list of data sources (apart from the ODBC Setup PPC control panel), you would will need to click on New Data Source and select OK to link MS-Query with your data source definition:

Next, you will want to specify a sorting-order for the data to be returned from your Network Data Source:

Finally, MS-Query will prompt you as to how you want to return data from the Network Data Source:

Once you are done with the query, the data may be returned to MS-Excel where it may be brought "current" with the values in the Network Data Source, simply by clicking a button:

Use with FileMakerPro 4.1-6.0

Accessing information in your Network Data Sources using the popular FileMakerPro 4.1-6.0 application is very, very easy. First, start by launching FileMakerPro 4.1-6.0 and selecting "Open an existing file...":

Next, click OK and select ODBC from the Show field of the Open dialog:

Next, select one of the Network Data Sources you created using the ODBC Setup PPC control panel (see above):

Click OK and now select the tables and table-columns in your Network Data Source that you would like to bring down into FileMakerPro 4.1.

Click Execute and select where you would like your resulting FileMakerPro data to be stored.

Click Save and watch as the resulting data is displayed in your FileMaker session!

Programmer's Reference

Download the new ODBCSDK for Classic, Carbon or Darwin and Linux applications now! ODBC OverDriver for PowerMac ODBC 3.51 implements the following interfaces on all supported platforms, as defined by Microsoft's official ODBC 2.1 specification. In this way, full interoperability is achieved between ODBC 2.x and 3.x drivers installed on your server.

NOTE: Some bizzar ODBC drivers for Windows NT might make use of special driver-specific extensions to the official ODBC specification, for example, to define non-standard datatypes. The ODBC OverDriver and ODBC ROUTER make every effort to support such drivers from the MacOS environment; however, compatibility may vary. If you encounter such a driver, ask its manufacture to get in touch with support-at-augsoft.com so that we can quickly resolve any compatibility issues for you.