WizSource

** Hot News **

 SCM for PowerBuilder

  Roland Smith of TopWiz Software has just released an updated version of his WizSource source code management system for PowerBuilder!  The new version is 2.2.8 and it was released on  February 21, 2013. Please see the WizSource website for more information and how to download the software (please follow this link to WizSource ).

  WizSource is all written in PowerBuilder and is available in PB version 10 and PB version 10.5 builds. If you plan on using it with PowerBuilder, you must use a build that is a different version from the PowerBuilder IDE you are currently using. If you are using PB 10, you must use the PB 10.5 build and vice-versa. If you are using it with PowerBuilder .Net, MS Visual Studio or some other SCC API enabled tool, you can use either build.

  Note: A single user can use WizSource for free without any restrictions or time limits.

Regards ... Chris

SAP Award

Acknowledgement of Achievement In recognition of your contribution to the SAP Community Network (scn.sap.com) Chris Pollach Active Contributor Silver February 18, 2013 SCN Active Contributors are valuable, visible, registered members of SCN who contribute to the SCN experience by submitting articles, whitepapers, blogs, forum posts, etc. They receive contribution points that count towards Active Contributor status over a period of 12 rolling months. Active Contribution levels are as follows: 250 - 499 points: Active Contributor Bronze 500 - 1,499 points: Active Contributor Silver 1,500 - 2,499 points: Active Contributor Gold 2,500 points and above: Active Contributor Platinum  Thank you SAP! Regards .. Chris

Infomaker - Is NOT Dead!

** Hot News **

   Don't panic, the Infomaker product is not dead. Even though its currently listed as no longer sold on the Sybase website, apparently it is still alive and well in the SAP background and should resurface soon!

   According to SAP technical evangelist John Strano and product Manager Sue Dunnell this is what happened ...

"On the product roster on Sybase's Website, there is an incorrect posting that InfoMaker has been discontinued. This is a significant clerical error. The product is not EOL’d, it’s in transition over to the SAP price book come March 1. Our apologies for any upset this error on our part has caused."


 Regards ... Chris

PB Event Order

PowerBuilder - Events and Precedence

     The order in which events happen within a PowerBuilder Classic application is in most cases, a very predictable model. The PB developer should be aware of this aspect when developing GUI based applications. For instance, when focus is shifted from one object to another object, the first object will experience the Modified and LoseFocus events before the second object experiences a get focus event.

To understand this further, consider the following scenarios and the resulting events.
 

An Application starts and window "A" is opened

APPLICATION OPEN
WINDOW "A" OPEN
WINDOW "A" ACTIVATE
CHILD OBJECT GET FOCUS (First object in tab order)
 

Window "B" is opened (Window "A" stays open)

WINDOW "A" CURRENT OBJECT LOSE FOCUS
WINDOW "A" DEACTIVATE
WINDOW "B" OPEN
WINDOW "B" ACTIVATE
WINDOW "B" CHILD OBJECT GET FOCUS (First object in tab order)

Window "B" closed, return to Window "A".

WINDOW "B" CLOSEQUERY
WINDOW "B" CURRENT OBJECT LOSE FOCUS
WINDOW "B" CLOSE
WINDOW "B" DEACTIVATE
WINDOW "A" ACTIVATE
OBJECT GET FOCUS (Last object that had focus)
 

"Click" on new object within Same Window

OBJECT 1 MODIFIED (if changed)
OBJECT 1 LOSE FOCUS
OBJECT 2 GET FOCUS
OBJECT 2 CLICKED
 

"Tab" to new object within Same Window

OBJECT 1 MODIFIED (if changed)
OBJECT 1 LOSE FOCUS
OBJECT 2 GET FOCUS (next object in tab order)

Interestingly enough, events can and will occur even when no actions are performed by the user. If you are
using a screen saver, such as the one in Windows, the following will happen.

Flip to screen saver (After period of inactivity)

   WINDOW DEACTIVATE
   OBJECT LOSE FOCUS

Return from screen saver

   WINDOW ACTIVATE
   OBJECT GET FOCUS

DataWindows and Events

A DataWindow is a single object within a window. As such, events happen to the DataWindow as a single object (DW COntrol) and not to the individual items that are within the DataWindow object itself. In order to make up for this, there are a number of special events that exist only for DataWindows. These events are not quite the same as those of other Window objects and therefore must be considered on their own.

Consider the following scenario:

The User Clicks on a field in a data window, keys something, clicks on another field within the data window, keys something and then clicks on a Command Button (outside of the DataWindow). The sequence of DataWindow events is as follows:

DW GET FOCUS
DW CLICKED
DW EDIT CHANGED (once for each keystroke)
DW CLICKED
DW ITEMCHANGED
DW ITEM FOCUS CHANGED
DW EDIT CHANGED (once for each keystroke)
DW LOSE FOCUS

COMMAND BUTTON GET FOCUS
COMMAND BUTTON CLICKED

A number of significant aspects are happening at this time! For example: there was only one get focus and one lose focus event. Only one item changed event occurred (even though two items were changed). A clicked event occurred two times. One edit changed event occurred for every keystroke made within the DataWindow.

If DataWindow edits were behind the two modified fields, only the first field would have been edited. For all intents and purposes, the second field has nothing in it!

Now let us insert the ACCEPTTEXT() function into the command button Clicked script. Now the sequence of events flows as follows:

DW GET FOCUS
DW CLICKED
DW EDIT CHANGED (once for each keystroke)
DW CLICKED
DW ITEMCHANGED
DW ITEM FOCUS CHANGED
DW EDIT CHANGED (once for each keystroke)
DW LOSE FOCUS

COMMAND BUTTON GET FOCUS
COMMAND BUTTON CLICKED

DW ITEMCHANGED

The last item changed event was triggered by the AcceptText ( ) functionality. You might be tempted to put this function in the DataWindow Control's losefocus event script, but this makes it very difficult for a user to cancel a transaction when they can not get past the edit rule!
 

Events Precedence Table

The following is a table that shows the order of events for each object type:

Objects Events Order Notes

Window
Open 1
Activate 2 Also after closing of
another Window
Key 3 Each Keystroke (not all objects)
CloseQuery 4
Close 5
Deactivate 6

Single Line Edit, Multi Line Edit
Get Focus 1
Modified 2
LoseFocus 3

List Box, Drop Down List Box
GetFocus 1
SelectionChanged 2 When choice made from list
Modified 3
DoubleClicked 4 Only possible when "always show
list box" is active
LoseFocus 5

Static Text, Picture, Picture Button
GetFocus 1
Clicked 2
DoubleClicked 3 Always issues a Clicked event first
LoseFocus 4

Check Box, Command Button, Radio Button
GetFocus 1
Clicked 2
LoseFocus 3

DataWindow
GetFocus 1
Clicked 2
DoubleClicked 3 Always issues a Clicked event first
EditChanged 4 Once for each keystroke
ItemError 5 When item doesn't pass validation
ItemChanged 6 When object loses focus within dw
RowFocusChanged 7
ItemFocusChanged 8
LoseFocus 9
 

Events Notes

Triggerevent Function

At any time in an application, an event can occur through use of the TRIGGEREVENT() function. This can be a very handy thing to know and use. It can also cause problems if the application is counting on certain events to occur in a certain sequence.

DataWindow Clicked Event

Often, the clicked event in a data window is used to trigger a choice made by the user. In the script for this event it is always a good policy to check that the clicked row value is greater than zero. If the click is made on the borders or white space of a data window, the GETCLICKEDROW function will return a zero.

Although the ItemError! event listed after EditChanged! event under dw events order is a bit confusing, I am
sure it is correct as per the 4 phases of validation:

. edit-changed check
. data-type check (ItemError! fires here...)
. item-changed check
. validation-rule check

***********************************************************

Note: You can not safely predict the event model in PB.Net applications as the object drawing and interaction is outside the application's control in the WPF layer of the O/S. WPF controls all aspects of event handling and even imposes restrictions for the PB.Net application! 
***********************************************************

Regards ... Chris

What is PowerBuilder?

Tech-Talk

 

Join SAP CodeTalk evangelists for this enlightening discussion ...

What is PowerBuilder?



Enjoy!

Note the references also in the talk to Appeon:  

Regards ... Chris

PowerBuilder TV - March 2013

** Hot News **

Presentations for March 2013 ....

Is the DataWindow Just For Displaying Rows and Columns? … Are You Sure?

Tuesday, March 12, 2013
9:00am PST (Los Angeles) / 17:00 CET (Paris)

(Please note time/date change: the original date of February 19th has been pushed back to March 12th, this has also affected the time in different zones due to Daylight Savings)

DataWindows are mostly used for displaying data in different kinds of presentation styles like grid, tabular, tree view etc. The DataWindow also has another great property: displaying shapes like rectangles, circles, etc. Moreover, these shapes can be created at runtime.

In this presentation, Sonat Karakas of Turkcell will talk about creating shapes in a DataWindow, creating them dynamically and techniques for storing them in a database. At the end of the presentation, he will move up a notch by looking at displaying a server rack, showing its slots and painting them in different colors according to their usage status.

Presenter: Sonat Karakas



Regards ... Chris

PowerBuilderTV - February 2013

** Hot News **

PowerBuilderTV

February 2013

Upcoming webinar schedule ...

Wednesday Jan 23, 2013 at 9:00 AM PST (Los Angeles) - 18h00 CET (Paris) Creation and Consumption of Web Services with SAP Sybase PowerBuilder This session examines some of the recent improvements in PowerBuilder for the creation and consumption of Web services. Specific emphasis is placed on: • The new WCF client in PowerBuilder .NET. • The new WCF service type in PowerBuilder .NET. • The new REST client in PowerBuilder .NET. • Using a WCF client in an PowerBuilder .NET assembly to enhance PowerBuilder Classic. Presenter: Bruce Armstrong

Tuesday Feb 19, 2013 at 9:00 AM PST (Los Angeles) - 18h00 CET (Paris) Is the DataWindow Just For Displaying Rows and Columns? … Are You Sure? DataWindows are mostly used for displaying data in different kinds of presentation styles like grid, tabular, tree view etc. The DataWindow also has another great property: displaying shapes like rectangles, circles, etc. Moreover, these shapes can be created at runtime. In this presentation, Sonat Karakas of Turkcell will talk about creating shapes in a DataWindow, creating them dynamically and techniques for storing them in a database. At the end of the presentation, he will move up a notch by looking at displaying a server rack, showing its slots and painting them in different colors according to their usage status. Presenter: Sonat Karakas

Click to see the full schedule or learn more



Regards ... Chris

STD Framework Release

** Hot News **

Foundation Classes for PowerBuilder

(for PowerBuilder "Classic and .Net", Appeon Web and Appeon Mobile)

   Software Tool & Die Inc (STD) is very pleased to announce that they have just released an updated version of their Foundation Class library today for both PowerBuilder and Appeon Web plus the first "official beta" for Appeon Mobile!

   The latest version contains the following updates and has been tested with Appeon 6.5.1 / 2013 using the PowerBuilder 12.1 / 12.5.1 official MR (maintenance) releases including PB's "Classic" and .NET versions. Testing inside of PB has also included WebForm, Winform, Win32 and Smart Client deployments.

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


The changes to the FC's are as follows .....

PowerBuilder

New SMC feature in action!

Release 12.1.0 Changes ... January 17, 2013)

1. Added new SMC (System Monitor Console) Window feature
2. Removed some old WinNT/Win2000 commented out code.
3. Optimized various code segments for better performance
4. Replaced the following INI vaules in the "[System]" section.

     They are no longer PocketBuilder or DBMS specific.

• PB_Check_Version=Y
• DB_Check_Version=Y
• OS_Check_Version=Y

Appeon Web 

 Release 12.1.0 Changes ... January 17, 2013)

1)    Changed the parameters in the "[SYSTEM]" section of the INI to compliant with other FC variations.
2)    Restructured all the Menu Classes to get ready for new CLF (Section 508) website construction techniques (coming soon!).

This will support any type of website look & feel!

3)    Copied the following new objects from the PowerBuilder side of the FC framework to allow Appeon more functionality:
New ...
  fn_build_number
  fn_convert_packed_decimal
  fn_copy_transaction
  fn_dbms_get_sysdate
  fn_decrypt_simple
  fn_encrypt_simple
  fn_get_enumerated
  fn_lookup_display_value
  fn_print_screen
  fn_remove_spaces
  fn_replace_all
Modified ...
  fn_open_sheet_window
  fn_open_sheet_window_withparm

Appeon Mobile (Official Beta Release!)

Release 12.1.0 Changes ... January 17, 2013)

1)    Changed the parameters in the "[SYSTEM]" section of the INI to compliant with other FC variations.
2)    Restructured all the Menu Classes. 
3)    Copied the following new objects from the PowerBuilder side of the FC framework to allow Appeon more functionality:
New ...
  fn_build_number
  fn_convert_packed_decimal
  fn_copy_transaction
  fn_dbms_get_sysdate
  fn_decrypt_simple
  fn_encrypt_simple
  fn_get_enumerated
  fn_lookup_display_value
  fn_print_screen
  fn_remove_spaces
  fn_replace_all
Modified ...
  fn_open_sheet_window
  fn_open_sheet_window_withparm



  Note: There will be another release of the FC's soon! Stay tuned to this blog for more news releases!

Futures

1)  Converge PB, Appeon Web and Appeon Mobile into a single source framework.
2)  Add more PB, Web and Mobile features.
3)  Port the EAServer version of the framework to .NET for web service based NVUO support!
     This will be an MVC Architecture as already implemented in EAS.
4)  Integrate Open Source tools like Spell Checking, OCR, Imaging  and more!

Regards ... Chris

Web CD Player

** Hot News **

Web Browser version of the PowerBuilder CD player released!

  Built and deployed using Appeon 6.5.1045.00

    This release is written in PowerBuilder 12.1 (build 6518 - GA) and encompasses some interesting features that you can coax out of the Windows operating system. Normally, the application can be deployed as a Win32, Winform or WPF (using PB.Net) and allows the user to control music from any CD/DVD player attached to their PC.

    The amazing part of this story though is use of the Appeon Web product and it's ability to be able to translate the PowerScript based application into pure XML, HTML and jScript - thus totally removing the PBVM run-time dependency. Then, being able to reproduce verbatim the application GUI inside the web browser while the Appeon AJAX plugin allows any web application the absolute necessary O/S control to accomplish its task!

Actual screen capture of the Appeon Web CD player at work!

   From the same baseline code, adding Appeon to the PB developer's arsenal you can achieve:

• Pure web deployment of any application 
• PB Developer controlled look & feel
• Absolute Low level control
• Native printing  using local PC's resources (not PDF dependent)
• Using Appeon Mobile and the same baseline code you can also deploy to a Mobile device!
• etc

 
     So not only is this a "kool" application to run natively, the important aspect to consider when building a PB application with plans to webify is that if you need low-level control to use a scanner, bar code reader, camera, GPS, etc Appeon's unique architecture (*).

I am Appeon Sam
Appeon Sam I am, That Sam-I-am!
I could not build this in a box.
Nor using Visual fox.
I do not like it built with Delphi.
I do not like it built with VB.
I do not use WPF for that here or there.
I do not even use Webforms anywhere.
I do not like Visual Studio's C# and ham.
I do not like them at all, Appeon Sam-I-am.


* - Note:  You can not do this common code base application with other tools like Visual Studio, Delphi, or even with PB's WebForms feature. Either the functionality is not available or you need to re-write the application code for each target environment deployment. When you Appeon to the PB mix though - a whole new horizon emerges!   :-)


    If you would like to enjoy the Native or Web version of the above CD Player application, please visit the  SourceForge website and my STD-Foundation-Classes project. Then select "All Files" to drill down to the PowerBuilder or Appeon sections. All the code in this project is free & open source.

For information on a Free Version of Appeon Developer, join ISUG at the "Green ($99) or Gold" level  and receive Appeon as part of your membership!

Regards ... Chris Pollach
President: Software Tool & Die Inc.

PBTV - January 2013

** Hot News **

Upcoming webinars on PowerBuilderTV

Thursday Jan 17, 2013 at 9:00 AM PST (Los Angeles) - 18h00 CET (Paris) Appify Your UI: Designing a Mobile User Experience With PowerBuilder Ready to go mobile? With the arrival of Appeon Mobile, you can now leverage your PowerBuilder skills to build complete apps for a full range of mobile devices, from smartphones to iPads to full-fledged Tablet PCs. Mobile application development has never been easier or faster. Creating an engaging user experience, however, requires more than simply re-deploying your existing code for new target platforms. Join Ronnie Po of Morpheon Corporation as he discusses design considerations and techniques for developing user-friendly mobile applications, and watch him demonstrate native mobile apps he has built using PowerBuilder and Appeon Mobile, including: • YouHoops, a mobile score-keeping and scoreboard application for basketball games • ChartBase MA, an add-on to Morpheon’s signature ChartBase medical application Presenter: Ronnie Po

Wednesday Jan 23, 2013 at 9:00 AM PST (Los Angeles) - 18h00 CET (Paris) Creation and Consumption of Web Services with SAP Sybase PowerBuilder This session examines some of the recent improvements in PowerBuilder for the creation and consumption of Web services. Specific emphasis is placed on: • The new WCF client in PowerBuilder .NET. • The new WCF service type in PowerBuilder .NET. • The new REST client in PowerBuilder .NET. • Using a WCF client in a PowerBuilder .NET assembly to enhance PowerBuilder Classic. Presenter: Bruce Armstrong

Don't forget to check out the archive of past webinars!

Regards .... Chris