Xcatalog 7.2.2b1 review

Xcatalog is a bi-directional data linking tool that creates transparent links between your documents and databases.

License: Demo OS: Mac OS X File size: 0K Developer: em software Buy Now Price: $800.00 Updated: 21 Aug 2006

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Xcatalog is a bi-directional data linking tool that creates transparent links between your documents and databases. Once links are established, it can update any type of published data almost instantly. Use Xcatalog to update product graphics, prices, descriptions, language localizations — anything in your document.

With bi-directional links, you never have to enter or update your data in two places (documents and database) — you simply update one or the other from the most current version.

Linked elements can be moved between documents and libraries freely without loss of linkage. And links don’t affect layout or typography.

InCatalog Pro is the ODBC-capable version of InCatalog and can update documents directly from any ODBC-accessible database (Oracle, SQL Server, Sybase, Access, etc.).

What's New:
Xcatalog 7.2.2 is a fully-functioning serialized release. If you've used a registered copy of Xcatalog 6 on your machine, then once installed in QuarkXPress 7's XTensions folder this version should work without reentering a serial number. Otherwise, when prompted you'll need to obtain and enter a 6.x-style Xcatalog serial number appropriate for your OS.
This version of Xcatalog now supports Unicode.
Unless your Unicode encoded data snapshot file begins with a BOM (a special Unicode character which indicates which Unicode encoding a text file uses, but which is otherwise ignored) you need to tell Xcatalog to expect Unicode characters by selecting "Unicode" from the character set popup in Xcatalog's Data Snapshot preferences. Once selected, text files lacking a BOM or not encoded as UTF-16 will default to UTF-8.
FileMaker Online data is currently transfered only as MacRoman characters. We hope to support direct Unicode from/to FileMaker Pro 7 and 8 in the near future.
By default, ODBC conversations are performed with characters in the OS-native MacRoman/WinLatin set. To use a different encoding, specify the %"[incoming-encoding[:outgoing-encoding]]" qualifier in your DD's key field. Supported encodings include: "m" for MacRoman, "w" for WinLatin, "u" for UTF-8 or, lastly, "utf-16" for UTF-16 (which triggers the use of wide characters (SQL_WCHARS) internally and may not work reliably on Mac OS). For example:
%"u" - specifies UTF-8 for both incoming and outgoing data.
%"m" - specifies MacRoman for both incoming and outgoing data.
%"u:m" - specifies UTF-8 in and MacRoman out (which would be appropriate for FileMaker Pro 7)
The Xcatalog > Create Data... and Xcatalog > Create Data File... actions currently create data files using the character set specified in the Data Snapshot preferences. If Unicode is selected, UTF-8-encoded data will be written.

Requirements:
QuarkXPress 7.x.