Saturday, July 26, 2014

Reporting Studio for PowerBuilder

** Hot News **

Reporting Studio

Reporting Studio Positioning 

    Novalys will soon be launching the first version of Reporting Studio.Unlike InfoMaker or Crystal Reports, this tool does not require any SQL skills to create a report.Business users can add new reports themselves, and even deploy them to web and mobile users!You can tightly integrate it with your PowerBuilder code, or use it as a standalone application.

   Novalys needs your help to make the User experience as smooth as possible.If you are Interested in joining this innovative adventure, please Sign-up here for the BETA!

Regards ... Chris

Monday, July 14, 2014

SCN - PB Discrimination

Discriminating Against the PowerBuilder Community

What the %$^#* is SAP's doing?



  It has been an ever frustrating set of events for the PowerBuilder Community and ever saddening state of affairs since SAP took over Sybase and transferred the News Groups and moved the PB community over to their SAP Community Network (SCN) system! I say this because the SCN moderators have consistently suppressed key & useful information about the PowerBuilder product. I say this from first hand experience and in talking with other SCN users in the PowerBuilder Developer Centre section of SCN. We have all seen our information posts delayed, dropped, and hidden.

  Most of the SCN postings that have been dropped have been about User Group events, ISUG events & news, free open source product initiatives, 3rd party products, PB community news, correct answers to questions (this one still boggles my mind), helpful hints on using PB, constructive criticism of PB features, suggestions of product improvement and many other areas of general interest to the PB community.


This suppression of PowerBuilder product information, constructive criticism, pertinent questions  on PB product direction has now reached an all time high in 2014. I am personally deeply saddened with SAP's blatant attacks on the relevant PB news items in SCN. This kind of childish behaviour reflects poorly on SAP in general.

  I personally, seem to get many postings deleted as I am about to take over the top spot in the SCN rankings. Interestingly enough, the postings that get deleted are often over 1 year old at that time. Come ON - these postings have been around for over 365 days and now they are now just being targeted because I'm getting more points than anyone else for answering relevant questions and posting newsworthy items about PB. How ridiculous SAP!

 I am sure that many of the PB Community members have also been treated in this way. If so or you agree with my observations - please write your SAP contacts, SCN, PB product people and complain about this injustice to the PB community. Only with free flowing information about the product and its ecosystem can the PB community thrive. Or is that something that SAP is trying to deliberately undermine (it sure looks like it!)?


Regards ... Chris


Sunday, July 13, 2014

eLearnIt - PB Education

** Hot News **

PowerBuilder Training - New offers from eLearnIt


  eLearnIt’s entire acclaimed PowerBuilder on-demand e-Training library is now available for a longer subscription period and at a new reduced price!

Details

  • 30% discount off of today’s triple course rate. ISUG Gold members will be entitled to additional discounts.
  • PowerBuilder learning modules with hands on labs will now cost only $1600 for a one year unlimited access subscription.
  • eLearnIT will extend a special $800 subscription offer to all developers who completed eLearnIT’s Core Fundamentals course within the last 6 months.

For more information on these great value offers, please check out the eLearnIt website!

Regards ... Chris

Friday, July 11, 2014

PB Classic Integrated Framework - V5.3.0.14 (SP3) Released!

** Hot News **

 Integrated Foundation Classes ( Service Pack #3) Released!

 "THE" PB Classic & Appeon Framework!

(Version 5.3.0.14 - July 11, 2014)

 
   Software Tool & Die Inc (STD) is very pleased to announce that they have just released an updated version (5.3.0.14) of their Integrated Foundation Class library for PowerBuilder "Classic", Appeon Web and Appeon Mobile!


   The latest version contains the following updates and has been tested with Appeon 2013R2 build 0138 using the official MR (maintenance  releases) of PowerBuilder "Classic". Testing inside of PB included Win32 (both p-code & m-code) deployments while testing inside of Appeon included Web (IE10/11 - 32 & 64bit) , latest Apple Tablet/Smart Phone and Android Tablet/Smart Phone  deployments.

   The FC's are *free* and can be downloaded (along with an updated sample Order Entry application) from the SourceForge website!


Release 5.3.0.14 change highlights ...

  • Corrected RHMB script on base DataWindow control to display the pop-up menu properly at the mouse pointer location when the parent Window is of type "Response".
  • Added "Centering" logic to the base CHILD window "wn_child_master" to center off the "Controller" window when active.
  • Fixed a BUG in the Tab Page base ancestor "nc_tp_master" that fired the "oe_postconstructor" event twice!
  • Revised the centering logic on the base RESPONSE window "wn_response_master" to optimize the behaviour.
  • Added "Centering" logic to the base POPUP window "wn_popup_master" to center off the "Controller" window when active.
  • Added window "registration" logic to the base CHILD window "wn_child_master" to allow the Controller to track its resources.
  • Fixed the base ancestor MAIN window "wn_main_master" to correct a register/Unregister issue with the active "Controller" window.
  • Fixed the base ancestor CHILD window "wn_child_master" to correct a register/Unregister issue with the active "Controller" window.
  • Fixed the base ancestor POPUP window "wn_popup_master" to correct a register/Unregister issue with the active "Controller" window.
  • Added "parent" object registration to all STANDARD NON-VISUAL objects via an "of_register" method!
  • Fixed a formatting bug in the SQL trace of the TRANSACTION and DATASTORE base ancestor objects.
  • Added default Boolean, long and Integer instance work variables to all STANDARD NON-VISUAL objects.
  • Added error event logging to the web service CONNECTION object base ancestor (ns_connection_master).
  • Revised PB version checking to be INI driven versus hard coded.
  • Added new "PB_Version=" parameter to the base INI file & related code in the supporting classes.
  • Added a new "of_is_copy" method to the base transaction object (ns_transaction_master).
  • Various small performance improvements!


Futures

1)  Tune the PB, Appeon Web and Appeon Mobile single source framework.
2)  Add more PB, Web and Mobile features.
3)  Integrate Open Source tools like Spell Checking, OCR, Imaging  and more!
4) Add new GUI controls
5) Extend the IIS (Web Services) framework
6) Support multiple web browsers



  
 Note: There will be BETA release of the FC's coming soon after Appeon 7.0 beta is released that supports multiple web browsers ... Please stay tuned to this blog for more news releases!

Regards ... Chris

PB Classic Web Service Framework - V2.1.0.14 (SP1) Released!

** Hot News **

"THE" PB Classic Web Service Framework!

Version 2.1.0.14 Released (Service Pack#1)



     July 11, 2014
 
  Software Tool & Die Inc are please to announce today an updated release of their Web Service STD Foundation Classes for IIs (STD FC IIs)  version 2.0 - Service Pack#1. The updated v2.0.1.14 Web Service IIs framework version is solely targeted to helping PowerBuilder Classic developers, develop .Net based Web Services deployed to IIs. The IIs based framework takes advantage of RAD techniques - employes an MVC (Model, View, Controller) architecture for superior performance, flexibility and extendability. 
    The STD Web Service and other PB frameworks are free and can be downloaded from the STD Foundation Classes SourceForge project website.

 
      The main updates/changes included in Version #2 - Service Pack#1 to the STD Web Service FC's for IIs include ...  
  • Revised PB version checking to be INI driven versus being hard coded previously.
  • Added new "PB_Version=" parameter to the base INI file.
  • Added a new "of_copy" method to the base transaction object (ns_transaction_master). Allows the copying the current values to a new or existing Transaction object class.
  • Fixed an INI file initialization bug when the framework is migrated to a higher PB version.
  • Added a new "of_is_connected" method to the base transaction object (ns_transaction_master).
  • Various performance improvements.
 
    The Web Service framework - while greatly improving the PB & Appeon developer's productivity - also includes these types of features to help with RAD based projects:
  • Helps the PB developer to Implement "stateless" programming
  • Does DBMS transaction management automatically
  • Manages DataStores for you automatically
  • Manages DB updates for you automatically
  • Facilitates  MVC design & programming
  • Provides Encryption / Decryption services
  • Provides extended numerical services (ie: And / Or / Xor / Xand / etc features to PowerScript
  • Provides Result Set generation for any data types
  • Provides HTML generation for any data types
  • Allows SMTP eMail generation / communication
  • and much more!

Regards   ... Chris